Is the buyer's solicitor being reasonable?

taxiphil

I'm midway through the conveyance on the sale of my house.

It's a modern (10 year old) bog-standard identikit house on a large development built by Taylor Wimpey. I've had no further works done to it myself.

My solicitor said the buyer's solicitor wants me to supply a copy of planning permission for the construction of my property, and a copy of the Section 106 Agreement.

I've gone through all my files from the time I purchased the house and I have no such documents in my possession.

The buyer's solicitor now wants my solicitor to obtain these documents from the original builder or the council, at my expense.

What I find odd is that the buyer's solicitor is locally based (about one mile from my house) and has already done numerous conveyances on this development over the last decade (I used them myself for the purchase!). They must already be aware that the development is fully legit and has the proper planning consents.

To me it seems inconceivable that a company like Taylor Wimpey would erect a £ multi million development without permission, and then for an entire decade to pass without the council noticing it had been built!

As far as the Section 106 goes, my understanding is that this is a contractual one-off lump sum paid by the builder to the council at the inception of the site's development, and has no relevance at all to the subsequent owners of the individual houses.

So, is the buyer's solicitor being too pedantic?

And if they really want these documents, shouldn't they get hold of them themselves rather than making my solicitor do it and charging me for it?

silvercar

The local council should have a copy of both, you may even be able to find them online.

G_M

If you want to you could instruct your solicitor to advise the buyer's solicitor to 'rely on his own enquiries' perhaps adding 'due to the unnecessary nature of the request'.

If he's got any sense, the buyer's S will just advise his client not to worry and to carry on.

Of course, you might lose the buyer!

TheKeymeister

You should be able to find the planning application from your council's planning portal fairly easily, just be aware that searching by your street name/postcode probably won't show any results as the address then will have been "Land off x road" or similar

Johnandabby

I know we were asked for this when we sold our 6 yr old house. Fortunately we had the documents from when we bought it from the original owner, so from my experience seems to be a common thing. Come to thing of it, we also had it as part of our solicitor's information when we bought our current home, which was built 20 yrs ago.

As silvercar says, you might be able to find them online. If you go to your local authority's website and select search planning applicatins, you might be able to search for the development - depends on how long ago your local authority started logging things electronically. Worth spending 5 minutes on to see if you can do it easily.

tim123456789

As a (very experienced) buyer I had this hassle from my sol telling me that I had to wait for all this guff to be checked (no mention that it was the vendor who had to pay for it).

To which I said "Why?", using the same" is this national builder really going to get this wrong, and have all the previous 300 buyers of properties on the estate missed that fact", but she was unerepentent. Talk about CYA!

Anyhow, I managed to find the info that she required by searching the LA's online planning portal for myself and sent her the link!

YMMV

tim

spacey2012

You do still have the house on the market ?

kingstreet

If the buyer wants a mortgage, the lender will insist on sight of the S106 agreement before proceeding. That's completely normal.

So is expecting the vendor to provide it. That's usually the quickest and most cost-effective way.

If the vendor doesn't have it, that's down to the original purchasing solicitor.

martinsurrey

taxiphil wrote: »

As far as the Section 106 goes, my understanding is that this is a contractual one-off lump sum paid by the builder to the council at the inception of the site's development, and has no relevance at all to the subsequent owners of the individual houses.

You are incorrect about a s106 agreement and what it covers.

The s106 agreement can cover any number of things, both payments to the council at certain times (eg after 10-20-100 occupations) to cover things such as extra bus services, the building of community infrastructure (such as a public park or school), to be built after a certain number of houses are constructed, the provision of certain services, such as on site training for a number of local apprentices.

Without details of the s106 agreement you could find out that the developer hasn’t done everything, and when the council realises, things could get interesting (this is unlikely but not impossible!) as the s106 is a condition of planning, if it is not satisfied the entire development is in breach of planning.

taxiphil

Thanks everyone for the responses and for clearing up a few things.

I think what's bothering me is that the buyer's solicitor has already done plenty of purchase conveyances on this development, he did mine when I bought my house and he did my next door neighbour's a year ago, so he'll be fully aware of planning permission and the S.106 agreement (and will almost certainly have copies of them on file from previous conveyances), so it seems to me like he's inventing unnecessary work.

spacey2012 wrote: »

You do still have the house on the market ?

No, I took it off as I didn't want to irritate the buyer (it's taken me an incredibly long time to sell).

Tancred

taxiphil wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the responses and for clearing up a few things.

I think what's bothering me is that the buyer's solicitor has already done plenty of purchase conveyances on this development, he did mine when I bought my house and he did my next door neighbour's a year ago, so he'll be fully aware of planning permission and the S.106 agreement (and will almost certainly have copies of them on file from previous conveyances), so it seems to me like he's inventing unnecessary work.



No, I took it off as I didn't want to irritate the buyer (it's taken me an incredibly long time to sell).

It seems to me that the solicitor is just being fastidious - but most solicitors are, so it goes with the territory.

How long is 'an incredibly long time'? 3 months? 6 months? 1 year?