Property Misdescription - Estate Agent Refusing Liability

clutton_2

i think the person at fault here is your solicitor.. it is s/he who would have been responsible for checking Titles and boundaries... it only takes minutes on-line to do this - so when did s/he do these checks ?

JA1000

Get it in writing from TS and issue small claims notice, EA might negotiate out of court and a compromise might be met.

maninthestreet

clutton wrote: »

i think the person at fault here is your solicitor.. it is s/he who would have been responsible for checking Titles and boundaries... it only takes minutes on-line to do this - so when did s/he do these checks ?

Re-read the OP's initial post - it was the OP's solicitor who spotted this in the first place.

poppysarah

the house is worth nothing with a garage attached that doesn't go with it.

Let some other mug by it. Take EA to small claims court - if you have paperwork from them to show the garage is part of the sale.

googler

I'm dying to know what went on in the past;

With (apparently) a lean-to or integral garage, why did the previous owners split the deeds and sell the garage? Who bought it? What did they buy it for, since it seems to be integral to someone else's house?

I'd also like to know if the OP viewed the property, and if he/she did, did they go into the garage? If so, were there any signs that anyone else was occupying it? A car, for instance....? Was the door between house and garage locked?

So many questions, so little time.....

poppysarah

I want to know too!

How could an insurance company be happy with the situation?

maninthestreet

googler wrote: »

I'm dying to know what went on in the past;

With (apparently) a lean-to or integral garage, why did the previous owners split the deeds and sell the garage? Who bought it? What did they buy it for, since it seems to be integral to someone else's house?

I'd also like to know if the OP viewed the property, and if he/she did, did they go into the garage? If so, were there any signs that anyone else was occupying it? A car, for instance....? Was the door between house and garage locked?

So many questions, so little time.....

I suspect a previous owner (maybe the most recent owner?) needed to raise cash, and thought selling his garage was a way to do it.

[Deleted User]

Very odd situation and whilst it's not apparent at first instance, this feels like one of those situations where someone must be in the wrong somewhere - it seems harsh that the OP shoulders the blame.

In simple contract, did the vendors (whoever they may be) do anything to suggest that the garage was included? Presumably you viewed the house before you put the offer in? As others have said, were you directed into the garage and was the garage referenced in any way.

I'm just trying to figure whether the garage was advertised as part of the property specifically by the EA (regardless of what the owners told them).

Somewhere back down the line something has gone wrong somewhere. I'm assuming that the previous owners sold the garage off, otherwise previous solicitors (during the last sale) would have picked this up I'm sure. If that's the case, then the current owners would be in the wrong for not disclosing the extent of their freehold and for advertising a property (part of) that they do not own.

Nemo dat quod non habet!

gezoneill

Thanks for your responses, heres the full info.



We saw the property on rightmove advertised as a house with a garage.
We went to view the house with the estate agent and were shown around the property and the garage. We liked the house and put in a full offer.

Estate Agent explained that it was a reposession and we only had 21 days to complete so need to get everything in place quickly.

We advised our solicitor that the papers were on their way and in the mean time got our mortgage in place which meant paying for a full survey (this happened the day after our offer was accepted).

Upon receiving the documentation (maybe 3-4 days after we put in the offer) our solicitor immediately identified the problem and advised that the garage and a small part of the garden was a seperate plot and not part of the house. (This is what led me to believe that the EA had not checked the papers).

After doing a few searches my solicitor discovered that the garage had been built on squatted land using a seperate mortgage from a different bank. This meant that only the house had been reposessed not the garage.

We made a number of suggestions to the bank the possibility of sorting out the deeds, possibly purchasing the garage from the previous owners, possibly lowering their price to level where we could take the risk of sorting the deeds but in the end they just couldnt be bothered and decided to brick up the garage door and just market with a very small discount. The previous owners are unaware that they still own the garage and we could not contact them.

We were then advised by our solicitor to withdraw our offer unless the problem was sorted.

The EA has stated that the vendor (the bank) had just given them the keys and asked them to market the property, this has also led me to believe that the vendor expected the EA to ensure all the paperwork was correct.

princessamy86

:eek: This sounds like a total nightmare. Really, if the bank knew, they should have made it clear to the agent at the start. That is literally how it happens with a repo, often the first we know of it is a contractor bringing keys into the office.

With regards to the PMA and the incorrect details, I do think the agent is in the wrong. It is their job to check it all out, and if the garage door is bricked up I would have at least thought somebody would have the common sense to check out the reasons behind it. As far as I am aware (dredging up first year law module), you relied upon the information to enter into a contract with the vendor, and have spent money to this end. Your solicitor will advise better, but IIRC you are entitled to your money back (think it's called damages?) as you were provided with false information which you had reason to believe was true, and you later relied on that information to enter into a contract with the vendor to purchase the property.

I think you'll just have to persevere with contacting Trading Standards and the Ombudsman, the EA isn't going to pay up without a fight. They're probably hoping if they stall you long enough, you'll just go away, but if you escalate it through the proper channels there becomes a point where they can't ignore you anymore. In the meantime I would certainly look for another place to buy!