Need advice quick please - can I change my new build house plot?

mikki6416

TW office opens at 10.30am so I'll update shortly.
Hopefully this thread will be useful to other house buyers in the future.

ellie27

Push for it and do not let them fob you off!!!

A small north facing garden can be horrible, I have never had a north facing garden and I never would but friends have. A larger south facing garden being so much more attractive to me.

Did you know it was north facing when you put the reservation down?

mikki6416

ellie27 wrote: »

Push for it and do not let them fob you off!!!

A small north facing garden can be horrible, I have never had a north facing garden and I never would but friends have. A larger south facing garden being so much more attractive to me.

Did you know it was north facing when you put the reservation down?

Hi - thanks for your advice
Yes I knew it was north facing but we decided to go ahead with it because this house ticked so many other boxes for us and was still the best house out of everything we looked at (and it was the last of this house style available on the site). We love the plan of the house, it's in an excellent location for us in terms of work, family and schools and it's within budget. The garden and a few other niggles were the annoying bits.
However, the plot we want to change to would be amazing for us. If we could have the pick of any house on the site then this would be the one we would pick. It has a bigger and better positioned garden, less traffic outside as it's tucked in the corner of the site and has fields out the back.


An update so far:

Mortgage - I have spoken to our mortgage advisors and they have advised us that to amend the mortgage application should not be too much of a problem as there is a process in place for this. IF Taylor Wimpey agree to sell us the other plot, then I just need to confirm the new house details and a mortgage application amendment form will be completed for consideration by the lender.

House - I have phoned Taylor Wimpey's site sales office. The person I spoke to needs to phone the Powers That Be to see if this can be done.....but she is not that hopeful . She has asked that I don't get my hopes up.

I should be getting a call later on today with a decision. I'll update again later on.
Wish me luck.

KRB2725

Have you already signed some kind of contract with TW? I have never bought a new build so know nothing, but what prevents you from pulling out of your current purchase and starting again with the new preferred house if they refuse a simple exchange?

ETA. Sorry this was probably a stupid question, I guess you pay a deposit to reserve the plot?

Leo2020

emmatthews wrote: »

Have you already signed some kind of contract with TW? I have never bought a new build so know nothing, but what prevents you from pulling out of your current purchase and starting again with the new preferred house if they refuse a simple exchange?

ETA. Sorry this was probably a stupid question, I guess you pay a deposit to reserve the plot?

They will have paid a reservation fee this might be say £500 could be more or less. They would be entitled to a refund on this minus any costs the builder has incurred. They would also lose any mortgage/advisor fees etc though.

The Consumer Code for Home Builders will apply to TW: http://www.consumercodeforhomebuilders.com/code.php

This means that they can't sell the house to anyone else whilst under reservation - so they could not re-advertise their house to try to jig things along as suggest by another poster.

mikki6416

emmatthews wrote: »

Have you already signed some kind of contract with TW? I have never bought a new build so know nothing, but what prevents you from pulling out of your current purchase and starting again with the new preferred house if they refuse a simple exchange?

ETA. Sorry this was probably a stupid question, I guess you pay a deposit to reserve the plot?

Hi - questions are fine

Contracts -
We have signed an agreement confirming that we will accept what they have offered us for our house (as it's part exchange) and agreed target dates for exchange of contracts through our solicitors - however, we're legally entitled to pull out at any time prior to exchange of contracts through our solicitors (it's the same as with normal house purchases).
As is usual practice when buying a house, after exchanging contracts things get a lot more expensive to drop out (usually 10% of the house price plus costs :eek:). So it's very important to be 100% on the decision to proceed before exchanging contracts.

Pulling out and buying other plot -
This isn't really an option because we can only reserve one house at a time. If we pull out of the one we currently have reserved, we have to find a buyer super quick for the house we live in now in order to be in a position to reserve the plot we really want. Realistically there just isn't the time to do this as I think the plot we want will sell pretty fast (possibly in the next couple of days). I don't want potentially lose out on both of the houses.

Deposit -
Yes we have paid £1,000 to reserve the house. IF Taylor Wimpey let us change plot (I'm still waiting to find out at the moment) then we'll possibly lose that money and have to pay another reservation fee (because we have already incurred charges on the other house). Personally I am not bothered about this - I'm prepared to put down another deposit to get the other plot. I can't afford to go chucking thousands of pounds around but in this one case we're prepared to pay it as buying a house is such a big decision and we'll live there for years.

So...I'm still waiting to find out what's going to happen

DigForVictory

Fingers crossed for you!

BlueIsTheColour

If it came to pulling out, please check the T&C's for the part exchange... Before we bought this house, we reserved one with a different builder, however when we got all the part exchange documents, their costs (if you didn't proceed) were in the very scary dept, so much so, we pulled out...

Not saying TW would be the same, just sharing my experience.

Hope you've had your answer now.

Ker9

Hi, just wondered what the outcome was for you ??
I'm in exactly the same position, apart from my current house being sold privately rather than part ex. Am waiting for site office yo open, so nervous and anxious (also Taylor Wimpey)

Davesnave

Ker9 wrote: »

Hi, just wondered what the outcome was for you ??
I'm in exactly the same position, apart from my current house being sold privately rather than part ex. Am waiting for site office yo open, so nervous and anxious (also Taylor Wimpey)

10:1 it didn't work out.

People generally return to forums only when they achieve an objective.

The moral is: don't settle for an "it'll do" house if there's the possibility of other options. You're a long time paying for it.