Sale fallen through for second time close to exchange

tink_1983

kazwookie said:

If next door sold, with the same conditions, then why not down load their deeds and see what wording was used? cost approx £3 Land Registry

Good idea but i am presuming it's the same wording as our deed.. just the issue wasn't highlighted by their solicitors.
The houses are the same design and attached, built and sold together. 

But I will go on and check thankyou 

K_S

GDB2222 said:

@K_S  You make it sound like you think that it is only possible for the buyer to solve this problem? Why can’t the sellers see to it first? 

After all, if there were a hole in the roof, the sellers would probably fix that. This is effectively a hole in the  title.

@gdb222 Sorry I meant from the point of view of finding an appropriate lender who is ok with the rent charge and/or the deed of variation. There's a huge of lender attitudes towards this issue.

K_S

tink_1983 said:

K_S said:

@tink_1983 I've come across similar situations faced by my clients where the remedy has been a different lender who is ok with the rent charge and/or deed of variation. 

The problem you have is that this is the buyer's issue to solve and the best you can do is to be upfront with the specifics when you accept an offer so that the buyer or their broker has all the pertinent information to hand before they place the case with a lender.

More commonly what happens is that the vendor is aware but doesn't disclose any of this until it comes up late in the conveyancing process, leading to the situation you've experienced.

We where happy to pay for the variation but our vendors solicitor was not happy with what the builders where willing to offer. The buyers solicitors wanted the term rentcharge changed to service charge which the builders didn't agree too.

I will ensure any new buyer knows of this issue upfront and discuss getting the variation done bur to include that the lenders will be informed of arrears too. 

All been  a massive learning curve. Purchased this house alone off plot and guess didn't understand the rentcharge implications at the time 
Thanks again 

@tink_1983 Not your fault at all. Lender attitudes towards these kind of restrictions on the title have evolved a lot in the past few years and I see and hear about (in peer groups) this issue often nowadays. The builder will usually only go so far to vary it so the solution is usually to find an appropriate lender for whom the rent-charge (as written) is ok or they are happy with the deed of variation. Your buyer's solicitor acts on behalf of the lender too so that's usually where the objection stems from.

tink_1983

K_S said:

GDB2222 said:

@K_S  You make it sound like you think that it is only possible for the buyer to solve this problem? Why can’t the sellers see to it first? 

After all, if there were a hole in the roof, the sellers would probably fix that. This is effectively a hole in the  title.

@gdb222 Sorry I meant from the point of view of finding an appropriate lender who is ok with the rent charge and/or the deed of variation. There's a huge of lender attitudes towards this issue.

Thanks for the advice. Are the highstreet big names best? 
We've been with Halifax and now hsbc. But seen other threads where hsbc are very strict ! It's a minefield 

GDB2222

It’s difficult to avoid these rentcharges, if buying a home built in the last few years. Local authorities are reluctant these days to pick up the maintenance costs of the estates, so that leaves the cost with the homeowners, to be collected by means of a service charge. 

Some homeowners were reluctant to pay their charges, which caused immense difficulty for the estate management, having to sue for quite modest charges. To get round that, on most new estates, the service charges are constituted as rentcharges, which have draconian penalties for non payment. That solves the non payment problem, but causes a different problem with lenders. It also ought to bother buyers, too, but it seems to be the lenders who are most concerned.