Advice Wanted Please!!

MattHouseBuy

Hello,

I had an offer accepted on a two bed flat in South London (Zone 4) in October. I had the relevant surveys done on the property including a damp and timber specialist and a roofer and invested around £1300 including some up front solicitor costs.

The flat had a very low lease which the seller kindly offered to increase to 125 years and this has gone through. However, since then very little has happened and months go by without much happening at all.

My solicitors and the seller's solicitors are constantly waiting for the management company(Hamilton King)'s solicitors to get back to responses and they literally take a month to reply. They appear to be the biggest bunch of clowns going.

The whole deal is hinging on the management company's solicitors agreeing to three enquiries but a month has gone by without any form of response from Hamilton King's solicitors.

The only people I can speak to are my solicitor and estate agent and I can;t go direct to Hamilton King for any answers, otherwise i'd be on their case 24/7 demanding updates. As it is, i'm totally at their mercy and in the dark. It's unbelievably frustrating as my life is in total limbo.

I am keen to persevere as I know I will make quite a lot of money on the purchase seeing as house prices in the area have gone up quite a lot. The flat is also perfect for my requirements in terms of space and location. In this time I have been priced out of the market and can't afford a property in the area any more.

My dilemma is, do I hold out in the hope that one day this deal actually goes through and continue to rent or should I start looking for other properties further out or in commuter towns? WHat is to say I won't find myself in a similar position six months/a year down the line?

Does anyone have any experience of a situation that took forever like this and how did it get resolved?

Any advice or similar experiences would be greatly appreciated as I am in a real bother and don't really have any reference points to go by.

Thanks,

Matt

Loanranger

What advice does your solicitor give?
They are the people you need to approach. They may well have experience of this management company.

MattHouseBuy

Hi LoanRanger, My solicitor is fairly useless for advice and don;t have any experience of this management company. They do say it's highly unusual for a management company to take this long responding to enquiries though.

hazyjo

They usually charge for it (several hundred sometimes). Has the vendor paid? Maybe that's where the problem lies...

Jx

Samsonite1

Chase your solicitor daily, they hold the power but need pushing all the way.

bouicca21

My purchase took ages - the vendor was so fed up that he started doorstepping the management company.

eddddy

You need to push the seller - perhaps via the EA.

Then the seller needs to push their management company, who in turn should push their solicitors.

There's no point pushing your solicitor - realistically, there's nothing they can really do about this.

The seller is the only person with leverage against the management company. And ultimately, it's only the seller that can take action against them.

The management company have no duty towards you (the buyer) or your solicitor.

[Deleted User]

What is your seller's position in terms of their need to move and soon? If they are as keen to move on as you are, they would hopefully be doing everything they can to push their management company for the answers. You could try and make them a bit keener still by voicing your frustration, and/or starting to look at other properties.

What are the queries, and could any of them be covered in the meantime by a retention from the sale? e.g. if the question is 'what is the final service charge for 2015-16, and this portion of 2016?' then your solicitor could retain an amount from your deposit, that would only be divided up and released to the seller and yourself when the bill comes in.

At the end of the day, it's annoying to have to wait, but if it gets you a better flat than you could otherwise afford, perhaps it's worth hanging on for. Good luck.

Cheeky_Monkey

I would be very nervous about this if I were you. In the 8 months since your offer was accepted, it's likely that the value of the flat could have increased significantly due to its location and the fact that the seller has extended the lease.

I hope the seller doesn't come back to you asking for more money or, worse still, sell it to someone else :eek:

agrinnall

I would have concerns that if the management company are so slow to respond to these request what will they be like when the roof has a big hole in it and the sewers have collapsed?