Lying estate agents & seller

nidO

Doesn't sound like there's any lying from the estate agent there, they'd have no reason to lie to you telling you the vendor is going to renew the lease and to raise any queries with the solicitor when you've actively queried it with them, as one phone call would be proving them wrong.

Sounds more like the vendor themselves either lied to the estate agent or (more likely) there is some unintentional miscommunication between the 3 parties at their end, you need to find out which it is.

If you can't readily contact the vendor, I would suggest sending a letter/email to both the agent and their solicitor telling them that your offer was made on the basis of the property having a renewed lease as described in the property's advert and that you want the renewed lease advertised, or to consider your offer withdrawn.

Your problem with seeking compo is you effectively need to prove intentional dishonesty - If the vendor thought he told the agent there'd be no renewed lease and the agent thought he said there would, the agent haven't lied to you, they just made a mistake, and their advert will undoubtedly have a disclaimer that the info given isn't guaranteed to be correct.
Making sure the info is correct is what you pay your solicitor for, and in this case it sounds like that was money well spent.

project_c

nidO wrote: »

Doesn't sound like there's any lying from the estate agent there, they'd have no reason to lie to you telling you the vendor is going to renew the lease and to raise any queries with the solicitor when you've actively queried it with them, as one phone call would be proving them wrong.

Sounds more like the vendor themselves either lied to the estate agent or (more likely) there is some unintentional miscommunication between the 3 parties at their end, you need to find out which it is.

If you can't readily contact the vendor, I would suggest sending a letter/email to both the agent and their solicitor telling them that your offer was made on the basis of the property having a renewed lease as described in the property's advert and that you want the renewed lease advertised, or to consider your offer withdrawn.

Your problem with seeking compo is you effectively need to prove intentional dishonesty - If the vendor thought he told the agent there'd be no renewed lease and the agent thought he said there would, the agent haven't lied to you, they just made a mistake, and their advert will undoubtedly have a disclaimer that the info given isn't guaranteed to be correct.
Making sure the info is correct is what you pay your solicitor for, and in this case it sounds like that was money well spent.

Thanks again. We have already told them the deal is off unless he extends the lease, I think that's a given. Nobody in their right mind will spend money on a property with only 66 years on it, unless it's an absolute bargain, which this place is not. It's too expensive as it is, even if it had a shiny new lease.

The weird thing is this: the vendor's solicitors sent us a letter from the freeholder dated 2014, in which the vendor enquired about extending the lease, and it came to £16K. He chose not to extend it then for some reason. But then he put the flat on the market stating it will come with a new lease.

I don't buy that this is just miscommunication between the seller and the agent - there's no way a seller will not bother checking the advert of their own property before it goes out to the market. And in terms of miscommunication between him and his solicitors - if the guy had any intention of extending the lease, why did he either not do it last year, or sorting it now? Just don't get it.

Fair enough re. your point about the solicitor, but this is just a blatantly obvious issue that it doesn't really need a solicitor to decipher its' intricacies - a quick glance at the documents will reveal the lie about the lease, it's the first thing everyone looks at.

It's a bit like seeing an advert for a nice car that says 'low mileage', checking with the seller that it really is low, then agreeing to buy it, THEN making a journey all the way there to pick it up, then finding out it's an old banger with 250thousand miles on the clock. It's a pointless thing to do, nobody stands to gain anything from it. Seller gets nothing, and buyer goes home, having wasted time and money. This is why I don't get it.

moneyistooshorttomention

societys_child wrote: »

Doesn't sound like the EA lied, sounds more likely the EA was lied to.

Quite possibly the case - but the EA should have asked for the evidence it was indeed a new lease.

I have rather zoomed in on "will be sold with a new lease" being the wording. Rather than "WE UNDERSTAND that it will be sold with a new lease".

They might, just possibly, be off the hook if they had put those weasel words "we understand that" in front of "it will be sold with a new lease". They didn't.

moneyistooshorttomention

When you say you cant manage to contact the vendor - have you got the Title Plan/Register? Don't these give any hints on contact details?

I presume you've tried stuff like electoral register? googling them? etc?

project_c

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

When you say you cant manage to contact the vendor - have you got the Title Plan/Register? Don't these give any hints on contact details?

