Fraud Act 2006 and Vendors who pull out

dmg24

The CPS should only bring a case if it is in the public interest. I would hope that (along with not fulfilling the mens rea for the offence) the case would not pass this test.

I really do hope that the vendors find out about MSE and this post in particular, and can get help and support for their part in this ridiculous situation.

bgwuser

dmg24 wrote: »

I actually feel sorry for the vendors here, and would be interested to hear their perspective on this. I do not for a minute believe that they meant you any malice, nor did they intend for you to incur a loss as a result of their actions.

I was looking at selling my home soon, but if prospective buyers are going to act like this I don't think I'll bother.

So... if you were trying to sell your house and a buyer came along who was not in a chain and offered you the full asking price in exchange for you getting your illegal extensions sorted out with the LA (which you should have done when you built the extensions)- Would you turn down the deal?
If so.. you really do NOT want to move. So PLEASE dont waste everybodys time and money.

This is why a case like this needs to be raised and discussed. If people behaved more honourably then maybe fewer chains would break down and everybody would be better off. (Except the surveyors and solicitors who would have fewer searches and surveys to bill out to would be purchasers who have been let down.)

dmg24

bgwuser wrote: »

So... if you were trying to sell your house and a buyer came along who was not in a chain and offered you the full asking price in exchange for you getting your illegal extensions sorted out with the LA (which you should have done when you built the extensions)- Would you turn down the deal?
If so.. you really do NOT want to move. So PLEASE dont waste everybodys time and money.

This is why a case like this needs to be raised and discussed. If people behaved more honourably then maybe fewer chains would break down and everybody would be better off. (Except the surveyors and solicitors who would have fewer searches and surveys to bill out to would be purchasers who have been let down.)

It is fine to discuss such an issue, and it is unfortunate that the sale is no longer going ahead. But to attempt to get the vendor charged with a criminal offence? That is just petty.

Nenen

dmg24 wrote: »

It is fine to discuss such an issue, and it is unfortunate that the sale is no longer going ahead. But to attempt to get the vendor charged with a criminal offence? That is just petty.

I'm sorry but I think some people are being a little harsh to the OP... even if you don't agree about the situation regarding planning permission, I don't think it is 'petty' to report something you consider to be a deliberate fraud to the police. If one of you had your purse/wallet pinched and as little as £50 taken I doubt you would think it was 'petty' to report it and for the person concerned to get a criminal record if convicted. If the vendors did deliberately defraud the OP of several hundred pounds then IMHO this is just as much of a theft as someone snatching a wallet/purse. The OP has clearly stated that he did not threaten legal action until AFTER they had cancelled the sale and he found out they had deliberately misled him causing him to pay for an unnecessary survey. IMHO it is irrelevant whether or not the PP was needed... it is the fact that they lied to him and then pulled out so soon after the survey for no good reason. I don't think it is morally right that the vendor can do this (even if it is currently legal) without at least having to repay the prospective buyer's costs incurred to date.

The OP is certainly not the first (and probably won't be the last) person to be several hundred (if not thousand) pounds out of pocket because of dishonesty from either vendors, buyers or EAs in the housing market. We have sold 4 houses in total over the last 25 years.... in just those 4 cases we had one totally dishonest buyer who strung us along and lied to us (as did the EA) causing us to lose our dream home and several thousand pounds. We also had two totally dishonest abortive vendors, both of whom cost us large amounts of money. Perhaps we've just been unlucky but because of these experiences I can truely empathise with the OP. Both times we have had no choice but to 'walk away' and 'move on'. However, if there is ANY way in which the law can be changed to ensure that deliberately dishonest people cannot get away with this (and I can make my next purchase with more of peace of mind) then I for one would willingly donate a big propertion of my taxes to get this sorted out.

Irrespective of the situation regarding planning permission, what I am interested in personally is, whether the current situation regarding 'no compensation for costs incurred can be considered until after contracts have been exchanged' will be altered if a test case is successfully brought in a case where intent and dishonesty prior to exchange can be proved. Even kunekune (who is a criminal lawyer) says "It is difficult to know how this Act will work, because it is so new."

I remain eager to know how it goes... good luck bgwuser

Guy_Montag

Nenen wrote: »

I'm sorry but I think some people are being a little harsh to the OP... even if you don't agree about the situation regarding planning permission, I don't think it is 'petty' to report something you consider to be a deliberate fraud to the police. If one of you had your purse/wallet pinched and as little as £50 taken I doubt you would think it was 'petty' to report it and for the person concerned to get a criminal record if convicted. If the vendors did deliberately defraud the OP of several hundred pounds then IMHO this is just as much of a theft as someone snatching a wallet/purse. The OP has clearly stated that he did not threaten legal action until AFTER they had cancelled the sale and he found out they had deliberately misled him causing him to pay for an unnecessary survey. IMHO it is irrelevant whether or not the PP was needed... it is the fact that they lied to him and then pulled out so soon after the survey for no good reason. I don't think it is morally right that the vendor can do this (even if it is currently legal) without at least having to repay the prospective buyer's costs incurred to date.

