Fraud Act 2006 and Vendors who pull out

Doozergirl

A_Nice_Englishman wrote: »

Any reasonable person would also realise that planning applications take weeks to be processed and wouldn't commission a survey if he wasn't prepared to lose the fee if the planning permission wasn't granted and he decided not to purchase the property as a result.

Exactly... at what point would the vendor have persuaded the OP to have a survey carried out in order to 'cause loss'. It certainly wouldn't have been for personal gain.

This is conveyancing law, not criminal law. There's no case to answer; or any vendor who ever pulled out on a change of mind would be liable and we'd have merry hell on our hands. Right or wrong, there is no contract until exchange and the OP is best off putting it down to experience.

Always question your vendor's plans and never proceed until the chain is complete at both ends.

bgwuser

Thanks to everyone for their advice. Its hard to go into all of the details but via the estate agent, we were told that they had been to the planning department that day and approval would be through in 2-3 weeks. With this reassurance we instructed a surveyor. It was a full week before he went to do the survey - and they pulled out 2 days later. THEN we found out they had lied about the planning application. If we had known they had not applied we would not have instructed the surveyor. When we were told by the agent that we might be in a position to exchange in 2-3 weeks we had to instruct the surveyor asap. Hence our grievance. Its not just a simple case of someone changing their minds. We have bought and sold a number of houses and walked away from deals and lost survey fees - but never like this.

silvercar

Even if they had applied for PP, you would have paid for the survey before you would have found out if PP had been granted or refused. In other words you have demonstrated that you were prepared to pay for the survey before finding out if PP would be granted.

In any case, vendors can pull out for any reason prior to exchange. All costs you incur prior to exchange are in the knowledge that the vendor could pull out and you will have lost money.

bgwuser

Yes but the planning department had already told us that no enforcement action would be taken because the offending additions had been in place for almost 5 years. All that had to be done to legalise it was for the vendors to seek retrospective PP.

silvercar

bgwuser wrote: »

Yes but the planning department had already told us that no enforcement action would be taken because the offending additions had been in place for almost 5 years. All that had to be done to legalise it was for the vendors to seek retrospective PP.

This is a bit muddled. The length of time means that no enforcement action can take place so PP is not needed. It doesn't therefore mean that the vendor should apply for retrospective PP, retrospective PP is unnecessary. Retrospective PP is used where something is built without PP but an neforcement could take place so PP is applied for after the event.

A_Nice_Englishman

OK so the planning permission was a red herring.

What was the false representation again?

blue_haddock

Give up and move on would be my advice

bgwuser

A_Nice_Englishman wrote: »

OK so the planning permission was a red herring.

What was the false representation again?

Im sure you are a nice englishman but would you spend your life savings on a house without PP when a simple application for retrospective PP would make everything legal? It would only cost the vendors 135 because they had all of the original drawings etc. :eek: We feel its about time that people were just HONEST.

dmg24

I believe you also have an issue here in showing 'intent' on the part of the vendor. It would be difficult to prove that they intended to cause you loss.

A_Nice_Englishman

bgwuser wrote: »

Im sure you are a nice englishman but would you spend your life savings on a house without PP when a simple application for retrospective PP would make everything legal? It would only cost the vendors 135 because they had all of the original drawings etc. :eek: We feel its about time that people were just HONEST.

No I wouldn't, but I would spend a few hundred pounds on commissioning a survey on a house I was interested in buying. If I was concerned about the PP (even though the planning department had assured me that no enforcement action would be taken) I would wait until the paperwork had been done.

What was the false representation made by the vendor again?