How do I progress and fix this horror story?

tzzt123

Hello, Everybody,!

I'm a first-time buyer who got into what I feel is a horror story, so any advice would help.

3 months ago, after a long period of saving up and looking for a house, we found a newly renovated flat in a converted building.
When we viewed the apartment, the agent who was selling it stated that the apartment was ready to move into as soon as we pay, literally on the same day, if it was possible. We were looking to move to a place that was available quickly and so that was a major part of our decision to purchase the property.

Since then, things drastically changed in terms of moving in:

it's been 3 months, with no prospect of when we would be able to move in. Not even an estimated date. We have our mortgage ready, but the developer and the agent have been playing games.

Not only that, in between, we've realized that both the agent and the developer have been dishonest about a bunch of things:
Marketing - the apartment was advertised as luxury apartments, however, materials used are the cheapest on the market.

The agents changed their answers about the moving date from 'you can move in now' to 'the place will be ready for you to move into by the time your mortgage is sorted, to ''we have a few things to finish and we are working on them' to no answers at all.

We took a pragmatic approach and asked about the timescale for each step (building completion, surveys, etc) but we were dates for things that never happened.

Each time the agent was caught in not providing us with correct information, they refused to take ownership and claimed they were only 'the messenger''.

When we asked for details, such as the details of the surveyor, the pretended it was very difficult to get. I actually got those details from the council and found out that on contrary to their statements, the surveyor was never called.

Financial information about our mortgage was shared with people outside the deal without our consent.

The building manager came to do the snagging, creating the impression they were going to move us in. He was late to the meeting, when he came, spend another half hour on the phone, then refused to write anything down, filled us with incorrect answers (example: the bathtub does not require any sealing around it) and just to make things better - he insisted on trying to sell us furniture. I, later on, asked them to provide me the list of what he went through, and they didn't have it. They did state that everything on the list has been fixed, but I went to see the apartment and found out it wasn't.

Every time we call and ask for information, we get promises to help, mostly rude representatives or people who just say things that sound right, without any actions. We get sob stories about the manager having to work overtime or 'not being told the truth by the developer', yet somehow they refuse to ask the developer for more evidence every time there is a new statement.

We've paid a non-refundable reservation fee on the apartment and hired a lawyer to work on the sale in good faith, but nothing is progressing. The building does not look like anyone is working on it and in fact, we've managed to visit the place a few times, and seen no progress. No team of buildings is working on the building to finish anything other than a painter who does a bit of cleaning, small paint jobs, and mainly securing the place.

I know they only sold a few apartments, and I have a feeling they are stalling because they want to wait until they sell more in order to finish the rest of the work.

We so far have extended our current rent contract, have no idea how to plan, we lost trust in the agent and the developer, paid the lawyer and the deposit fee, lost 3 months, and of course, the frustration and the feeling of being held ransom are only growing.

We also have got attached to the place and ideally, would like to have it, but at the same time, have fear growing that this is what's it's going to to be even after we purchase - cheap materials, no service, dishonesty, etc.

Any ideas?

Doozergirl

Cut your losses and run. How large was the reservation fee?

As rambling as your post is, it doesn't sound at all right.

All apartments are marketed as 'luxury' so I'd learn that for future experience.

tzzt123

@DoozerGirl: the reservation fee was 2,000gbp. The Memorandum of Sale never included me agreeing to misrepresentation of the property or even committing fraud (assuming the agent and the builder knew the property was not ready when taking my money)

Beyond that - If I pull out, I will be at loss of 4000-5000 pounds (And that was money saved up for this, which again would put us months backwards, I would lose 3 months, and of course, have to start from scratch, while the greedy developer and agent are going to possibly do the same for the next buyers.

walwyn1978

It doesn't sound great. And if the materials being used are cheap, and this is the way they've behaved so far, it doesn't look promising for aftersales snagging etc.

How much are you into this for in total so far? Can you afford to write that off? If you can, I would.

prosaver

Might be a scam and doing it to loads of people on the same flat
Anyway is it freehold ? Whats the maintance charges?

tzzt123

@It's a lot of money.

The developer's solicitor sent ours the lease to review, but so far stalled in answering any questions, wasting our solicitor's time. They then decided they were going to change the lease and send a new one for our solicitor to review, wasting more time, that we will eventually have to potentially pay for. That's in addition to all the surveys that the solicitor has already paid for.

We're looking at 4000-5000 pounds. It took us quite a while to save for this, and not to mention the fact that if this is really not right, we shouldn't let developers have the licence to treat the citizens of this country in this way. If they don't know how to treat buyers fairly and won't improve, they shouldn't be doing business here.

Not doing anything about it because it's someone else's problem is only giving the developer an opportunity and the go-ahead to continue behaving this way and ultimately this is part of why real estate in the UK is so expensive and difficult for first-time buyers.

tzzt123

@prosaver:

They are asking for an estimate of about 1,000 a year. It's a building with 50 apartments. When the site manager came over he said it's only for the first few months and then after all the tenants would be able to choose their own management solution.

G_M

Talk toyour solicitor about getting a refund on the reservation fee.

Or just read the paperwork. It must somewhere mention timescales and/or refund criteria.

last resort you sue on basis of misrepresentation to get the fee refunded.

But walk away.

walwyn1978

My (wild) guess is that it's either a scam, and the stuff will never actually be finished, or more likely the company are struggling financially and trying their best to sign up more people to get cash in to start finishing off. Either way, you're left waiting and hoping.

You say you could lose 5k. Although that's a big sum to walk away from, you could spend double that on legal trying to get your money back or force a resolution, or alternatively if they do finish but have done a cheap rush/botch job spend double that fixing the inevitable issues to make the house work for you. I know it's a hard call to make but I'd be writing off the money and starting again, however much that hurts. Good luck.

tzzt123

G_M: That's what I was thinking as an alternative. Currently, I feel like we are being bullied into this. There is no way for us to complain because no one is doing anything. We are being lied to about the timescale and progress of the building, and the developer knows we are eager to move into the place and have nothing else aligned. They also know what we've spent on so far and know it would be difficult to just walk away.

In addition, taking this with a lawyer is also an expense we might not have, especially after moving in with all the rest of the expenses.

By definition, at least in the US - misrepresentation means that it wasn't intentional, while fraud means they agent/developer knew what they were talking about and still provided us with incorrect information while taking our money.

Do you know of any examples of this happening and what the result was? in terms of compensation, and what happened to the developer?

tzzt123

True, but also know the developer is going to do this to other people, possibly first time buyers who saved up the money for a long time. That's wrong, and knowing they are going to treat people in the same way and not doing anything about is not right.