The OP is certainly not the first (and probably won't be the last) person to be several hundred (if not thousand) pounds out of pocket because of dishonesty from either vendors, buyers or EAs in the housing market. We have sold 4 houses in total over the last 25 years.... in just those 4 cases we had one totally dishonest buyer who strung us along and lied to us (as did the EA) causing us to lose our dream home and several thousand pounds. We also had two totally dishonest abortive vendors, both of whom cost us large amounts of money. Perhaps we've just been unlucky but because of these experiences I can truely empathise with the OP. Both times we have had no choice but to 'walk away' and 'move on'. However, if there is ANY way in which the law can be changed to ensure that deliberately dishonest people cannot get away with this (and I can make my next purchase with more of peace of mind) then I for one would willingly donate a big propertion of my taxes to get this sorted out.

Irrespective of the situation regarding planning permission, what I am interested in personally is, whether the current situation regarding 'no compensation for costs incurred can be considered until after contracts have been exchanged' will be altered if a test case is successfully brought in a case where intent and dishonesty prior to exchange can be proved. Even kunekune (who is a criminal lawyer) says "It is difficult to know how this Act will work, because it is so new."

I remain eager to know how it goes... good luck bgwuser

I hope you, the OP & the OP's vendors never have to go through being "the test case". If this goes further, the vendors will be taken into the police station under caution, they will have swabs taken of their dna. They will endure many months of uncertainty not knowing what will happen to them - even if all charges are dropped they will have been through many months of difficult, degrading & expensive trauma - over what is & should be a civil matter.

It certainly does not sound like there was any intent to defraud, the PP issue sounds like it was irrelevant, so it simply comes down to the vendor pulling out at the last minute.

Yes the house buying/selling system in England needs an overhaul, but not by turning otherwise law abiding citizens into criminals.

All the OP should want & expect is the money spent on surveyors back, that is a civil matter. The last thing we need in this country is more lives destroyed because a sudden & unexpected change of circumstances leads them to pull out of what? a contract? No contract was signed, a verbal agreement then? How many of us can truly say we've never broken a verbal agreement?

Nenen

Guy_Montag wrote: »

All the OP should want & expect is the money spent on surveyors back, that is a civil matter.

I agree entirely it should be a civil matter... the problem at the moment appears to me to be that there is no civil redress available therefore the OP has the choice of either accepting the loss of several hundred/thousand pounds when he believes the vendors deliberately lied to him or trying for criminal action as he believes that they 'made untrue or misleading representation ...that caused loss to another or exposed another to a risk of loss' . Unfortunately, the third (civil) option is not available

Guy_Montag wrote: »

I hope you...... never have to go through being "the test case"....The last thing we need in this country is more lives destroyed because a sudden & unexpected change of circumstances leads them to pull out

I would hope that I never have to be a test case too! I especially hope this as I really hope I'd never sink so low that I would deliberately deceive someone and break my word in such a way as to cause them huge losses (financial and emotional) without being prepared to repay them.

I know that there can be very genuine 'sudden and unexpected change of circumstance' that might cause a buyer/seller to pull out (serious illness, bereavement and unexpected redundancy spring to mind) and I would imagine, had that been the case, the OP would not be pursuing this. However, in my experience these type of genuine reasons (which I would hope would not be seen in law as 'deliberate intention to deceive') are in the minority. A PP mentioned that an EA said that up to a third of sales fall through because one party 'changes their mind'... I can't believe that a third of all sales encounter a serious problem like death, illness or redundancy in the time between agreeing to sale and exchange!

It is the people who agree to a sale and deliberately lie to buyers/sellers so that they instruct surveyors & solicitors etc knowing full well they might not go ahead for a vacuous reason and would not then repay their costs that I think need to be held to account. Perhaps if people knew that if they agreed verbally and renaged for no good reason they would have to pay costs for the other side then they would think very carefully about whether they really wanted to buy/sell and what promises they make before they agreed to it!

Debt_Free_Chick

I think it's worth bearing in mind that there are always two sides to every story.

Whilst the OP is of the opinion that the vendor deliberately lied and deceived him, we don't actually know that. I would dearly love to hear the vendor's side of the story, but that's not going to happen.

I'm keeping an open mind, but it's entirely possible that there was no deceipt or intention to cause the OP any loss at all.

bgwuser

The EA told us that they could not understand why they had pulled out. The vendors said it was because they had not had a letter from the EA. But their solicitor had had the letter. Then they said they wanted to do some work on the house. Why would you want to work on a house you are selling for the full asking price? We have given them the opportunity of re-imbursing our costs but they have not responded - other than to rush off and put in a retro PP.

RabbitMad

So would you prefer a system where you spent thousands on a survey and paperwork prior to an agreement only to find out you've been outbid (as in scotland)?

I would guess that the most likely reason they've pulled out is they haven't been able to secure the house they wanted. They probably missed out because they were in a chain and their vendors felt another person was a better prospect. Maybe if they'd had the letter from the EA their vendor would have been more reassured about the chain.

You have to remember that the EA's are generally liers (sorry to any honest EA's out their). What they've told you and what they've told the vendors are probably two different things.

I hope the vendors make a complaint against the police if they take this on for malicious prosecution.

TTMCMschine

I think this is crazy. You are always exposed to the risk of losing your surveying fees & other costs when buying a house, the OPs stance is madness. What next, you pay for the survey, the sellers chain falls through, so you sue them. The seller pays for the HIPs, you pull out, so they sue you. You buy the house & the price goes down so you sue the EA for misleading you?

I'm afraid in real life sh*t happens. You should just get on with your lives instead of dragging yourselves & other people through a circus that will most probably in the end get nowhere whilst costing you all a fortune.