Buying house nightmare

Muttleythefrog

steampowered's advice might not be so bad... a house purchase is a wide ranging assessment.. you have in that risk assessment.. your risk has altered significantly upwards I would suggest...and they may still be desperate to sell.. changing offer right down might be a gamble worth taking if you're prepared to walk away and stomach fees so far.

AlexMac

Wow- poor you. At least you can rant it out in front of us as a sympathetic audience; or Catharsis as the Greek Dramatists called it

Anyway; not much you can do about it now, except wait and hope, despite the wonderfully hind-sighty advice above to rewrite history?

Either the vendor has the right to sell this gaff, or she doesn't. If she does, it will be yours eventually. If not; that's what you pay your solicitors to protect you from. And advise you on any recourse.

... so make sure the solicitors are on the case... Including ensuring that neither you nor the solicitor fall for the current criminal email instruction to "transfer this big sum of money to the wrong criminal bank account"; It might be worth specifically warning them (in writing) that, given the prettting about, they should ring the receiving solicitor to confirm bank detail and avoid this common scam which you wil have read about. If your vendor really is flakey, she or her brief are maybe more prone to hacking of their email accounts (OK- just cos I'm paranoid don't mean thay ain't out to get me)

But to return to the substance of your grief, there really are only a couple of important issues>

Pinkycat1 wrote: »

The property is a leasehold all I can say is NEVER buy a leasehold property.

seller had changed dates and addresses on the gas certificate and on the lease document ... ground rent is £9 a year and she had this years to pay which she refused.

Most leaseholds are OK- and if the Ground rent is only £9; no big deal. I assume there's no weird escalating charge or OTT maintenance service charges or your lawyer would have told you

Pinkycat1 wrote: »

my solicitor got a call from the land registry office the had made an error and noted the probate certificate the seller had given was altered manually. So my solicitor stopped things and requested the original.
11. The seller said she felt stressed and refused to hand in the certificate and said she will post it. .

Shhssst; but as above; either she has the right to sell, or she doesn't... Yet? Maybe soon? Let's hope?

Pinkycat1 wrote: »

I feel I should of gone with my gut when things started going crazy and told them when the first document was tampered with to forget it and walked away.

Yeah- but all you can do now is hang tough, find out what's happening, and tell your solicitor not to rack up too many costs NOR part with your cash til it's Kosher.

Who knows, it will probably all turn out good... and be a tale to tell.

Of course- the cynic in me says, if you haven't already exchanged (and even if you arguably have done, but on the basis of false information about tenure), once all impediments are removed, you should now be planning to offer to exchange and complete on the same day....

... at a bleddy big discount on the agreed price!

(google "Gazundering")

Good luck

walwyn1978

Another vote to walk, I'm afraid. Dealing with people who have a flexible relationship with the truth/reality can be very hard at the best of times, if buying something like a house it could be much worse. The fake documents thing concerns me. Yes, you've lost money, but you would have dodged a potential bullet.

AnotherJoe

As I read this, you haven't exchanged and merely owe the solicitor money for work done so far.

You say the seller is "crazy". I suspect she isn't, just crooked.

YOU would be crazy to proceed. Pull out now. A few hundred quid compared to maybe hundreds of thousands at risk. That would be the actions of a crazy person, to carry on.

Don't end up being the "buyer" in a case like this, where they lost all their money (another cash buyer)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3356929/The-thieves-stole-wife-s-house-sold-1-3million.html


Anything happens to you after this, if you carry on, it's all down to you and your greed over not wanting to lose what you've paid your solicitors for work done so far. As long as you haven't exchanged, which you don't appear to have done, other monies paid to solicitor will be returned. Cancel it now.

nikkih72

I would of walked away at finding out LEASEHOLD ,,,, personally I would cut my losses, and walk away NOW !!!, Leasehold is the worse thing ever,,, walk away NOW !!!! before you loose more money. MP's are talking about it in HOC
https://www.facebook.com/groups/786983251448976/

You will find awful convenants in the LEASE... >>>>>WALK AWAY<<<<< best advise ever

Davesnave

nikkih72 wrote: »

I would have walked away at finding out LEASEHOLD ,,,, personally I would cut my losses, and walk away NOW !!!, Leasehold is the worse thing ever,,, walk away NOW !!!! before you loose more money. MP's are talking about it in HOC
https://www.facebook.com/groups/786983251448976/

You will find awful convenants in the LEASE... >>>>>WALK AWAY<<<<< best advice ever

Would you please not shout and use inappropriate ink. It insults the intelligence of others, who can understand normal text perfectly well.

Why do you think no others make contributions in this manner? We are not children.

For your information, there are good reasons why many properties, like flats, are leasehold.

NaughtiusMaximus

Davesnave wrote: »

Would you please not shout and use inappropriate ink. It insults the intelligence of others, who can understand normal text perfectly well.

Why do you think no others make contributions in this manner? We are not children.

For your information, there are good reasons why many properties, like flats, are leasehold.

Indeed. The property we're currently in the process of selling is a leasehold maisonette with the freeholder being the local council. There are a long list of covenants but none of them are unreasonable given the nature of the property and combined rent and service charge are less than £200 per year.

I would however run a mile from any property which is leasehold where there is no good reason for it to be, I'm thinking mainly of the current fad for new build houses (as opposed to flats) being leasehold.

davemorton

To add to the above comment, not all houses that are lease hold are the work of the devil either. A lease of 999 years at £9 a year is not such a bad thing, certainly not as bad as all these people banging on about leases make out. Yes, there is poisonous leases out there, but not all of them are that horrible.

cloo

Yeah, it sounds like there is too much at stake here. I'd walk away and maybe, just maybe, be prepared to go back to it if the vendor then stops dicking around and might come clean about some things/drop the price, agree to just go ahead and exchange cleanly etc.

teddysmum

As above, I would worry about the things that have not been disclosed and especially if she really does own the property. There is a thread on here where someone bought a house, only to have the sellers space turn up, claiming that she had forged his signature.


Would it be possible to have a word with the neighbours to see if there are any problems with the properties or possibly other parties who don't know about the sale of this house ?


I'm surprised that the sellers solicitor hasn't dumped her in case she tarnishes their reputation.