Wrong Advertising found during survey

marcofjardim

My situation:

I'm a first time buyer, and I'm a middle of a house buying process. The offer has been accept, mortgage is approved, and contracts ready to be exchanged. The problem is during the survey our solicitor send us a note about the lease is that it is a shared ownership lease – 90%.

During the all the process neither the seller, agency or seller solicitor have mention this. My mortgage has been approved for a 100% ownership and I'm I has expecting to purchase 100% of the property.

Can I get a compensation for survey, legal fees and all the wasted time?

jamei305

First off, are they a TPO regsitered agent?

http://www.tpos.co.uk/consumer_guide_sales.htm

marcofjardim

Yes they are.

ReadingTim

No - and this is the reason you do surveys, get solicitors to perform searches etc - it's to ascertain the proper state and status of the property you're buying. That said, it's still caveat emptor.

kingstreet

What makes you think the agent was aware of this?

It's not exactly a common scenario. If the property was offered as SO and 100% owned, you know the agent is aware of the situation.

How does the surveyor know about the lease? I'd expect them to defer to solicitor/conveyancer and if you don't have this verified by yours yet, you should.

All a surveyor can do is rely on what he/she is told at the time. That is not proper diligence and shouldn't be relied upon.

marcofjardim

I made an offer to buy 100% of the property not just for a share and during the process no one said mention the fact that I need to pay a rent and follow the “Landlord” rules. In the property that I’m renting I don’t have so many rules.

A bit unfair, I stopped searching for other houses, spend money and time because the seller wasn’t clear about the ownership property.

I know that the purpose of a survey is to check the status of a property, but we are talking about that should been mention even before the viewing.

To conclude is OK for seller can try to sell a property using incorrect information, making the buyer wasting money (Mortgage and surveys) , a couple of months of his live and losing the opportunity of finding a new place to live.

ReadingTim

marcofjardim wrote: »

To conclude is OK for seller can try to sell a property using incorrect information, making the buyer wasting money (Mortgage and surveys) , a couple of months of his live and losing the opportunity of finding a new place to live.

Yes - up until exchange of contracts both the seller or the buyer can pull out of the transaction without any liability to each other.

Thrugelmir

marcofjardim wrote: »

I made an offer to buy 100% of the property not just for a share

Was the property advertised as being shared ownership?

marcofjardim

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Was the property advertised as being shared ownership?

There is no mention on that. It is just a regular advertise. And it was suppose to be no chain and the seller have asked to wait 5 months until the completion date because is searching of a new place to live.

marcofjardim

ReadingTim wrote: »

Yes - up until exchange of contracts both the seller or the buyer can pull out of the transaction without any liability to each other.

I'm aware of that but the problem here is the seller/agent give false information because they are not selling a full ownership, is only a share.
I don't even know what is the rent value.

All the process as been a waste of time

kinger101

Hi

Welcome to the forum. Estate agents are bound by the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPRs). Specific guidance for EAs was published by the OFT (now defunct, the the CPRs still stand), and is available here.

webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20140402142426/http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/estate-agents/OFT1364.pdf

Estate agents are required to advertise the property correctly, and should not hide behind ignorance (didn't know) where it is pertinent to find this information out in order to market the property. Section 4.12 onwards details the EA's responsibilities.

If they never asked the vendor about whether they 100% owned the lease, had reason to suspect they didn't (e.g., perhaps they handled previous sale to vendor), or did not subsequently disclose this to you as soon as it became apparent, they have probably breached the CPR.

If you can demonstrate than this may have occurred, you should first contact the the head office of the estate agents at the address they have for making complaints. If this does not work, the EA will belong to an Ombudsman scheme (such as TPO) and you can make a complaint there.

If you can show the EAs having acted negligently or dishonestly, you should ask them to cover all your costs incurred to date. If they have acted correctly, perhaps this will give you enough information to pursue the vendor.

There is some further info here from TPO.

http://www.tpos.co.uk/code-of-practice-sales.php