House saga

[jenniren]

Had a chat with the agent in Kent yesterday afternoon and it's definitely looking more apparent our vendors are nowhere near ready to proceed. The sticking point is they don't have a building regulation certificate for the extension and although it's possible to apply for a regularisation it takes about 8/9 weeks. Even if they did decide to apply for one that's too late for us. The only other option would be if they accepted a drastically (I spoke to a lady at the local district building controls and that was her word) reduced offer to compensate for the risk we would be taking. The agent, who incidentally has not mentioned it before, was trying to assure me an indemnity insurance would put things right. Not true but I'm sure lots of people at this late stage will grab at any straw rather than lose the house they want. All an indemnity does is insure against the council insisting the extension's demolished, but as I've been assured that's not actually a danger - apparently the council only have two years to enforce this, again confirmed by the lady I spoke to - said insurance isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

In reality no one can be forced to seek regularisation, but once you do you must comply with whatever repairs/rebuild deemed necessary before the certificate is issued. Lots of people never bother and to be honest provided the structure is sound it's not a problem while you live there, but and it's a big BUT when/if you need to sell no lender will finance without it and of course there's no guarantee you can find a cash buyer willing to take the risk. We might, at the right price, but my guess is our vendors have known about this problem all along and have hung on until this late stage banking on us being naïve, desperate or both. Looks like we'll be in Kent next week looking for a rental

[Kaz]

Oooh Jen, I am so sorry ((((((((((((((((((((((((x))))))))))))))))))))))))))

[tonicha]

Oh that is so wrong Jen

But understandable, from their point of view, I suppose, hoping you'd stick with it and just ignore it.

Have a huge hug xxxx

[cruiser2]

Jen,
Why did your solicitor not find this out before contracts were exchanged. Surely it should have been noted on the search with the local authority..
Would be asking some awkaard questions.

Good luck and I hope you get somewhere nice to rent.

[Kaz]

I wondered too, about the searches That just doesn't seem right at all

[Osc]

Yes, this should have turned up in searches, and should have been questioned on the contract - I wasn't aware you had exchanged contracts though. Some hard talking to your solicitor if the above is the case Very slippery of the vendors if they were hoping you might not notice So sorry you are having to go through this stress, Jen, but you know what - what's for you won't pass you by and if this falls through, something better is sure to come along, even if you have to rent in the meantime. It's a nightmare though, isn't it

[Ally]

Oh grrrrrrrr Jen.

Why is house buying made so difficult sometimes??!!!

((((Jen)))) xx

[jenniren]

The only contract exchanged is on our house and we have a completion date of 26 September, hence our concern that we will probably now be scrambling around trying to source a rental.

We haven't exchanged contracts on the bungalow, the deadline we gave for that is this coming Friday.

Regarding searches, they only show if there are planning applications and anything in the pipeline nearby that could potentially affect your property, not if changes have been made to the actual property. In fairness the district council wouldn't have records if the correct planning application has never been applied for.

It's for the vendor to provide all relevant documents, including a building regulation certificate, if they or the previous owner made changes. Our solicitor asked for these as a matter of course, in exactly the same way as we were asked to provide the necessary documents for this house. They have moved throughout this process at snails pace and annoyingly it was only at the end of last week they admitted they don't have the document. Their excuse is the extension was there when they bought the bungalow and they have no idea when it was done, not an acceptable response, especially as it's taken them around 8 weeks to tell us

The legal responsibility to correct this situation rests with the current owner, but if we did go ahead with an exchange the problem becomes ours. As the council official, our surveyor and the solicitor says it's a case of 'Buyer Beware'. If we do exchange the advice is only if we get a huge reduction to safeguard us against worst case scenario i.e. demolish and rebuild the extension. We don't for one minute believe the sellers will drop the price by so much, they're more likely to risk looking for a more naïve buyer and hope they have cash.

[Diflower]

Oh Jen what a shame
It will all turn out for the best in the end - it's the getting there that's hard (((x)))

[Osc]

Ah yes, I didn't think you had exchanged on this property. To be honest, Jen, even though you really want the house, I'd be seriously looking at whether or not it is worth the possible future hassle and expense. It seems to me they knew this was an issue and that was why they were delaying things. Do you know if you are the first prospective buyers? You would have to work out a balance between buying at a greatly reduced price (which seems unlikely) and maybe having a lot of expense with the extension in future years. As Ally says, why does house buying and selling have to be so difficult and stressful