New build con artists?

rochja

They are, for instance, What house sustainable builder of the year 2014 and have won strings of awards. That is not really a guarantee of anything as Barratt wins awards too, but having looked at lots of homes over the years, and having completed at least 17 purchases, I can say they impress me. The mortgage offer will be an offer in principle subject to survey etc and only has a limited lifespan anyway. That can be walked away from without cost. With the solicitor it will depend on the terms of business you entered into - some are no sale no fee, some will charge according to time allocated - which thus far should be a pittance. If you decide to proceed because you want the house then you will be paymaster to your solicitor and he must act on your instructions. If you were to buy any new house or a p/x from any of the main builders you would find that they will not vary the terms of their standard contract so your solicitors main job is to ensure you are not buying on contaminated/floodable land or somewhere that is suddenly going to find itself in the car park of a new hypermarket; and that everything you think you are buying is actually being signed over to you. [Oh, the stories I could tell....]

Newbie19719802

Update: after agreeing to speak to their broker he suggested we continue with our original broker,as we already had an offer which hadn't expired yet. They agreed that we could use our man, and we are using their recommended solicitor. All parties are happy.

Thanks for all your help

SuzieSue

Newbie19719802 wrote: »

and we are using their recommended solicitor.
Thanks for all your help

Why are you doing this? You need an independent solicitor.

Newbie19719802

SuzieSue wrote: »

Why are you doing this? You need an independent solicitor.

We've been assured that they use a different solicitor to us, and that it's a recommendation from the middle men dealing with the sale, not the building company we are technically buying from

SuzieSue

Newbie19719802 wrote: »

We've been assured that they use a different solicitor to us, and that it's a recommendation from the middle men dealing with the sale, not the building company we are technically buying from

But the middlemen still have an incentive for you to buy the property as I assume they will get a commission when the sale goes through so the solicitor is not going to want to upset them either or they will not get any more business from them.

I foolishly used the builder's recommended solicitors when I bought my new build (this was pre-MSE so I didn't know any better) and they didn't point out certain things to me such as the problems of having a shared drive which an independent solicitor would have done.