Buyer strung us along for 3 months then pulled out!

Annisele

The combination of "70 odd years remaining on the lease" together with a vendor who was reluctant to arrange a lease extension would have had me walking away.

I'd worry that if I wanted to sell, nobody would be able to get a mortgage - for example, Halifax's leasehold criteria say that the lease must have at least 70 years left. Plus, I'd worry that if the vendor was reluctant to arrange the extension, there was some good reason for that - eg that the vendor reasonably expected the freeholders were going to be a PITA.

Finally - if you didn't know that there was a lease, is it possible that either you or your estate agent misled the buyer at any point? If I'd been told that there was no lease, and then found out that actually the lease was pretty short, I might be annoyed enough to walk.

DannyboyMidlands

Sounds like you needed to get your house in order (excuse the pun) before sticking it on the market.

InkZ

70 years isn't long enough on a lease. Lenders start looking unfavourably under 75.

You would have to do this anyway to sell on, or drop your price to reflect the short lease.

Your main loss is time and effort, but now you've sorted this, hopefully the next buyer will be able to proceed quicker, minimising the chances of your sale falling through.

Flats are a nightmare to sell at the moment, I ended up staying with family in-between as I didn't want to risk loosing any money on surveys for a purchase if anything fell through.

franklee

scarletwoman wrote: »

However our buyer started making a lot of requests to do with the share of freehold. Namely he asked us to extend the lease with the other freeholder and as we were unwilling to do that as it is a lengthy process, he then just asked us to start the ball rolling with the promise that he would be liable for the costs once we'd completed.

The other freeholder then started fretting and asked us to pay for some roof repairs before we left as he said he didn't know the soon-to-be owner and we went along and paid for the repairs for peace of mind.

...

We are about £ 1000 out of pocket because of him!

scarletwoman wrote: »

Annisele, I think there was about 70 odd years remaining on the old lease, now about to be changed to 999 years.

The drip feed of bad news and unexpected expense would IMO both delay a purchase and put a buyer off especially your refusal to pay for the lease extension. Money you eventually spent on the lease and roof is money you would likely need to spend for any buyer so by getting this all sorted out you will not have wasted money and will have helped the next sale to run faster.

DVardysShadow

franklee wrote: »

The drip feed of bad news and unexpected expense would IMO both delay a purchase and put a buyer off especially your refusal to pay for the lease extension. Money you eventually spent on the lease and roof is money you would likely need to spend for any buyer so by getting this all sorted out you will not have wasted money and will have helped the next sale to run faster.

I agree. Personally, I have rational and emotional dislikes for the idea of Leasehold. For a single dwelling, I would never consider leasehold. For apartment style dwellings, rationally, I understand why there must be a leasehold arrangement, although I still have a dislike for the concept.

Now in the case of OP's flat, the leasehold is an essential part of implementing a shared freehold arrangement and making the flat mortgageable. But it carries the same problems as any other lease when the remaining period runs low, as already mentioned.

It may well be that the buyer was initially attracted by the shared freehold concept - I'll admit there was a time in my life when I would have thought the same. So that shared freehold may have been the Unique Selling Proposition [USP] which rose up above all of the compromises on location, layout, decor etc which you make when buying.

Once it emerged that the shared freehold carried a lease with it and the attendant issues of leases, [such as needing to extend, negotiating with the 50% freeholder] buyer may well have felt that as he was not getting the USP for which he bought the place and that the compromises he was making were not worth continuing with the purchase. Of course, as well as inertia, sales have momentum and he could well have been swept along with it for a few more weeks with solicitors and agents reassuring him that the problems could be resolved. But finally, it probably dawned that as the USP was a mirage, the compromises on all of the other issues were no longer justified and he would do better to accept a conventional lease on a place he liked more.

So the moral of the story is that the buyer should be informed as accurately as possible of what he is buying and should not be allowed to develop false expectations.

ruggedtoast

70 years is pretty short. Sounds like you weren't advised very well by your agent.

Blacksheep1979

you're not in London are you?

nomoneytoday

puddy wrote: »

but what happens if you go through all the checks and then find the property's got terrible damp or problems with access or a myriad of other things that would make me pull out?

i wouldnt want to be forced into buying a property that i find has problems with it

AFAIK, in Scotland the survey is done upfront. The buyer and seller then know upfront the situation before an offer is made and accepted

puddy

but who pays for the survey?

casper_g

puddy wrote: »

but who pays for the survey?

The buyer. The survey is done after declaring that you are interested in the property, but before you make an offer. See this guide.