Selling land to a builder, help needed please.

georgiac

Sorry if this gets complicated but it has confused me just writing this down!


I have a long narrow garden that is too much for me and I have had 2 offers to buy the bottom end from 2 opposing builders.

Builder 1 has a development that is next to our garden and wishes to buy mine and the land belonging to my other neighbour and the house next to them.

He has offered a figure and will pay the full price in cash upfront.

Now a second builder wishes to purchase the land from the other side of my neighbours and has offered twice the price of builder 1.

However his figures only come to fruition after the houses have been built and sold.

He thinks our plot is important as it would stop builder 1's development.

I'm not sure how these things normally work and will more-than-likely have to seek legal advice before signing up either way.

Builder 2 would like us to sign an "option" so he can have 24 months to go ahead and start. I personally think this is too long and will suggest 12 months is more realistic. He has offered us £1000 for the option to buy.

Does this seem reasonable and normal practise or should we renegotiate on length of time and amount?

Many thanks in advance

BitterAndTwisted

A thousand pounds? Nope!

Would either of the developments be able to go ahead without purchasing your garden?

holly_hobby

First things first .... is your property mortgaged ?

H x

Cornucopia

If you really want to do this properly, you'd need to know how likely it is that they would be granted planning permission.

In any case:-

- what area is this in?
- is there a local precedent for garden sell-offs?
- how big is your garden plot?

For good quality (flat) building land with PP (or a good chance thereof) in most parts of the country, of a size for a single house, you would expect £30-50k.

georgiac

Hi, thanks for the questions and comments.

Here are some answers.

The £1000 is for the option, not the land.

The second builder wants to tie us to his scheme with the option in order to stop our adjoining builder being in a position to proceed. My concern would be that our land isn't paramount to builder 2 and he could start the project and just use the option payment to persuade my neighbours to sign up to him and then not need to buy our land at all.

Builder one has valued the land at £30k, the other a lot more. This is due to the layout of the plans and the number of homes to be built.

Both of the planning applications go in this week and are expected to be passed without objection, There have been lots of precedents set very close by.

There is no mortgage on the property.

thanks

paddedjohn

Unless builder no2 paid upfront I would be looking to deal with builder no1. I would also try to get the £30k upped due to the other interested parties.

tim123456789

If it were me I would tell B2 that I'm not the slightest bit interested in his "jam tomorrow" offer and that if he isn't prepared to make a no strings cash offer I will take the offer that I have from B1

ISTM that B2 is just using you to delay B1 from building their scheme and when he has achieved that he may walk away leaving you with nothing

tim

georgiac

I totally understand john and tim's points of view.

It appears that my immediate neighbour would prefer to go with builder1 for personal reasons and that builder2 is aware of that.

My personal choice would be builder2 but I am tempted to give him the ultimatum of paying half the total offered as the "option" and half on completion.

It also means that if he scales back the project we aren't left with a situation where our land isn't required by him but isn't useable by the first builder.
That way if he is only using us as a stumbling block to stop builder1 we will be paid whether he builds or not.

I doubt he will go for it but something to ponder.

RAS

What have building plots actually sold for in your area? We got a ludicrous sum for the end of the garden (combined with neightbours rto provide two plots).

georgiac

Hi RAS, the problem is builder1 only wants to build 1 v. large house on the land of 3 gardens, wheras builder2 is looking to build 4 houses on the land of 4 gardens - which is where the plot value discrepancy lies.

Joyful

If it was me I would rather have only one new property rather than 4 next to me.