Uplift Clause

Jennywren3

My sister and I were left my brothers house.
It was in a very bad condition so we decided to sell it at auction.
As there was an acre of land at the rear, the solicitor advised we put on an uplift clause of 15% on the property I presume we had to pay the solicior extra for this at the time

Six months ago we were visiting the area and discovered a lovely bungalow had been built .
We contacted the solicitor who still had all the paper work who said we had a good chance of getting some money from the uplift .
We instructed the solicitor to go ahead and paid £500 up front .
Six months later we have been accused of haressing the new owner (a few soliciters letters have been sent) .The Bungalow has been called an annexe and is said to be used by a blood relative of the people renting the main house .
The Buyer lives in a property miles away from the house .
The solicitor has sent his final letter saying there is nothing more they can do and is asking for more money the close the acount.
We are so annoyed, it has cost us all this money to get nowhere .What do we do now
Advice would be appreciated

Cyril

I have mixed views on this really in that I don't like uplift clauses because its just taking advantage of someone elses enterprise having put nothing into a project but

on the other hand to put in a stipulation that can't be enforced seems odd unless the wording was wrong ie an uplift is only applicable if an entirely separate residence is formed with a new land registry entry but in fact an annex has been built.

Personally I would ask the solicitor a definitive reason why there was no money forthcoming from this uplift. Once you have this information you can decide what to do next.

Jennywren3

Thank you I will write back to solicitor.
We only wanted in solicitors words a Release Consideration of 15% We have been accused of haressment we didnt even know about uplift clauses We have already pay £500 which we could ill afford on solicitors advice

Richard_Webster

It is difficult to advise without knowing the precise wording of the clause.

What was OP told it would cover when it was drawn up? Why is it not effective to cover what has actually occurred?

These clauses are not that easy to draft to make them readily enforceable, and if there were possible loopholes, they should have been explained at the time. If the whole thing was not explained properly and OP thought he was getting a greater ability to claim an uplift than he actually got, then he may have a claim against the solicitor.