Builder wants land back for free

ReadingTim

fezster wrote: »

I'm not sure this is correct. On the face of it (from what the OP has said), legally he is in the stronger position.

It's the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, and given his position arises from an administrative/clerical error, it will be easily dismissed.

fezster

GarryF wrote: »

He has drawn up new plans and pressured me into signing, saying this is the only resolve and basically I’m not the nice person he thought I was of I want to move the fence . I expect his next move is to threaten me to take it to court.

As others have said, the decision is not solely yours. Your lender will need to agree to any changes. Inform the builder of this and that you need to seek professional advice.

muhandis

This is key. It is hard to predict what can of worms you will open with the lender and your mortgage if you agree to make any changes to the deed, etc. Add on more complications if H2B is involved.

Tell him that you need to get advice. Don't have any discussion over email or in writing.

At the very least, even if you agree to rectify this "mistake", he needs to pay for any and all costs associated with the matter and compensate you for the inconvenience. You can bet that he wouldn't show you any sympathy if you had made a similar mistake.

AnotherJoe wrote: »

Because the mortgage lender may have looked at the plans and decided that, with a garden that size, thats what it was worth, and perhaps, had the land been smaller they woudl not have valued it so highly.

AnotherJoe

fezster wrote: »

As others have said, the decision is not solely yours. Your lender will need to agree to any changes. Inform the builder of this and that you need to seek professional advice.

.... and that you will be charging him for that professional advice. Imagine if your lender said your house was worth £20k less with the smaller garden rather than the larger one they saw on the plans?
The builder will be frantic because because he cant sell the other house until this is resolved.

AnotherJoe

ReadingTim wrote: »

It's the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, and given his position arises from an administrative/clerical error, it will be easily dismissed.

Not if the lenders valuation was partly contingent on the "false" garden size that was documented agreed and registered at the LR it wont be !

eddddy

Your mortgage lender may want to send out a valuer to revalue the property with a smaller garden.

If the valuer down-values (even by a small amount) and you're right at your mortgage LTV limit, that could cause problems.


In your position, I would start by saying that I need to take my solicitor's advice, and the developer must undertake to pay my solicitor's costs.

(And explain that to your solicitor. Your solicitor will probably contact the developer's solicitor to get an undertaking that the costs will be paid.)

maisie_cat

silvercar wrote: »

It sounds like an honest mistake. How would you feel if the situation was reversed and the builder knocked on your door to say half your fenced in garden wasn't yours and he needs to move the fence to leave the postage stamp sized garden that is on your deeds?

Quite often people post who find they have purchased less than they thought. the most common answer is that they should have checked. the same applies to the builder. I have recently found that the private drive associated with a property I was planning to buy is in fact not included in the title, I think the sellers were hoping that it didn't get picked up! But we must do our own DD

steampowered

You'll have to get lender consent to do this.

You should have a chat with a solicitor - not a conveyancing factory - about how you deal with this. The builder should pay for your legal fees.

Sachs

I feel like when the Report on Title comes through the letterbox a massive siren should go off and a booming voice shouts "THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT DOCUMENT IN THE HOUSE BUYING PROCESS. IF IT OVERWHELMS YOU FIND AN APPROPRIATE ADULT TO TALK YOU THROUGH IT"

Its genuinely worrying how little attention people pay to it.

My question to OP would be, what did you understand the garden to be throughout the process and how was it presented to you?

For example did you see a picture of the plot before it was built on some kind of plan? When did the fence go up? Did you see the house with the fence up before you exchanged contracts?

Without seeing pictures of the garden and the title plan it's very hard to judge but don't assume that the garden shouldn't be yours. It may be that you're not a detail focused person and actually for large parts of the process they presented to you that the garden was yours and it's in fact the fence that is wrong not the title plan.

Davesnave

ReadingTim wrote: »

It's the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, and given his position arises from an administrative/clerical error, it will be easily dismissed.

If an error has serious consequences for another party and their lender, it surely won't be dismissed as easily as that, but none of us knows exactly what the ramifications are at present.