Bought leasehold flat and major work not disclosed

dirtycredit

My solicitor had the audacity to shout down the phone to me "Well do you want to buy the flat or not?" BEFORE SHE HAD COMPLETED THE SEARCHES!! Unbelievable.

It's as if they are doing us favour and we are not paying for their service!!

I'm paying £12000 (God help me) for council works at the moment. At least a year before you get notice to pay you are informed that the consultation and the tendering process have started so someone knew long before you bought the property .I also believe that the works have to go through Planning. These are all things that the solictior should have checked. It's not difficult, it's all in the public realm and it's what you was paying them to do!

In the meantime £23000 is a lot of money and i don't know how it works with HA's but my council let me me have 2 years interest free monthly payments. I'm not sure if this is a rule for all public freeholders but it's worth checking.

Good luck i hope you and your son get this sorted.

moneyistooshorttomention

Speaking personally - and I am now totally convinced that Councils and Housing Associations are being quite deliberate in coming up with these huge bills. The reason being = they didn't want public sector housing being bought in the first place. Now I do sympathise with that idea - as I don't agree with it either - and do fully acknowledge that I personally just got dead lucky (for once:cool:) about being able to "have my cake and eat it" re being in public sector housing and having to be given that "Right to Buy" discount BUT not being allowed to have it on the particular flat I had (aka = the one time in my life where I actually got lucky for once - whew!).

I honestly think that Councils/Housing Associations ever since that era have been deliberately coming up with these Big Bills on owners of what-should-be-their property. So I do sympathise with the public sector should-be-owners on the one hand BUT on the other hand think they really should differentiate between the people who were renting AT THAT POINT IN TIME and took advantage:cool: of the chance to buy that property for a lot less than it was worth on the one hand V. those people who have bought it on subsequently by the "took chance when they had it merchants" that happened to be renting at the time that chance was available.

Hence - I don't think its fair personally to "belt round the head" someone who has bought the former public sector flat etc in all innocence (ie thinking its "past history" was behind it and it was now a standard private sector flat) on the one hand and those people who have taken advantage of the chance of buying a public sector home on the other hand. Hence I don't think its fair to "belt" the SUBSEQUENT buyers personally - because THEY weren't the ones that reduced the amount of public sector housing by buying the one that they rented personally.

There has to be some way to differentiate between "guilty parties" and "those who bought the place later" and penalise the first category, but leave the second category alone (ie because they weren't the ones that removed one unit of public sector housing from being available).....

....hence I tend to favour making it very plain in circumstances like this that I personally wasn't the one that "grabbed for" public sector housing and made it unavailable to anyone else subsequently - and I think that might receive a rather more sympathetic response. I do suspect that, in these circumstances, the person at said bit of Public Sector might well be a LOT more sympathetic if they knew the person they were dealing with WASNT the one that removed that particular bit of public sector housing from being available iyswim (ie because they were a subsequent buyer that bought it afterwards in all innocence iyswim - and not taking account of the fact it used to be Public Sector). They didn't "do the crime - so they shouldn't do the time" basically.

iammumtoone

OP good luck I hope it all works out for your son.

I hate it when I read threads like this, it just makes me think what do we pay professionals for? If you know in advance what they check and what they don't you could do more digging yourself but when you rightly assume you are paying someone else to check these things, why would you also do your own research.

magpiecottage

37eeyore wrote: »

That's what I think my solicitor should have done. unfortunately she disagrees!

In that case, you can tell her that you are making a complaint against her. That will mean if her firm does not come up with a satisfactory response within eight weeks, you can take it to the Legal Ombudsman for an independent opinion (free to you).

The Legal Ombudsman can make legally binding awards against solicitors (up to £35,000, I think).

