Buying flat, mislead on length remaining on lease

drjones

Hello all,

I'm in the process of buying a flat. I've made an offer, have a mortgage arranged, have had a survey done and have a solicitor ready to do the searches for me.

I've just found out from my solicitor that there are 40 years less remaining on the lease than the information provided by the estate agent said there was, which takes it below 70 (?) year limit that my mortgage provider will lend on.

The solicitor is contacting the seller solicitor with the expectation that they will pay to have the lease extended. I hope this will happen without hitch, and quickly too. I'm a first time buyer and won't have to pay stamp duty if this goes through before march next year. I'm thinking I might phone my solicitor back tomorrow and tell them to impress apon the sellers solictor that if the sale doesn't go through becuase a delay caused by this issue, I'll be lowering my offer to my current off minus the cost of the stamp duty. Is this reasonable?

Also, who is responsible for ensuring the information that the estate agent provided is correct? I've already shelled out £300 on a survey, if the sale falls through, can I make a claim against whoever it is, based on being misled by this incorrect information?

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks.

G_M

The purpose of using a solicitor is to verify legal aspects of the purchase like.... length of lease. Job done.

Your solicitor is now addressing this - leave him some time to deal with it.

If/when the SDLT deadline comes, then lower your offer, but meanwhile just let the process continue.

Yes, in an ideal world estate agents would get this right, but generally they go by what the seller tells them. They are not solicitors so don't check all the many legalities surrounding the property. HIPs, of course, when we had them, did this, but.......

drjones

Ok thanks, that sounds quite reassuring.

I know this is a bit of a vague question, but what are the potential outcomes here? I'm under the impression that the seller is going to have no choice but to pay to have the lease extended, as they'll have a lot of difficulty selling the property to anyone with <70 years remaining?

BitterAndTwisted

Yes, they will have a great deal of difficulty selling to anyone who requires a mortgage to purchase.

For the sole reason that the vendor has obviously not been candid with the EA about the lease-length I would not accept another single word from the vendor at face-value about anything else unless the solicitor has verified it.

david29dpo

And most said HIPS were useless?

G_M

Like anything they had their pros and cons.

But on balance it was concluded the cons outweighed the pros!

MrRee_2

The vendor was clearly hoping for a cash buyer .......... trying to sell apartments is bad enough (even in the South) - trying to sell without a decent Lease is not going to achieve a sale at all.

You need to know, soon, if the vendor will get the Lease extended ..... although, they could argue that the price is what it is because of the Lease length?

Richard_Webster

Basic principle here about buying property - especially flats:

Sellers often do not understand the length of their leases themselves and confuse the date of the lease with the commencement date of the term which can often be earlier.

Little chance then that you can ever rely on what estate agents say about such technical matters.

Other issues like whether the loft is included in a the lease of a top floor flat are not ones where the agents will really know, and if it is important then the point should be communicated by a buyer to his solicitor at the earliest opportunity.

propertyman

Your main concern is price, the offer reflects that flat with 100 years plus on the lease. If they want to sell it to you, then they should pay for the lease extension.

propertyman

G_M wrote: »

Like anything they had their pros and cons.

But on balance it was concluded the cons outweighed the pros!

The underlying problem is as it always has been - house buying and selling is seen as a no more problematic than picking up the phone.

Too often any detail is "for someone else to sort out later, as cheaply as possible, and then it is a rip off".

In the vast majority of sales and properties a simple list of requirements/documents which must be made available before marketing are easily set out and adopted by the sector under a approved code of practice.

..if we took it seriously," but we just want to sell houses, innit?!":(

drjones

MrRee wrote: »

The vendor was clearly hoping for a cash buyer .......... trying to sell apartments is bad enough (even in the South) - trying to sell without a decent Lease is not going to achieve a sale at all.

You need to know, soon, if the vendor will get the Lease extended ..... although, they could argue that the price is what it is because of the Lease length?

They could try, but it the fact that they either lied about the length of the lease, or were mistaken about the length of the remaining lease would undermine that argument! Ie. if they genuinely thought the lease was 109, that's what they must have based the price on.