Not my garage

splodge2018

Hello,

I’ve just bought my first property.

During a visit to my solicitors before the sale went through I was informed that there was a row of garages around the corner and one of them was included in the lease of the house and was therefore mine. I’ve bought the property and tried to find more detail on the garage but no one could tell me anything. I finally get informed the garage was not mine as it was released from the lease years ago.

I approached my solicitors who confirmed they did tell me the garage was mine and was even given a lease document where they highlighted which garage was mine.

They have offered me £100 for any issue it’s caused me but I’m not sure just how much of a big deal this is? I was going use the garage for storage or rent it out so I defiantly feel out of pocket but it’s not the end of the world as originally I didn’t know about the garage as it was never on the brochure and was happy to buy before I was informed of the garage. I guess you could say it was a bonus but over the weeks I expected to have a garage and made plans for it.

Do I stand anywhere legally here?

bobbymotors

£100 is nowhere near enough. I would have thought a garage with a flat would add at least 4-5% to one without.

so £150,000 = £750

Flugelhorn

bobbymotors wrote: »

£100 is nowhere near enough. I would have thought a garage with a flat would add at least 4-5% to one without.

so £150,000 = £750

more like £7,500

AnotherJoe

Flugelhorn wrote: »

more like £7,500

And the rest!

Find out what garages are renting for around you. If its, for example, £50/week than thats £2,500 so if you lived in this flat for ten years, thats £25k even without getting into what its done to the value of the flat!

You will need to get another solicitor involved, have a professional valuer offer their estimation, and take it from there.Because your current solicitors are taking you for an absolute mug.

Alfrescodave

Why not get an EA to give you a valuation of your house with and without a garage and base your compensation from the solicitor on the difference.

Slinky

I would have thought this is slightly different to cases we've seen here before where people didn't get what they thought they were getting, as it's not a seller error (the OP said he wasn't expecting to buy a garage as it wasn't on the estate agent's details), it's a foulup by their solicitor. That said, I can still see it costing the solicitor more than £100 if you can take it further. A visit to a different solicitor would seem to be the next step.

Okrib

£100??? Please please please do not accept that. You're probably missing a couple of 0s on that figure.

The advice here already is spot on. Find out what the garages rent for (and try land registry to see if you can see what it / any of them sold for), get the property valued with and without the garage and then present that to your solicitor demanding payment for an appropriate figure. If they refuse, find another solicitor.

PasturesNew

OP said the garage wasn't in the property advert.
No garage mentioned.

It was only in the late stages that the solicitor said there appeared to be a garage too.

OP didn't buy it for the garage - and it wasn't priced with a garage.

I'd just take the £100 ....

davidmcn

The OP's loss here appears to be zero, as they would have paid the same price without the solicitor's error. And surely if the vendor hadn't even mentioned a garage the OP ought to have realised something was up?

ReadingTim

£100 seems low, but it depends on exactly how the OP found out that the garage had been "released from the lease", and the extent to which the solicitor should have been able to ascertain this too.

If it wasn't in the ad, and as the OP was willing to go ahead without it / before he knew about it, he hasn't really suffered any actual loss - he might get up to an additional zero added to the initial figure, but I can't see anything more....

Tiglet2

Do your deeds specifically refer to your property at 123 ABC Street and garage? Does the title plan have red edging round the land on which your property sits and an additional red edging showing the position of the garage? If not, it is highly likely that the vendor sold the garage to a different buyer and the property to you, i.e. the vendor split the title and did a "transfer of part". Alternatively, the garage may have its own title, but this should be referred to on the title deeds if it is still within the demise of the property. Have a look at the deeds you have since you became the owner and compare them to the deeds when the previous owner was living at the property and see if there is any mention of the garage then. The lease may be quite old and if a garage if mentioned within the lease it may be that the lease is now defective and should have had a Deed of Variation or Rectification registered at the time the garage was removed.

Sounds to me like the vendor was selling the property without the garage otherwise it would have been mentioned in the sales particulars and therefore the valuation of the property would have been accurate.