Property misadvertised by Estate Agent

pmorrison_2

Hi, myself and my partner are currently in the process of purchasing a house which was advertised as having a detached garage.

To cut a long story short, when the title plan was sent to us our garage was missing - I queried this with my solicitor and it now turns out that the property does not own the garage and it is actually built on land owned by a housing association (although it appears they have shown no interest in the land for a number of years and there are also another 4 garages built on the land).

Our intention is to negotiate on the agreed price but if the sellers aren't flexible there is a good chance the sale will fall through. My question is, as the property was advertised with a garage and this is the reason we offered the amount we did for it, are the estate agents liable for the fees we have incurred to this point?

Any help and advice would be much appreciated.

mrginge

Can you prove the EA knew the garage was leased?
What was the exact wording of the advert?

pmorrison_2

mrginge wrote: »

Can you prove the EA knew the garage was leased?
What was the exact wording of the advert?

The paperwork says 'Garage: Accessed via a shared driveway, there is a single detached garage with wooden double doors' and I also have an email from the estate agent assuring me that the garage is included.

The email from the Solicitor says 'it is clear from the paperwork provided by the Sellers Solicitors that the Seller does not own and has no right to use the Garage located on <road_name> ... you may be able to continue using the Garage informally but it is possible that your use in the future could be prevented. This would significantly reduce the future value of the property and you may want to take this into account and reconsider how much you have agreed to purchase the property for as it was clearly advertised with the Garage.'

In this situation does the estate agent just have to take the work of their seller? In my opinion I don't think that they have done too much wrong but I have a friend who is an agent who says that they are liable.

kinger101

Estate agents must advertise according to the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPRs). The now defunct Office for Fair trading produced an interesting document here.

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

Some will tell you that an EA can only rely on what their client tells them, and that this is what surveys are for, but I'd ignore that. EAs are the ones who should know the law, and they are supposed to check things like this. I think ownership of the garage would qualify as material information which an EA is supposed to provide, and take reasonable steps to ensure is correct (such as looking at the deeds).

If you are unable to renegotiate an agreeable price, you should first demand all your costs back from the head office of the estate agent. If they don't pay up, raise an complaint with the ombudsman scheme of which they are a member.

davidmcn

If that's a correct interpretation, it seems quite an onerous requirement, given that making sense of many sellers' title deeds would require investing several hundred pounds worth of (largely duplicated) legal time and searches.

kinger101

davidmcn wrote: »

If that's a correct interpretation, it seems quite an onerous requirement, given that making sense of many sellers' title deeds would require investing several hundred pounds worth of (largely duplicated) legal time and searches.

If it's complicated, the agent can say it's complicated, a spell out any uncertainties.. This wasn't. It would have cost a few quid. It's just looking at a box drawn on a map.

pmorrison_2

kinger101 wrote: »

If it's complicated, the agent can say it's complicated, a spell out any uncertainties.. This wasn't. It would have cost a few quid. It's just looking at a box drawn on a map.

The title plan that the solicitor sent us doesn't even show the garage as existing (the other 4 in the area are shown but not 'ours' so that was the first sign that something was wrong).

googler

kinger101 wrote: »

Estate agents must advertise according to the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPRs). .......

If you are unable to renegotiate an agreeable price, you should first demand all your costs back from the head office of the estate agent. If they don't pay up, raise an complaint with the ombudsman scheme of which they are a member.

You would do well not to confuse the legislation - the Consumer Protection Regulations - with the Ombudsman Scheme, which is a non-legislative code of practice.

The legislation, as far as I can tell, has no provision for making recompense to viewers or buyers, merely for fining agents. It was the same with the Property Misdescriptions Act.

The Ombudsman (TPO) can direct its member agents, but in order for a claim to the TPO to succeed, the claimant must go through the EA's full complaints procedure with no satisfaction.

If the EA can demonstrate that they made reasonable enquiries (i.e. in discussion with the owner, the owner assured them he/she owned the garage outright), a complaint is unlikely to succeed.

kinger101

googler wrote: »

You would do well not to confuse the legislation - the Consumer Protection Regulations - with the Ombudsman Scheme, which is a non-legislative code of practice.

The legislation, as far as I can tell, has no provision for making recompense to viewers or buyers, merely for fining agents. It was the same with the Property Misdescriptions Act.

The Ombudsman (TPO) can direct its member agents, but in order for a claim to the TPO to succeed, the claimant must go through the EA's full complaints procedure with no satisfaction.

If the EA can demonstrate that they made reasonable enquiries (i.e. in discussion with the owner, the owner assured them he/she owned the garage outright), a complaint is unlikely to succeed.

I hadn't meant to imply the two were the same. And I had suggested OP takes it up with head office first. The codes of the ombudsman's schemes are written with the consumer regulations in mind, and state that members should comply with them.

bigfreddiel

I think this may not be the ea's problem. When you are selling a property the agent will prepare the details and it's for the vendor to confirm in writing and to sign off that eu are accurate. So it's the vendor you would need to deal with and I'm sure that is what the agent will tell you.

Cheers fj

phill99

pmorrison wrote: »

The paperwork says 'Garage: Accessed via a shared driveway, there is a single detached garage with wooden double doors'
.

But all this is doing is describing the garage. At no point does this indicate that the land that the garage is built on is within the same demise as the house.

You will struggle with this claim.