Estate agents misselling - Please Help !

glentoran99

mo786uk wrote: »

The EA taking the vendors word for it would not IMO (and I stress that) be exercising due diligence. I would expect them to ask to see proof.

The EA have a duty to advertise accurately and the cost of doing checks should be incorporated into their fees.

When selling a house the estate agent doesn't get the house deeds or anything

mo786uk

But you miss the fundamental point that the law DOES place a duty on the trader to conduct checks to confirm accuracy of their descriptions -so we can sit here all day and say a consumer should check everything the EA or car dealer tells them but there is not necessarily a burden on them to do so.

There is no such thing as buyer beware in UK consumer law. The consumer protection from unfair trading regulations 2008 put an end to that largely.


http://www.legalrss.co.uk/dgblaw/estate-agents-property-misdescription-prosecution

mo786uk

To clarify my last post- in that case an EA was prosecuted for not putting out an accurate description in relation to the garden. The judgement states:

It was accepted that the garden was not of the size advertised, since it was 0.4 acres in size, rather than 0.75. The judge found this to be "clearly a significant difference; it is therefore both false and misleading." He also noted that it was accepted that the defendants relied upon the statement of the vendor about the size of the garden and had made no independent checks, and that the purchasers relied upon this statement, and again had no independent checks done; indeed, they only had a valuation and not a full sur-vey done on the property.

The same theory applies to this particular case with the lease but would be covered by the CPUTR 2008.

I would also stress that it would be reasonably easier to prove a criminal case as it is a question of whether it was right or not.

From a civil case it is as easy to show it was wrong but proving the loss is the harder part.

kinger101

mo786uk wrote: »

But you miss the fundamental point that the law DOES place a duty on the trader to conduct checks to confirm accuracy of their descriptions -so we can sit here all day and say a consumer should check everything the EA or car dealer tells them but there is not necessarily a burden on them to do so.

There is no such thing as buyer beware in UK consumer law. The consumer protection from unfair trading regulations 2008 put an end to that largely.

http://www.legalrss.co.uk/dgblaw/estate-agents-property-misdescription-prosecution

You're right, though it's not clear the extent to which the agent must go to verify the length of the lease. I believe they can take statements from the vendor at face value unless they have reason to doubt they are correct.

An issue here is that the loss isn't the extra money OP will have to pay for the lease. They made a decision to continue with the purchase, effectively demonstrating they were willing to pay the same amount for the shorter lease. Presumably the lender also had no objections.

Had they pull out of the sale, things might have been different. But again, the fact vendors solicitor should have alerted them to the discrepancy very early in the conveyancing process might not stand in their favour.

I wouldn't spend any money chasing this in courts, but I might do what I can for free (though EA then ombudsman). On the assumption my case is probably a bit flimsy.