Deposit forfeited. Where do we stand?

buyer37

Hi all, first time poster.

My partner and I are currently renting and back in December 2023 my partner and I had it brought to our attention that our houses along the others that our landlord owns were up for sale. After a discussion with the landlord, they said that they were selling the company and it's portfolio of houses to another company.

We found out they were going to auction and put in an offer to stop our house going to auction, this would include the 10% deposit as decided by the auction house.

We hired our solicitors and went from there to begin proceedings.

Skip forward to the day before completion date, we emailed our solicitor saying we trust everything is in order for the next day, they came back and said the seller solicitor still hadn't answered outstanding queries which we required to complete. Our solicitors then chased the seller solicitors for this information (why this wasn't done beforehand is still unanswered by our solicitor). The information the seller solicitor gave meant we had to complete the TR1 form and some other documents on the completion day, which we did urgently, but this delay caused us to miss the completion date and time (the time is important later).

Due to this we received a 'notice to complete' and the seller solicitor deemed us at fault. Through pleading and agreeing to pay an extortionate fee to get this over the line, 4 working days after the completion date, the seller solicitor issued a 'recind of contract' and would keep our deposit as forfeit.

We explained what had been going on with our landlord and they are gutted for us (we get on with them very well) and explained in their contract that their completion was due to go through at 11:30am the same day. Our contract stated the seller was this new company instead of the company being sold to them, so first thing I thought was, how can the l new owners sell a property to us at 11am if they would not be the legal owners until 11:30am? In my mind, they would have never been in a position to complete with us. Also, our landlords received an email on completion day at approximately 10:45 saying that the deal has been extended 30 days due to a clause in our landlords contract with their buyer/our seller.

I have a meeting with a solicitor to discuss and wondered what the communities thoughts are on the matter and if there are any additional points we should put forward to them.

In my mind we've been scammed and the new company has no interest in buying our landlords company or selling the houses, just reaping the deposits of people as all of the houses are up for sale at 15% less than what they paid for them (prices disclosed to us by the landlord)

youth_leader

No advice, I just wanted to say I am very sorry you are going through this.  Best wishes for a satisfactory solution.

km1500

this should not have happened and the first step is to issue a formal complaint to your solicitors.

there will be a partner in the solicitors charged with dealing with complaints and they will be viewed the situation and answer your concerns.

in the complaint you should quantify your financial loss

eddddy

If a property is going to (traditional) auction, and you put in a pre-auction offer, it is usually on the same terms as the auction.

That would usually mean...

• As soon as the offer is accepted, you pay a 10% deposit, contracts are exchanged immediately, and you have 28 days to complete

• You only get the information and documents that are in the auction legal pack. The seller's solicitor won't generally answer any further questions from your solicitor.

Is that what happened in your case?


I know these are easy questions to ask in hindsight - but...

• did you show the auction legal pack to your solicitor and ask whether it was safe to make an offer, before you made the offer?

• Did your solicitor understand that you planned to make an offer according to the 'auction terms'? (And is your solicitor familiar with auction purchases?)

Do you need a mortgage to buy the property?


In terms of questions to ask the solicitor, I guess you should ask...

"You could see that we had 28 days to complete, you should have known that the seller's solicitor wasn't obliged to answer any enquiries - so why didn't you complete within 28 days?"

But if you needed a mortgage, the solicitor could justifiably answer "Because the mortgage lender would not lend without more information." 

loubel

You're going to need to be a bit clearer on what happened.

If I am understanding, you agreed to buy your current rental property, instructed a solicitor and exchanged contracts setting a date for completion. The seller's solicitor's failed to send something (what?) needed to complete until the day before completion and as a result you couldn't complete on that day (when were you ready to complete?). The seller served notice to complete (which usually gives 2 weeks to complete) and then rescinded the contract 4 days later (on what grounds?)