I presume you've tried stuff like electoral register? googling them? etc?

I just haven't asked anyone for the vendor's contact details directly, but actually that's probably a sensible thing to do. I just assumed I should let solicitors talk to each other directly, and not get involved, but obviously this is proving to be naive of me, so I'm going to do ask for his details tomorrow.

kinger101

project_c wrote: »

So: somebody is lying somewhere. It's either the agent, trying to push a sale through without any evidence of a lease.

The agent wouldn't be able to provide evidence of a new lease if it hadn't been obtained. If it already had the extended lease, it would have been marketed as such. The agent would have simply been taking the vendor's word that a new lease would be obtained. It seems unlikely that the agent would have released the advert without the vendor first approving it.

Again, getting your solicitor to contact their solicitor is the best way of moving this forward. The vendor's solicitor might advise them that if the sale doesn't complete, you might try to claim your legal fees off them (as well as having their own abortive fees to pay), and still might not actually be able to sell the property at anything other than a significant discount without renewing the lease.

I suspect the agent will side with you if you copy them in as well. They want the sale to proceed to get their commission, and defend themselves against any claim of misrepresentation (at the cost of implicating their client). So they might well lean on their client to extend the lease.

I wouldn't contact the vendors directly at this point.

societys_child

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Quite possibly the case - but the EA should have asked for the evidence it was indeed a new lease.

No he shouldn't. If a vendor tells an EA "it's just been re-wired" the agent doesn't get on his knees and start checking, or ask for paperwork, why would the EA start doing the work of the solicitors?

moneyistooshorttomention

societys_child wrote: »

No he shouldn't. If a vendor tells an EA "it's just been re-wired" the agent doesn't get on his knees and start checking, or ask for paperwork, why would the EA start doing the work of the solicitors?

There is a bit of a difference (rather a lot of a difference) between the state of the property itself and the length of a lease on it. As I understand it - a lease means you have the right to "rent" the place in effect for the number of years specified on the lease at a cost of "whatever the ground rent is" that is laid down.

A whole qualitative difference I would say between the state a place is in and how long its reliably yours for (ie that lease length).

[Deleted User]

So you, the vendor, and the estate agent have invested time and/or money in this sale of property+new lease, and it would be to the best if it went ahead.

If it fails due to this lease issue, the EA will have to find a new buyer. Now that they are aware of the lease length and the vendor not going to renew, they won't be able to claim ignorance, and will have to state '66 year lease'. Even if some naive buyer thinks this is ok, their mortgage lender probably won't! Even assuming a cash buyer, happy to proceed, the EA will have wasted their time preparing the sale to you, as will the vendor with solicitors fees.

I'm wondering why the vendor doesn't want to renew the lease - do they not have time? (surely it will take them longer to sell without!) Do they not have the money up front? (can their solicitors do something clever with a contract to take the money from the sale?)

AdrianC

project_c wrote: »

Here's the deal in a nutshell: estate agents first advertise property as "will be supplied with brand new lease". We double check this with agent, we make an offer and it is accepted. Then my solicitor starts conducting searches, finds only 66 years on lease. Both I and my solicitor assume this is just because vendor is in process of renewing - no problem! We contact solicitor of seller - no response. We contact agent, who replies with an email to say "vendor has agreed to extend, deal directly with their solicitor from here on". We pester the seller's solicitor, who eventually comes back to say they have received no instructions to extend any lease

So the vendor's told the EA that the place will be sold with a new lease. The EA have passed that on. The vendor's not told their solicitor yet.

Where's the lying? Where's the misrepresentation?

and the price of the property reflects the number of years left on the lease.

Umm, no. The price of the property, as agreed, was on the basis of a new lease (I presume there was a duration quoted on that?). Just because they haven't been instructed to renew the lease yet doesn't mean that isn't the deal.

We've been trying to contact them since, they take ages responding and don't seem very interested.

Your solicitor deals with their solicitor. You deal with your solicitor.

in which case, surely I can take legal action against him based on loss of funds due to misrepresentation?

No. You have no contract yet. Your solicitor has done the job you pay him for, and found out the state of the lease. No contract will be exchanged until the lease question is cleared up.

Right now, all you have is an apparent misunderstanding, no proof of any misrepresentation - not that you have a contract yet anyway.