Compulsary purchase - help

chris180682

Hi,
Just after a bit of advice. Basically we have agreed the sale of our house and the purchase of a new house (all going through at the moment but not completed). My wife has just been speaking to a neighbour who attended a meeting regarding the re-generation of our area and it seems the council are planning on demolishing our estate and buying the houses with "compulsary puchase orders", again I don't think anything is final yet but our neighbour also states the council have already bought two other houses that were up for sale on our street although they are still listed for sale onlinee as far as I can see but the boards have come down. These two houses were on for quite a bit more than ours was so mytwo main questions are;

1. Are we legally obliged to inform the buyer of our house although nothing has been decided for sure and we have not heard it officially ourselves?

2. Has anyone had any experience of this and if so, are the council likely to give us a better price for our house? How would this work regarding peoples mortgages/equity in their homes, surely they can't be left short-changed? There are going to be valuer's coming round to some of the houses so it does look like it may happen.

Thanks in advance.

BottomRung

I would imagine it will be revealed to your buyer in the searches but probably best to mention this to your solcitor and see what he/she thinks. Most compulsory purchases are below market value from my trivial observation of these things.

chris180682

BottomRung wrote: »

I would imagine it will be revealed to your buyer in the searches but probably best to mention this to your solcitor and see what he/she thinks. Most compulsory purchases are below market value from my trivial observation of these things.[/QUOT
Cheers,
What I don't understand though is how they could give you less than market value when you may not want to move at all, spent a lot on the house or like us owe more than 90% of the mortgage still, they can't leave people owing thousands to the bank surely? I'm thinking we have either sold and got out just in time or maybe even missed out on getting more for the house from the council and maybe some compensation to help move?

BottomRung

There was a program on TV a few weeks back which went into the process a bit. I have to admit I wasn't paying too much attention but the situation was much like yours, where they are buying up houses on an estate to regenerate the area. Seemed to be a lot of people being left short changed and unable to buy an equivalent property anywhere close to where they were living due to not being payed anough for their property. Can't remember if it was because they got less than market value or just other areas being more expensive. My first stop would be the local council website to try and figure out more about the process and what can be done about any shortfall. Also i'm sure most solicitors would have some good advice to give on these areas. Good luck.

darkpool

my dad had land that was cpo'ed for a railway. tbh we got buckets more than the land was worth. i would get some aggresive surveyors on the job.

i done some research at the time, i believe for houses you get 10% more than the open market value of the house.

chris180682

Thanks again. I've looked on the website but there doesn't seem to be anything on, probably because it's just at the consultation stage at the moment. I think we would be stupid to decide not to sell up because of this now anyway as we might end up worse off or it could take years to happen! I've sent a text to my council so I'll see wht they say.

mufi

BottomRung wrote: »

I would imagine it will be revealed to your buyer in the searches but probably best to mention this to your solcitor and see what he/she thinks. Most compulsory purchases are below market value from my trivial observation of these things.

Once you've mentioned it to anyone, including your solicitor, you could be storing up problems for the future in that it can be proved that you were aware of the possibility of compulsory purchase but did not advise your purchaser.

Do nothing until someone like Richard Webster has (hopefully) given his views.

BottomRung

Indeed, wise words from Mufi. Someone on here will have better advise than I can offer, good luck to you anyway.

chris180682

mufi wrote: »

Once you've mentioned it to anyone, including your solicitor, you could be storing up problems for the future in that it can be proved that you were aware of the possibility of compulsory purchase but did not advise your purchaser.

Do nothing until someone like Richard Webster has (hopefully) given his views.

Thanks, this is exactly what I was thinking. On one hand I don't want to seem too sneaky but it took us 18 months to sell the house and if my wife hadn't spoken to our neighbour we wouldn't know of these plans. We were sent letters about the "regeneration" which spoke about new housing but it didn't mention anything about compulsary purchases.

TonyMMM

If the sale goes ahead (very unlikely I would think), then at some stage you solicitor will ask you to fill out a questionaire about lots of things, one of which will be something like "Are you aware of any developments/planning applications affecting the property ?" You will have to answer that truthfully, because if you don't you are opening up the possibility of a huge legal claim against you.

I'd talk to your EA asap ... they usually know what's going on with this kind of project.

chris180682

TonyMMM wrote: »

If the sale goes ahead (very unlikely I would think), then at some stage you solicitor will ask you to fill out a questionaire about lots of things, one of which will be something like "Are you aware of any developments/planning applications affecting the property ?" You will have to answer that truthfully, because if you don't you are opening up the possibility of a huge legal claim against you.


I'd talk to your EA asap ... they usually know what's going on with this kind of project.

We filled in the questionaire a while ago and the last I knew the buyer had just had the searches come back and not heard anything else since so will just presume everything's OK until we hear otherwise.