House buyer dropped out for second time - leasehold garage

CarolineT218

Hia guys,

I'm shamelessly looking for a bit of hope in what is looking like an ever-worsening situation. My house is a three bed, semi detatched in a good area with a leasehold garage. We pay £55 a year for insurance of the leasehold, no rent and it has 120 years left.

Our house has been bought twice, both people being well-aware of the leasehold situation and saying they were fine with it only to back out a few weeks later. Let me be completely clear here - as far as I am concerned there are no issues we have experienced with our garage being leasehold. But it is scaring people off, despite them knowing everything up front about it.

After we sold the first time, we put £2,000 down on our next house. The first time the buyer backed out the developer was lovely and gave us extra time to resell (we did within five days). But now it has happened again I am pretty sure they aren't going to hold the property for us. I have accepted we have probably lost our new home.

I am looking for some help in seeing if there is anything I can do to help our situation of selling. We are now in a position of the house going back on the market for a third time which I believe will lead people to think there is something wrong with the property. There really isn't, but people aren't to know that. I am so worried we are going to go through this again and again, if we even manage to get a new buyer.

Please someone who has been through this give me some hope or give me some pointers to help this situation. I am getting very depressed with it all. I understand if people aren't interested in a leasehold garage there is nothing I can do about it. But is there anything I can do to reassure people who are interested? Is there something I am doing wrong perhaps?

Thank you in advance.

ReadingTim

There will always be a slight element of risk associated with leasehold that simply isn't present with freehold. Therefore, if you're comparing your property with one which includes a garage on the freehold, then yours is always going to be less attractive if they're priced the same.

The solution is to drop the price, so your property is more attractive, even with the (tiny) risk associated with the leasehold garage. The property has sold before - it will sell again, but maybe not for what you've currently priced it at.

Sorry if this isn't what you want to hear.

Harryp_24

you put £2k down as a holding fee without contracts? Damn that is so dumb.

Edit- didnt see developer. move along

eddddy

You need to try to get more specific details about why the buyers have pulled out.

As you say, they knew the garage was leasehold - so it's unlikely to be that reason alone.

If their solicitors have advised them to withdraw, you need to find out exactly what their solicitors said and why.

(TBH, a good EA should have quizzed the buyers about this anyway.)

CarolineT218

Thanks @ReadingTim. We did this the last time it sold. It's on for the same asking price as others have been up for on our road but we accepted less last time because of this and it is a good point. I am loathe to drop it officially in case it leads to any future offers being lower still. But it is a good point to bear in mind and I am not against doing it.

CarolineT218

Yup @eddddy we're requesting the paperwork our solicitor is sending out to go through it completely to see if there are any skeletons in there we don't know about. You're right, something about it has spooked them considering we had told them everything from the start.

I'll request the estate agent dealing with it gives me a full reason for the drop out this time too. Thank you.

LittleMax

Is it a straightforward garage in a block - or a garage with a coachhouse over it? If the latter this may be worrying to buyers. But as eddddy says, if you are being up front with your buyers, it sounds like it is something that is being explained to them by their solicitor that then puts them off. If indeed it is the garage at all.

Is it possible to sell the house without the garage? Or at least price it that way so that the garage is a bonus. How far away is the garage? For many people a garage in a block is not used anyway, and so when you factor in the leasehold it becomes a liability that's not worth it. They can buy a house without a garage for less. Price will become a factor.

CarolineT218

Hi LittleMax,

It's under a coach house. I have just gone back to our EA now and said to ask them for more details. He was useless and didn't want to so I put my foot down. He clearly hadn't a clue as to exactly why they pulled out but reckoned it was because of her talking with friends (which you obviously can't do anything about), but he confirmed they knew everything about the garage beforehand because I had explicitly said to make them completely aware. So as you say, something is scaring them. Hopefully he can get a better response this time.

Hmm I hadn't thought of that. It hadn't occurred to me people might not use the garage, simply because we do! We use it as a gym/car park every night. It's just across from our house so not out of the way for us. The problem would be how you phrase it as an extra add on because surely by mentioning it in the sales stuff you make it included in the price, and yet if you don't mention it then you're ignoring part of what you are selling.

Maybe we should drop it by £10,000 like everyone is saying...

LittleMax wrote: »

Is it a straightforward garage in a block - or a garage with a coachhouse over it? If the latter this may be worrying to buyers. But as eddddy says, if you are being up front with your buyers, it sounds like it is something that is being explained to them by their solicitor that then puts them off. If indeed it is the garage at all.

Is it possible to sell the house without the garage? Or at least price it that way so that the garage is a bonus. How far away is the garage? For many people a garage in a block is not used anyway, and so when you factor in the leasehold it becomes a liability that's not worth it. They can buy a house without a garage for less. Price will become a factor.

hazyjo

I had a house with 2 LH garages which were underneath a flat. The vendors didn't tell us which was soooo annoying but wasn't enough to make us pull out (we'd lost a couple of houses along the way, and after around a year didn't really want to start looking again for the sake of £100 or so a yea). When we sold, I did make sure it was written on the details. Might have put some people off - but I just wanted to be upfront about it.


I know you've been telling them, but was it actually on the details? Make sure it is for the next time. I also suspect there's another reason.


Is the house definitely FH?


I'd just try again - get it on the market, test the waters, and see if you can get a buyer quickly. Tell the developer, and hope they hang on. You don't have to say it's the same issue, be as vague as you can.


Good luck.


Jx

LittleMax

CarolineT218 wrote: »

Hi LittleMax,

It's under a coach house. I have just gone back to our EA now and said to ask them for more details. He was useless and didn't want to so I put my foot down. He clearly hadn't a clue as to exactly why they pulled out but reckoned it was because of her talking with friends (which you obviously can't do anything about), but he confirmed they knew everything about the garage beforehand because I had explicitly said to make them completely aware. So as you say, something is scaring them. Hopefully he can get a better response this time.

If you weren't there for the viewings can you really be sure he told them about the garage? He sounds lazy to me. I doubt he will have volunteered information to them unless they asked - and I doubt it will have occurred to them to ask.

My money is on it coming as a shock to them about the leasehold when they got the paperwork. If it were me I would be there for the viewings.

CarolineT218

I completely understand your speculation, especially as the EA doesn't sound the greatest. But on this one I do believe him simply because before we sold it for the second time he told me they'd had someone ringing up after a viewing asking about the fees for the leasehold garage. So if they told that one person I don't believe they would hold back on the rest, especially as I was so specific about it. I also asked when we got the offer in and were negotiating if they were aware and he said he had told them all the fees etc and they were fine with it. This is what has me so stumped. Do you think they would explicitly lie about it? I'm curious as to how many EAs would do this, especially after the debacle of the first buyer and my demands.

One of the other posters has said about being explicit about the leasehold garage on the details online, which I think might be the way to go. Then hopefully no nasty surprises at all.

LittleMax wrote: »

If you weren't there for the viewings can you really be sure he told them about the garage? He sounds lazy to me. I doubt he will have volunteered information to them unless they asked - and I doubt it will have occurred to them to ask.

My money is on it coming as a shock to them about the leasehold when they got the paperwork. If it were me I would be there for the viewings.