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Boundary discrepancy during sale
J8ck
Posts: 14 Forumite
We bought a new Bryant Homes property several years ago. We now have a buyer and the sale is progressing nicely.
Our neighbour of all this time (amicable relationship) has just told us he is aware that the wall/fence between our properties is out by 2-3 ft from what the LR plan and the original builder's plan illustrates (we never noticed this). He has admitted to never raising this as an issue because it meant his garden was wider and he benefited from it. Kinda chose to "forget about it" but is so worried now he thought he had better mention it as he knows our sale is progressing.
Basically to rectify, it would need the brick wall (2ft 6") topped with fencing (total height 6 ft) to be moved back into his garden by 3 feet, giving our property a more generous hardstanding outside our double garage (i.e. would mean wall/fence moving, block paving border relaying and tarmacing the area where our vehicles stand.
Naturally, I'm angry. We could have sold the land to him for a pound coin and got the plans changed prior to the sale progressing. Now the existing plans and draft contract are with our buyers for review/signing.
Who, in your opinion, would be responsible for rectifying this? My husband and I, the neighbour, or can we go back to the original builder to point out their mistake and get them to pay for it, can we do this under the NHBC guarantee we still have?
I know we still have to inform our buyers but rather than present them simply with the discrepancy I'd prefer to tell them what we are going to do to rectify as I don't want to entertain any discussion around a reduction in price or delay to the sale progressing.
Our neighbour of all this time (amicable relationship) has just told us he is aware that the wall/fence between our properties is out by 2-3 ft from what the LR plan and the original builder's plan illustrates (we never noticed this). He has admitted to never raising this as an issue because it meant his garden was wider and he benefited from it. Kinda chose to "forget about it" but is so worried now he thought he had better mention it as he knows our sale is progressing.
Basically to rectify, it would need the brick wall (2ft 6") topped with fencing (total height 6 ft) to be moved back into his garden by 3 feet, giving our property a more generous hardstanding outside our double garage (i.e. would mean wall/fence moving, block paving border relaying and tarmacing the area where our vehicles stand.
Naturally, I'm angry. We could have sold the land to him for a pound coin and got the plans changed prior to the sale progressing. Now the existing plans and draft contract are with our buyers for review/signing.
Who, in your opinion, would be responsible for rectifying this? My husband and I, the neighbour, or can we go back to the original builder to point out their mistake and get them to pay for it, can we do this under the NHBC guarantee we still have?
I know we still have to inform our buyers but rather than present them simply with the discrepancy I'd prefer to tell them what we are going to do to rectify as I don't want to entertain any discussion around a reduction in price or delay to the sale progressing.
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Comments
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Can you not get him to pay for this seeing as he has known all this time??? Im not sure what the nhbc guarantee covers but if the original plans are wrong surely you have a good case, however the builders may well string it out for as long as they can. Your neighbour should have mentioned this ages ago and particularly as soon as he saw a for sale sign go up, even though its not his fault he has known about it and has admitted knowledge i would be furious also!
this may help http://www.nhbc.co.uk/NHBCpublications/LiteratureLibrary/Homewarranties/Buildmark/BuildmarkPolicyDocuments/filedownload,24117,en.pdf0 -
On the Land Registry plan, if you were to blow it up to full scale, then you'd find that the line drawn with the pen to mark the boundaries is about a metre wide! For your buyer to know that it's out by 2-3 feet is almost impossible to know.
For you to alter the LR plan to take into account the move of boundary if you did transfer that section to your neighbour, you'd be moving it a fraction of a millimetre...
L plans are 1/1250 - that means that for every millimetre on the page, it's 1250 in real life - 1.25 metres. See, it's pointless trying to move something .6 of a metre because it's 0.6mm on the plan.
If the plan you see looks about right then your buyers, who have spent far less time in the property than you, will not notice whether it's slightly out because they'll be judging it against what they saw on the ground, which isn't much different! Even if they did notice, they viewed it according to what they could see, therefore you can probably assume they were happy with what is there.Everything that is supposed to be in heaven is already here on earth.
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Another way of looking at this is that your neighbour has 'come clean'. OK, he's benefitted over the years, and OK, maybe it was fear of discovery, but be that as may be, he did not need to say anything.
Did the neighbour tell you orally or in writing? (might affect legality of anything you might tell your buyers).
1) Do nothing. Sell the house 'as seen'. Move on and enjoy your new home.
2) Approach builder/NHBC and get them to covrr costs of moving the wall which they build in the wrong place. Expect protracted arguements, loss of your buyer, and no more than 50% chance of ultimate success
3) Come to amicable agreement with neighbour to move the wall and share the costs (who knows, he might just pay it all!)?
4) Sue the neighbour. See comments in 2 above.
5) Get neighbour to agree to the wall being moved, but pay all costs yourself in order to get the job done fast, without wrangling or loss of buyer
Your choice!0
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