Buying a house that a developer took in part-exchange and therefore has no personal knowledge of

ARS2022

The house wasn’t offered “as seen” or anything to indicate the seller wouldn’t be able to answer the standard purchase questions. We made a cash offer £10k under the bullish (seller’s market, to be fair, I guess) asking price of £285k and it was accepted. The seller’s solicitors are essentially making available all the information from the part-exchange transaction (including the Law Society standard protocol forms: Property Information Form; Fixtures and Fittings) but obviously as we weren’t party to that transaction we can’t rely on any of it. Our conveyancer seems to be inexperienced at best and hasn’t come up with any guidance on what to do beyond pushing us to make sure all the appliances etc are in good working order. It’s a three year old house, built by Redrow, and we know owners of a neighbouring a house, and are confident the development isn’t considereda problem one or anything else to give us cause for concern. Presumably this scenario is reasonably common? What is the normal response? Does the Law Society allow transactions where the current owner doesn’t/can’t complete the protocol forms? Is there an indemnity policy that should be provided? Or should the current owner be required to warrant the information from the part-exchange transaction? Or should we simply ask for a discount? 
Thanks in advance.

user1977

Perfectly commonplace for all properties which aren't being sold by an owner-occupier. Which are the questions you are concerned about?

Even if you were buying directly from an owner-occupier vendor, there are limits on how much reliance you should place on their answers. But here you do at least have the answers from the previous owner - do you think any of those are likely to have changed during the short period the developer has owned?

Indemnity policies aren't relevant unless there are specific risks you've identified, and a discount isn't going to be warranted either until you've spotted a problem which actually affects the market value.

penners324

If it was part exchanged then the developer now owns the property.

They bought based on the forms you now have.

Get another viewing and check everything you're concerned about.

theartfullodger

Use your judgement, eyes, talk to neighbours, get a builder round, test electric and gas.

If too frightened if uncertainty go elsewhere.

ALL investments have risks.  Even money under bed, government bongs etc (especially this government of a ship of fools)

Bought 2 houses in very similar circumstances.  One had someone else's car in garage:. Took 6 months to get (car) owner (not old house owner) to shift it.

Ath_Wat

theartfullodger said:

Use your judgement, eyes, talk to neighbours, get a builder round, test electric and gas.

If too frightened if uncertainty go elsewhere.

ALL investments have risks.  Even money under bed, government bongs etc (especially this government of a ship of fools)

Bought 2 houses in very similar circumstances.  One had someone else's car in garage:. Took 6 months to get (car) owner (not old house owner) to shift it.

Do you mean "government bonds" or "government bungs"? The latter are probably always a safe investment.

newsgroupmonkey_

On my conveyancing forms, I answered that my boiler is in good working order.

The day after the buyers move in, it could fail, catastrophically.

No warranty implied or intended on any of the items.

theartfullodger

Ath_Wat said:

theartfullodger said:

Use your judgement, eyes, talk to neighbours, get a builder round, test electric and gas.

If too frightened if uncertainty go elsewhere.

ALL investments have risks.  Even money under bed, government bongs etc (especially this government of a ship of fools)

Bought 2 houses in very similar circumstances.  One had someone else's car in garage:. Took 6 months to get (car) owner (not old house owner) to shift it.

Do you mean "government bonds" or "government bungs"? The latter are probably always a safe investment.

Oh dear: But one of my better typos I think!  This ship of fools has the druggie history - govee sniffing the coke for one - see e.g. this one of many reports on the matter....
https://news.sky.com/story/michael-gove-tory-leadership-candidate-deeply-regrets-taking-cocaine-11737412

I should have written "government bonds" of course.. Your comment on safe investment spot on....

ARS2022

Thanks for the responses/advice. Essentially, given the Law Society protocol forms form part of the contract in a regular sale, it just seems ‘off’ to me that all that will effectively be outside our contract. I get that the vendor can’t speak to whether there have been disputes with neighbours, I just imagined there would be some reassuring solution as this must be a common situation. When we bought a house with access up a track across common land with no paper record of permission being granted, the vendor provided some sort of indemnity to mollify our solicitor. Also, I’ve spent hours trying to decipher the responses to enquiries (half the protocol form responses weren’t even done properly in the first place) and am now wondering if there was any point lol! 

user1977

ARS2022 said:

When we bought a house with access up a track across common land with no paper record of permission being granted, the vendor provided some sort of indemnity to mollify our solicitor. 

Yes, but that's the sort of issue which is going to be obvious from looking at the titles, not really by relying on the seller's questionnaire. And like I said above, getting indemnity policies to cover specific problems you've identified is fair enough. You don't get "what if they've had a barney with the neighbours?" insurance.

silvercar

It’s part of the risk you take and reflected in the price. It isn’t that rare as probate sales mean that the seller may not have lived in the property.

74jax

I've sold two at probate and each time put 'unknown' in the majority of boxes.