Floor area is wrong on floorplans. Should I reduce my accepted offer price?

dominoman

I have been looking for a flat in London for a while. I finally found one I liked, and the thing that swung it for me was that the floorplan showed that it was more spacious than others I had seen. I put an offer on and it was accepted.

I've now been around and measured the flat. Rather than 110 square metres, it actually adds up to 90 sq metres, so a huge difference (~20%). Every room had been overestimated by around 50 cm in each direction.

Combined with other problems highlighted by the survey I am thinking of either pulling out, or lowering my offer. I've already paid 2k in mortgage fees, surveys, solicitor fees etc. so am reluctant to walk away.

Am I entitled to be aggrieved that the agent misrepresented the floorplan so much?

ACG

Did the promotional material not say something along the lines of this is not to scale, no effort has been made to ensure the accuracy and you should do your own measurements?
They usually do.

bylromarha

Any chance you can try to post a link, or put in some search terms for us to use, so we can see the plan?

Have a look here

http://www.oft.gov.uk/news-and-updates/press/2012/81-12#.UYGVRsrheSo

Some agents pay people to do an accurate floorplan, others just use a bare bones thing the EPC guy generates.

chewmylegoff

Presumably you viewed the flat before making an offer and you were happy with the dimensions when you saw them with your own eyes? Seems a bit odd to argue that you only made an offer of X on the basis of a drawing on rightmove if you had actually been there in person.

In any case if you want to lower your offer you can, and you can cite this as a reason. Nothing to stop you from doing so.

abankerbutnotafatcat

If you think the flat is worth less to you now that you've measured up then revise your offer but I echo Chew's comments above. 90sqm is actually still very generously proportioned for a UK flat. This emphases why p/sqm valuations should be used with caution.