Co-owners of freehold selling their flat

arciere

eddddy said:

You could tell the neighbour's solicitor that you intend to appoint your own solicitor, and you need their confirmation that your neighbour will pay the costs.

Whether your neighbour will agree is another question!

I guess you can try playing hardball and say that you won't sign the LPE1, unless the neighbour pays for your solicitor.

I have already emailed them (before looking at this LPE1 module) saying that if it's not an easy form, we will need to appoint our own solicitor to advise us but that we would let them know the cost beforehand (which would imply they would have to pay for it).

I am not sure if we all need to sign it (the same copy). If that's the case, they may argue that their solicitor is already looking after it, but I wouldn't feel comfortable since, as you also said, the new neighbour will be knocking at my door should something be found to be incorrect (and obviously their solicitors, even if they can't lie, have every interest to complete the transaction.

TripleH

Getting a legal document signed is a reasonable expense (you get it wrong and it could cost far more to get it right) and I would expect that if I needed another party to get it completed, that I would need to cover reasonable expenses).

If you want to 'get one over' on your old neighbours, wait until they're packing up their removal van and sit out on the front garden in deck chairs drinking champagne and toasting their departure. With a nice pot yellow pot plant in between you.

Looking at what has been said, it appears that she has spent the last 5 years trying to move away, so maybe she is already broken?

You throwing in her mind 'unreasonable barriers in demands' could be causing her suffering.

I'm not taking sides, but her irrational behaviour might be her reacting badly and wanting out. Anything you do to accelerate that will work to your benefit, but I think it fair you should not be out of pocket on correctly completing any paperwork.

arciere

TripleH said:

Looking at what has been said, it appears that she has spent the last 5 years trying to move away, so maybe she is already broken?

You throwing in her mind 'unreasonable barriers in demands' could be causing her suffering.

I'm not taking sides, but her irrational behaviour might be her reacting badly and wanting out. Anything you do to accelerate that will work to your benefit, but I think it fair you should not be out of pocket on correctly completing any paperwork.

Fair point, but she refused to have any personal interaction with us since day one (from our side, offers to 'meet for a cup of coffee' slowly faded away over the years when we saw that she had no plans to meet in person).

We will obviously do all we can to see them go, but at the same time I don't want to rush things. As much as I'm sure the next owner will be as friendly as one could expect, life is full of surprises, so if there's any way we can cover our backs at this stage, for this transaction and ideally for ours when the time comes for us to sell, I think the time is now.