So Annoyed!!

Tassotti

Northerners??!!!???

no clue

AndrewSmith

There are a number of leasehold detatched, semi and terrace houses in Manchester and surrounding areas too (from experience dealing with clients from these areas).

It does seem to be more common in the Northern Counties.

lush_walrus

office wrote:

Cheer me up why dont you ;-)

Ah sorry, I just wanted you to know the reality...As no offence everyone, but there are a few guesses going on that may lead you up the garden path.

Good luck with it.

inmypocketnottheirs

As an aside, there is nothing wrong with purchasing the property as a leashold. You could enquire now about extending the lease as an alternative to buying the freehold now. Just because it is leasehold does not make that much difference. How many other properties are there in the cul de sac, presumably they are all leasehold too.

Jorgan_2

MORPH3US wrote:

When I was buying, it really annoyed me that they (EA's) always put on their brochures "we are led to believe the property is freehold but clarification should be sought through your solicitor"

The thing was, i'm sure they put that on EVERY brochure regardless of what the vendor told them about it!!

Agents don't get to see the deeds relating to a property so have no way of checking this sort of information. Thats why you employ a solicitor (usually) to clarify things when buying a property.

As agents we have to prove due diligence when marketing a property, relying on the word of a seller is not good enough.

An agent I knew years ago was told by a seller that there was a garage with the apartment he was selling & told the agent it was 'over there' waving his hand in the general direction of the garage block. The agent was unable to clarify this, not seeing the deeds, told the buyer on the viewing that there was a garage 'over there in the garage block.' On completion, the buyer told the agent that his solicitor informed him that there was no garage with the property & that it was upto the agent to rectify the situation. The company had to buy the buyer a garage, not cheap in central Windsor, about £25k at the time, the agent concerned was investigated by Trading Standards & ended up with a caution against his name and was sacked by the company he worked for.

If they had used the phrase "we are led to believe there is a garage with the property,but have seen no documentation to support this & clarification should be sought through your solicitor" the onus would have been on the buyer to check.

Property is bought & sold in three stages, the agents are responsible for the marketing, the surveyors the surveying & the solicitors the legal side.