37eeyore

Spoke to someone from the housing association today. She told me that they will only give information to their client or their solicitor. This means my solicitor couldn't have got the information any other way than how she did, so I don't really have a case against her.
The housing association also said that they didn't have any work planned until they served the section 20 notices so they didn't do anything wrong and they have to be careful not to unnecessarily spoil their clients chance of a sale.

dirtycredit

I honestly think that Councils/Housing Associations ever since that era have been deliberately coming up with these Big Bills on owners of what-should-be-their property. So I do sympathise with the public sector should-be-owners on the one hand BUT on the other hand think they really should differentiate between the people who were renting AT THAT POINT IN TIME and took advantage:cool: of the chance to buy that property for a lot less than it was worth on the one hand V. those people who have bought it on subsequently by the "took chance when they had it merchants" that happened to be renting at the time that chance was available.

My London ex council flat was bought off the council in the 80's and I am the second owner so no big discounts here. I'm in the middle of council works. An example - i've just been made to pay (just my share apparently!) of £700 for a new intercom. The standard of work is SHOCKING. There is nowhere on the buzzer panel to put your door number so no one knows what buzzer they are pressing! All i get fom them is "well if you wanted a better intercom you would have paid more." There are four flats in my block so apparently the intercom alone is worth £2800.:rotfl: They probably would have charged an extra grand for them little plastic things that most intercom buzzers have where you put the door number!! The installed my neighbours new intercom phone next to the old phone.. they just left the old one up!! So she has two sitting on her wall in her hallway!! It's that bad. I could go on..

Anyway i think we can all guess where the money goes..the tender gets put out and whoever offers the big cheese at the council the biggest back hander gets the contract, this is why they must inflate the quotes to cover these (ahem) 'added costs'.

dirtycredit

37eeyore - I don't know if you have an ex council place yourself or have been through this but when your son has the workmen in can I offer a few words of advice. I don't mean to scare you but I really wish I had known these things before I had the work done:

Before they start try to imagine everywhere they might cut corners. Believe me they will cut every single corner they can.

On the day of the job make sure the workmen or liason officer explains EXACTLY how they are going to go about the work. If you are not happy about something tell them and be very firm and if you need time to think tell them to come back another day. I learned that its easier to get your own way before the work starts rather than getting them back to change something.

They will pressure you into having everything done in the way that is easiest/quickest for them to do it not in the way it should be done properly. Be firm and remember you're paying for it you should have it done your way not their way.

Do not complete any questionnaires about your level of satisfaction with the work before its totally complete. They will pop round all friendly and ask you the questions in front of the workmen so you feel pressured to answer a certain way. This is a trick so that if you complain they will start waving the questionnarire answers around.

When they request that you take a day off work to give them access to the flat tell them that if they miss the appointment you will complain straight away to their boss. I lost 4 days annual leave where they never even turned up or called to say they were not coming.

DC x

37eeyore

Hopefully most of the work is on the building and doesn't require access to the flat. The windows may be the only thing but we're trying to persuade them that we don't want ours done. If they do come in, I'll remember your advice, thanks.

mashauk

I'm just in the middle of a similar situation, i.e. I don't believe my vendor disclosed it to my solicitor who I'll be calling tomorrow. I was going to rent the flat out in a few months time. I bought it in September.

I read somewhere that new limits had been brought into place, that specified you can't be charged more than £10k, or £15k if you live in London, as long as it's your primary residence, if not there's no limits (so that's my plans scuppered til I get the figures).

Anyone know if this law actually came in? I think it was called Florrie's law (after a poor old lady that got a bill for something like £50k for works). I can't find out however if the law went through, and am assuming not if your son received a bill for £23k.

Lioness_Twinkletoes

mashauk wrote: »

I'm just in the middle of a similar situation, i.e. I don't believe my vendor disclosed it to my solicitor who I'll be calling tomorrow. I was going to rent the flat out in a few months time. I bought it in September.

I read somewhere that new limits had been brought into place, that specified you can't be charged more than £10k, or £15k if you live in London, as long as it's your primary residence, if not there's no limits (so that's my plans scuppered til I get the figures).

Anyone know if this law actually came in? I think it was called Florrie's law (after a poor old lady that got a bill for something like £50k for works). I can't find out however if the law went through, and am assuming not if your son received a bill for £23k.

Florrie's law only applies to works that are partly or wholly funded by the Government and caps contributions at £10k outside London and £15k within London.