Contacting the sellers directly

Florida10

Hi all.

In the process of buying our first house and we received yesterday the 'Law Society Fittings & Contents Form'. So we eagerly went through it and found a few things that are making us nervous. First off is the sellers are taking the greenhouse, now I know its not a major hurdle but when we were shown round the EA said there was a greenhouse, he never mentioned that it would be taken and this has made the misses a little bit annoyed. Also the seller has a wood burning fire, and there is no mention of it in the form, only gas/electric fires. This for us was a nice selling point of the house so this has to stay, as again is was mentioned when viewing (they even had it 'on' when we were viewing, thus in our minds as well it was inferred that it was part of the house).

Lastly there is a section in the 'Law Society Property Information Form' that are seriously worrying us. It is:

Does ownership of the property carry a responsibility to contribute towards cost of any jointly used services, such as maintenance of a private road, a shared driveway, a boundary or drain? If Yes, please give details:

The seller has stated:
To pay a fair proportion of the cost of maintenance of any service appliance which serves this and adjoining properties.

Now to us that seems fairly vague. Could this be something as simple as we have to maintain/repair one of the fences between us and our neighbors?

I'm wondering if it would be easier to try and contact the seller directly and to just clarify what they mean etc but the missus (the smarter one in the relationship ) says we should just refer back to our solicitor as that's his job.

Sorry for the long post but just need a little help :embarasse

Cheers

Mike

Davesnave

I agree with 'the missus.'

You need everything in writing, with the degree of clarity a solicitor is happy to accept.

A new wood burner would cost around £750 - £1500 depending on size, and fitting probably £1k or so on top, depending on the house. If it's old, you might be better with a new one, but clarify what it does. Mine used to heat radiators/water too.

anselld

The Mrs is definately correct. The whole point of these forms is to establish beyond doubt what is included in the contract and what is not. Any follow up enquiry is pointless unless it is via solicitors.

DaftyDuck

Always do what the Mrs says.

In this rare case, she's right as well.

Clear clarification on each point, through the solicitor, so there's a paper trail if needed. It's quite common for there to be some toing and froing at this point.

Kynthia

Go through the solicitor as it's forming the contract of sale. You want to know exactly what you are buying including the responsibilities. So write to your solicitor with any questions you have, not necessarily just these two, and they'll forward it on.

robatwork

It's going to cost you thousands to replace the fixtures that they are taking, and shouldn't be in my opinion. However this is what you are employing a solicitor for.

Call your sols and get them to clarify, follow up in writing by email or letter to sols.

I would be demanding a £2,000 discount at this point or be walking away.

Mickygg

Some people penny pinch as much as possible, sounds like these sellers are just that. advice as above by all. I would not tolerate this and demand money off as you offered on the property based on those items remaining.

macman

Both the greenhouse and the wood burner are fixtures and fittings, so if they are now wanting to remove them then the price must be adjusted, or they must replace like for like. If they were not included then it should haver been clearly stated before agreement.

davidmcn

This sounds like an argument for viewings being done by the vendors rather than the EA (who was probably clueless about the items which were going to be removed).

As for the title point, yes it is probably innocuous (and sounds totally reasonable) but is for your solicitor to advise on once they've seen the title. The vendors may not understand it either.

Hoploz

Don't contact them separately, do it through the solicitors, or at least through the EA (which is quicker as they deal by phone rather than waiting for letters by post to go back and forth)

These are important contractual matters and you don't want any room for misunderstandings. It'll cost a lot to reinstate a log burner, the greenhouse although annoying, is probably not a deal breaker unless it's something really special IMO but the log burner being removed would I feel be worthy of a discount. And seeing as how they will probably need to pay someone quite a bit to remove it anyway, they might just leave it if you ask for a discount.

phoebe1989seb

Davesnave wrote: »

I agree with 'the missus.'

You need everything in writing, with the degree of clarity a solicitor is happy to accept.

A new wood burner would cost around £750 - £1500 depending on size, and fitting probably £1k or so on top, depending on the house. If it's old, you might be better with a new one, but clarify what it does. Mine used to heat radiators/water too.

This ^

When we were going through the fixtures and fittings form for this house (purchased late 2014) we noticed the Aga was not mentioned. On the viewings (two) the vendor's EA had explained that whilst the original property details (house had been for sale for around 18 months) had stated "Aga available by separation", the vendir was by now so keen to sell the aga was going to be thrown in, so to speak.

Even after our solicitor had queried this several times with the vendor's solicitor it was still unclear where we stood as they skirted about the issue for some reason known only to them. Eventually - a couple of days before exchange - they confirmed in writing it was included.

Unfortunately we had no contact with the vendor as he had bought a new property and moved away, but generally I would highly recommend forging a good relationship with your vendor - although in important matters such as this you do need it in writing so it is best your solicitor deals with it