just lost £500 in less than 24 hours cos i am stupid

Kimlock

Good luck Parks!!

Polmop

Good Luck, go get them

Parks

Well what a disaster. We didn't win. Apparantly all the evidence we used and examples we had given were not actual legal documents and as we had signed a contract that is a legal document so the judge said he could not go in favour of us, however, he did ask if the other side were prepared to mediate and they said no, so he has given us 6 weeks to get a LEGAL case together and seek proper legal advice to see if we have a leg to stand on but as it stands he could not go in our favour and said if we do not get any legal help we will not win even though he could see that we had given a compelling case. I am gutted!!

Parks

i have just been on to CAB and Trading standards and they have said that really as we signed a NON REFUNDABLE contract on the premises of the house that we were going to purchase, we may have a cue that it was an off premises contract so would have a 7 day cooling off period, however, as the property belonged to the company, they can say that it is their premises so we wouldn't qualify for a cooling off period!

I think i am well and truly screwed now. The injustice grieves me almost as much as the loss of the £500 plus a further £90 to take it to the small claims! Going to go and have a small cry now before i pick up the kids!

pinkteapot

Do you have legal advice included with your house insurance? A lot of policies have this as an add-on, unless you opt out when taking out the policy. This gives you access to a phoneline where you can get basic initial legal advice on a range of issues. May be worth a call if you have it?

If you don't, you can join Which Legal for a year for £88 (this is considerably more than it costs to add it on to your home insurance, so not particularly good value), which does the same thing. But paying out any more on this may just be throwing good money after bad.

Home insurance or Which Legal will only give you basic, initial advice. If you did then pay a solicitor to take the case on, you'd probably spend a fair amount of the £500 in legal fees.

jjlandlord

I think that this goes a long way to show that those who advise to ignore some terms of a contract 'because they are unenforceable' are not making a favour to anyone.

The first thing to do is always to negotiate to have terms you do not agree with taken out.
When you knowingly agree to a term, it will require efforts to convince a court that you shouldn't be held accountable.

Parks

i know, the judge did say we have to try and get legal evidence that it is either an unfair contract (cooling off period) but that the housing firm could state that as we signed on their property which was the house we were purchasing that cooling off period doesn't apply and so that is a very grey area.

Parks

pinkteapot wrote: »

Do you have legal advice included with your house insurance? A lot of policies have this as an add-on, unless you opt out when taking out the policy. This gives you access to a phoneline where you can get basic initial legal advice on a range of issues. May be worth a call if you have it?

If you don't, you can join Which Legal for a year for £88 (this is considerably more than it costs to add it on to your home insurance, so not particularly good value), which does the same thing. But paying out any more on this may just be throwing good money after bad.

Home insurance or Which Legal will only give you basic, initial advice. If you did then pay a solicitor to take the case on, you'd probably spend a fair amount of the £500 in legal fees.

no its not on my house insurance - nothing going my way today!

catshark88

I'm really sorry that it turned out like that. Best of luck in your next endeavours, be they continuing this case or other house hunting.

CS

caprikid1

Sorry to hear you lost.

Does always worry me the amount of internet lawyers who can post on a thread like this with no idea of the contract no idea of the law around such a transaction but come across as being expert lawyers.

Sounds like you signed a contract that is sufficiently water tight and in a circumstance that does not require a cooling off period. Unfortunatley the goodwill that many thought you should get was not available.