New build housing sale

mhawi92

Hi, 

Myself and partner purchased a new build property. 

The development offered some affordable houses which could be bought using one of the schemes (Discounted Market Value - DMV) or help to buy. 

We bought one of these affordable homes on DMV scheme.

The small selection of these homes on the development were only advertised and available to purchase by using one of the affordable housing schemes above. 

There was one home (next door to us) that still hadn’t been sold.

This house was then sold by the ‘building’ company to a housing association. 

Having since checked the land registry the house has been sold to the housing association outright without a scheme at the same price as we paid (20% off price). 

I am now questioning the sale given that these specific houses were only available to first time buyers on the schemes.

The main issues for us are that on the affordable schemes it makes it more expensive and difficult to obtain a mortgage, presumably due to the bankers risks and limited knowledge of the schemes.

 My question is whether we may have been mis-led with them being able to sell the next door property to a housing association outright when this option was not on offer on those specific properties?

Is there any advice or routes in which we can look into this?

Thanks

eidand

The best route would be to.enjoy your home and not worry about something that really is of no concern to you.

mhawi92

eidand said:

The best route would be to.enjoy your home and not worry about something that really is of no concern to you.

Unfortunately, it is of concern to us. 

We are unable to enjoy the home due to a problematic tenant that the housing association has moved in. 

Additionally, the scheme we bought on (DMV) means if we sell our home in the future the 20% discount has to stay with the property e.g we have to sell at 20% off of the then market value. 

This will give us a big financial loss on the property as young first time buyers
1. We would need to sell at 20% off as mentioned

 2. Additional devaluing due to the neighbour issues which we would likely  have to disclose to any potential buyer.

3. If we had been able to purchase the property for that price without a scheme this would have given us a larger variety scope for mortgage options and interest rates which are more costly when using an affordable buying scheme. 

But thank you.

Kind regards.

xx

anselld

You bought it at 20% off, you sell it at 20% off.  That is not a financial loss.  In fact in a falling market (if that is what you are worried about) you are better off only owning 80% than owning 100%.

You can't choose you neighbours regardless of what scheme you are on.

mhawi92

anselld said:

You bought it at 20% off, you sell it at 20% off.  That is not a financial loss.  In fact in a falling market (if that is what you are worried about) you are better off only owning 80% than owning 100%.

You can't choose you neighbours regardless of what scheme you are on.

I understand that. 

These specific limited properties were only for sale by purchasing on the scheme though. However, this home next door which was one of these limited ‘affordable properties’ has been sold at the same price ‘outright’ if you will which was not a buying option on these affordable homes. 

If we had been given the option of buying  for that price without using the 20% schemes then obviously it would have been highly more beneficial financially. But like i say this was not an option on these properties. No worries if you do not understand this. Apologies.

davidmcn

mhawi92 said:

My question is whether we may have been mis-led with them being able to sell the next door property to a housing association outright when this option was not on offer on those specific properties?

It's not clear who you think misled you and in what way, but it certainly wouldn't be normal for a developer to promise who will be buying other unsold properties - how could they?

Properties let by social landlords, and properties sold with a discounted market value, both qualify as "affordable housing" in planning terms, so in that sense it seems pretty consistent. I can't see you've got any grounds for a complaint.

[Deleted User]

Usually you will find the developer had something in the fine print that allows them to do this.  I'd start by looking at the planning documentation or phoning them *(. 

However, if they shouldn't have done this, what would be your aim?  What do you want to happen?  I can't really see the HA being forced to give the property back, evict the tenant and the developer giving them their purchase price back.  I'm not saying its impossible, just that it doesn't seem likely. I don't think the council will be overly helpful either as it means a lot of trouble and another person on their housing list.  If you took them to court to force action, what would you take them to court for?  How could you enforce what action you want?

If you want the tenant removed, the only way is to do the usual, keep a diary etc and keep complaining but then you'll have to disclose the problem and this could make selling difficult. How difficult is difficult to ascertain without selling the house (assessing damages etc).

If the discount on a discounted house was a problem, you could have walked away and found something else you liked as much (yes I did read your OP, but that option was always there.)

mhawi92

deannatrois said:

Usually you will find the developer had something in the fine print that allows them to do this.  I'd start by looking at the planning documentation or phoning them *(. 

However, if they shouldn't have done this, what would be your aim?  What do you want to happen?  I can't really see the HA being forced to give the property back, evict the tenant and the developer giving them their purchase price back.  I'm not saying its impossible, just that it doesn't seem likely. I don't think the council will be overly helpful either as it means a lot of trouble and another person on their housing list.  If you took them to court to force action, what would you take them to court for?  How could you enforce what action you want?

If you want the tenant removed, the only way is to do the usual, keep a diary etc and keep complaining but then you'll have to disclose the problem and this could make selling difficult. How difficult is difficult to ascertain without selling the house (assessing damages etc).

Thanks for this, i agree with you, its difficult to see any drastic outcome, i just wanted to see if anyone with knowledge of such things had any suggestions. 

I do really think its unfair and wrong that the houses are advertised and sold as one thing but then this one had different treatment.

 I guess my main aim would be to ensure that these developers can’t do this to other young first time buyers like ourselves as its not been pleasant.

Its somewhat annoying that the schemes offered with these houses (DMV) in this case, it is much more difficult and costly in terms of getting a mortgage where as if we had the option to buy without the scheme it would have given us much more opportunity with banks/ mortgage lenders and we feel like we have lost financially in this respect as would have given us better rate options etc. The options were limited due to the scheme. 

 Obviously the neighbour situation is unfortunate for us and is a common theme for many across the country and the main reason for our upset with this is that since the house was sold to a HA it has made for uncomfortable living and i guess when it becomes that uncomfortable its natural to look into how this has happened and is there anything we can do etc.

The developers had started building another development in another area of the city and had moved their builders and staff onto that site so i’m guessing it was a situation where they hadn’t yet sold the next door property and was moving onto the next development so they have kind of just randomly offered it and sold off to the HA quickly rather than remaining patient and giving the opportunity for another first time buyer to purchase which was the sole purpose of these affordable properties in the advertisement and brochures etc.

Thank you for your thoughts on this 👍🏼

lincroft1710

Developers can (and do) sell to whomsoever they wish to sell. You decided to take advantage of the DMV scheme, nobody forced you. However not enough people took advantage of this, hence the unsold house next door. An HA bought it with the same discount as you received, they are not an individual and thus the DMV scheme would not be appropriate or necessary. They paid the same price as you and do not intend to sell on the house unless forced to by any Right to Buy/Acquire scheme available at the time.

There is nothing you can do as the developer does not appear to have done anything unlawful

blue_max_3

Got to love these more and more inventive ways of flogging new houses! Smoke and mirrors.
I wonder if the people who purchased at full price say the same about your houses? And now you're looking down your nose on the HA buyer. Live and let live.