Deeds of variation, and other adventures....

Decanus

Sense the irony!! Long time reader, now turned poster (there seems to be a lot of us lurkers...). Looking for advice and help on a couple of issues.....

firstly, we are selling our flat, and it has come to light that the off street parking we have is not mentioned in the lease (the parking itself is a proper space, with local authority permission, curbing etc). Our buyer wants the lease to be changed to include this, and is refusing to budge. My wife and I have lived here for 7 years with no problem, so it seems a little picky to us...
May I ask...
1. How much does it cost for a typical variation of deed just to include a parking space? there are no other issues.
2. For time sake, as we are in a chain and need to complete relatively soon, could we find out the price the managing agent wants, then offer to give the the buyers the money (or some of it) as part of the completion. i.e we pay for the variation, but they do it later.
3. When we purchased our property seven years ago, as naive first timers, our solicitor never told us the parking was not in the lease, so we bought not even knowing. Is this negligence on his part? could we make some form of claim for the cost we are being charged ? in fact, he never even gave us a copy of the lease, and there were fees to be paid by the previous owner which should have been spotted before completion.

Bit long winded, but anyone who has struggled to the bottom, if you can give any advice at all, it would be greatly appreciated. This site is a lifesaver!!

silvercar

2. For time sake, as we are in a chain and need to complete relatively soon, could we find out the price the managing agent wants, then offer to give the the buyers the money (or some of it) as part of the completion. i.e we pay for the variation, but they do it later.

Thinking aloud:
You could just reduce the price by the cost of the variation, though this would leave the buyers without a guarantee that the freeholder willl agree to the parking place being added to the lease.

You could exchange with an agreement that you will change the lease prior to completion. Again not ideal because you willl be exchanging conditionally on your sale and uncondiionally on your purchase.

You could agree a retention on the purchase price subject to the variation being done ie the buyer's solicitor holds on to an agreed amount of money which is only released to you when the variation is complete. This could cause you a short term cash flow problem and again doesn't guarantee that the variation is done.

I don't know that there is an indemnity that could be taken out to cover this, as the situation has already happened and everyone is aware of it.

dfarry

Argh!!!! not another variation of deeds

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=244806