Making an offer on 'off plan' new build..?

Idiophreak

purplebuzz wrote: »

However, don't you have to pay a non-refundable reservation fee for a new build, up to about a £1000 depending on the development.

Yeah..unsure how binding the commitment is, but you'd definitely lose the reservation fee if you pulled out post-valuation and they might try to chase you for more if you'd taken a while over it...

jade1986

The reservation fee is £99, so if everything failed it's no real loss.

I guess we are on a 'tight budget' but only because we want as much as we can for things like odd bits of furniture etc. It may be worth noting that as well as saving for the deposit we have also been buying quite a few things... tv's, kitchen bits, bed etc, and grandparents are buying sofa as a moving in gift.

So although we only really want to use £5k for the deposit, we could use more but we don't want to move in with no money. We would like (and will have) about another £3k

ILW

jade1986 wrote: »

The reservation fee is £99, so if everything failed it's no real loss.

I guess we are on a 'tight budget' but only because we want as much as we can for things like odd bits of furniture etc. It may be worth noting that as well as saving for the deposit we have also been buying quite a few things... tv's, kitchen bits, bed etc, and grandparents are buying sofa as a moving in gift.

So although we only really want to use £5k for the deposit, we could use more but we don't want to move in with no money. We would like (and will have) about another £3k

Look carefully at the contact and do not use the vendors solicitor.
The reservation fee may only be £99.00 but you will probably being commiting to buy at the agreed price when the build is complete. If you are unable to due to low valuation, drop in prices etc, then you can be sued to either complete (and have to make up the difference) or make up any loses by the developer. Like I said fine if you like a bit of a gamble.
Are there not any similar completed properties in the area?

jade1986

ILW wrote: »

Look carefully at the contact and do not use the vendors solicitor.
The reservation fee may only be £99.00 but you will probably being commiting to buy at the agreed price when the build is complete. If you are unable to due to low valuation, drop in prices etc, then you can be sued to either complete (and have to make up the difference) or make up any loses by the developer. Like I said fine if you like a bit of a gamble.
Are there not any similar completed properties in the area?

Thank you for that advice, it is very useful and definitely something we will discuss and consider, whereas we wouldn't of thought of it before.. rather naively!

No not any others nearby at all, well.. there are some in another town about 15 mins away but they are much more expensive. The area where we are looking is quite cheap, and also the bonus is that my partner will still be in walking distance of his work, so we will be able to continue to run only one vehicle, mine. If we were to move anywhere else we would need two cars

Hair_Bear

New Build = :eek:

Off plan = :eek: :eek:

jade1986

Put an offer of £100k in the post Friday.. so just waiting on a response!

Mrs_Bumble

Have you checked how long any mortgage offer would be valid for? Whether it can be extended at the end of this time?

Proceed with caution on a new build off plan, as delays can be anticipated. Also if the mortgage lenders offer is only valid for 3 months say which is pretty typical at the moment then they can refuse to extend the offer, they can request a further valuation and down value depending on the current market, now if any of this happens and you have already exchanged contracts, which I assume Wimpey want asap then you are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

jade1986

Mrs_Bumble wrote: »

Have you checked how long any mortgage offer would be valid for? Whether it can be extended at the end of this time?

Proceed with caution on a new build off plan, as delays can be anticipated. Also if the mortgage lenders offer is only valid for 3 months say which is pretty typical at the moment then they can refuse to extend the offer, they can request a further valuation and down value depending on the current market, now if any of this happens and you have already exchanged contracts, which I assume Wimpey want asap then you are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

It is 4 months so we were hoping to sort it at the end of August/begining of September.

Thanks for your comments, definitely something we will think about

jade1986

Received a letter today from George Wimpey saying they had been trying to contact us and could we call them.. must have the wrong number?

Rang up and the lady said she had put the offer forward and they had said no.. which I had expected really.

We spoke for about 15 minutes.. One of the first things she asked was whether we would be looking to wait a while or put the £99 deposit down quite soonish, so I said that if we actually agreed on a price then we would be happy to put the deposit down? but obviously that depends how close we could get to our offer.

She was then playing around on her calculator and said that with giving us the 5% deposit, carpets, appliances etc, she could only really give the £4k off which she mentioned originally.. £118,995.

I told her that was more than our absolute maximum, and she just said 'well I'll keep your details' etc etc

Not sure what to do now..

MORPH3US

Sounds like you got a lucky escape OP.

I have read far too many posts on here over the last year of people buying off plan and then not being able to complete for one reason or another. It turned into a nightmare for so many people its just not worth the risk IMHO.

Buy a ready built house, thats what I would do.