shared ownership trust question

dannyjebb

Hi all, looking for people's thoughts on this?

We our selling our shared ownership apartment, the housing trust have the right to put it to customers on their register for the first 4 weeks as per our contract with them. We informed them 2 weeks ago of our intention to sell, last monday they rang us to find out dates for an open house viewing, we agreed on Saturday and they WROTE to all customers on their database inviting them to a viewing on Saturday. Now I have 2 problems with this, the letters wouldn't arrive until Thursday so most people would have made plans already and they can't actually tell if people are interested but can't make that viewing day. I am baffled as to why they didn't ring, especially at such short notice. 2 people came to view, one who didn't have a mortgage and the other was someone I had directed to the housing trust after a little advertisement on a facebook page so I told them on Monday that they could come on Saturday. We rang the trust on Wednesday for any feedback and they said they hadn't heard anything so we asked if they had called the potential buyers for feedback and they hadn't. They then said we could put it to the open market

My main question is, the trust have said we need to pay £250 for admin fees, they have literally done nothing apart from send out a few letters and answered 2 phone calls to confirm viewings. They haven't even put the apartment on their website as available which is where I think we can argue to not pay the admin fees as listing on their website is written in the contract.

Could anyone advise me if we would have a case in not paying this admin fee? I would be happy to pay it if they had been pro active but it just feels like we have wasted 2 weeks.

We have our perfect house we want to put an offer on but can't until we get an offer on ours. There must be people out there as next door but 1 which is identical sold a few weeks ago with an estate agent after being with the trust for 3 weeks and the owner said he had 3 people come to view all who put an offer in.

Many thanks

TBagpuss

I doubt it.
While you feel (with some justification) that they haven't done much, they do appear to have gone through the motions - things like seeking feedback are not their responsaibility, and you knew from the start, when you bought the property, that there was a requirement to let them have 4 weeks to offer the property to others before marketing it yourselves.

SparksAlive

Is there anything in your contract about the admin fee? You say that them listing houses on their website is mentioned, does it list the fee and anything else they're obliged to do?

dannyjebb

Hi in the paperwork it says an admin fee may apply for resales, doesn't give an actual fee

Thanks