Buying from a developer: Advice needed

SpicyRicey

Hi all,

I'm a first time buyer in need of a bit of advice. I'm in the process of buying a flat which I love but the whole process has been a bit of a mess so far.

The property I'm buying is currently owned by a young couple who are shortly up-sizing to a new build. They've agreed a part exchange deal for their new home so I'm essentially buying from the developer of their new home.

The process has been delayed for weeks due to incompetence of the estate agents (they put my solicitor in touch with the wrong selling solicitor). This caused a 3 week delay and a whole lot of stress.

I've now reached a point were my solicitor has taken me through the contract, amended certain clauses and sent the revised offer but to the correct selling solicitor. At this point everything looked great and I thought we conclude missives relatively soon.

I then got a shock phone call from the estate agents to say the developer was considering putting the property back on the market!! Apparently they are finding it difficult to make progress with my solicitor. They couldn't give me any specific details though they did ask me to pick this up with my solicitor. I gave him a call today and he said that the developers aren't happy with some of the basic clauses that he has reinserted into the contract. He explained that developers use standard clauses when selling new builds that are often disadvantageous to the buyer.

I'm a little worried I might lose the property, I'm keen to buy it but I also don't want to leave myself open to any liability. How should I take this forward? Is it likely that the developer will back down?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

davidmcn

Without knowing what clauses they're actually having a problem agreeing to it's difficult for us to say. Sellers don't tend to pull out on a whim, I expect it'll get sorted one way or another.

SpicyRicey

Thanks for your reply. I'm not 100% sure what all the clauses are but my solicitor did mention a clause protecting me from any debt associated with the property. He's of the opinion that the clauses he has inserted into the contract are fairly standard. As a result I can't really understand the developers issue.

Lord_Baltimore

Your solicitor is acting in your best interests. Perhaps it is not your solicitor that you should be 'picking this up with' as the Agent suggests, but a developer who seems to want all the potential and actual liability to be yours.

There are other properties to buy.