Help Please Should I Buy a Flat or not ?

MORGAN77

I wonder if anyine can help me , me and my girlfriend have been looking for a flat to buying for around 2 years now. We have see good ones but everytime we see one we get out bidded. Since then we found one in July we put an offer in and it was accepted at 156'000 2 bed first floor flat with garden no parking, when the deeds for the property came through the lease had only had 73 years left, the orignal draft said that there was over 80 year left the vendor agreed to new the lease after number of diffcults between her and my solictor,since the recent news paper the house prices slowing down i'm not sure if this is the right thing to do. I am now seeing that others property which are less than ours ;but with more extras ie Parking etc..... I know that we put in the offer back in July, now it is November and we still do not have a date yet maybe the 3 wk off November. I just dont know what to do i am think of getting soclitor to see it the vendor is willing to drop the prices due to the amount of time it has taken and because we are renting we have spoke to the landloard and everything we get a date it never goes through.  We have done everything we can to please the vendor but i feel now she is not helping us.this would not be an issue if we have moved in
earier.

I hope you can help me with advise on the above will be greatly appreicated.

cattie

I don't think anyone can advise you whether you should buy the flat or not. Only you & your girlfriend know if you really want it or not.

You need to find out from your solicitor what the actual cause of the delay is. It's possible it's to do with the legalities of having the lease extended.

Remember, with an extended lease, this not only makes the flat you are buying a much more attractive proposition, but increases it's value. With this in mind I wouldn't have thought the vendor will want to drop the price. I know I wouldn't, I'd be looking to increase it! ;D

The buying and selling process usually takes a bit longer with a flat because of the extra legal work involved with it being leasehold & not freehold as houses usually are. In my experience it takes at least 3 months for everything to go through, but my last leasehold property took 4 months from my offer to completion.

Good luck with it anyway.

MORGAN77

Hi Cattie,

Thankyou for your help, the vendor wishes to charge us for the cooker etc is that common, i though that should be include in the sale of the property with all the delays, although she has said we can purchase it at a price !!

deemy2004

I wonder if anyine can help me , me and my girlfriend have been looking for a flat to buying for around 2 years now.
I hope you can help me with advise on the above will be greatly appreicated.

This is the difference now, its a buyers market, barely a few months ago it was a sellers market, i.e. if the position was reversed and say over the last 3 months the market had gone up 6% would the seller be asking for a price hike ?

What you need to do is whats in your best interests.

Yeh, you can ask for a drop of x% but the chances are that they will turn around and say no, and then what do you do ? Pull out and look for another ? Or go ahead ?

Just don't know as its somethign you need to think over long and hard, and weigh up the pro's and con's but whatever it is, remember do whats in YOUR best interests. !

Woby_Tide

Hi Cattie,

Thankyou for your help, the vendor wishes to charge us for the cooker etc is that common, i though that should be include in the sale of the property with all the delays, although she has said we can purchase it at a price !!

Was the cooker included on the original literature when you were buyiing the house i.e. the leaflet from agency, also when they completed the fixtures and fittings document was it on there, if so they shouldn't be able to charge you for it, if it was on the agents literature but not the fixtures and fittings inventory I'm not sure but I think there is some recourse

Han_naH

Tell the vendor to climb inside the oven, as you would like to test it.

She should have extended the lease before putting it on sale - everyone knows that!

You see, as Beemy said, their position is no longer strong, so the advice would be: play it mean and keep 'em keen. Stand your ground or pull out.
The world is full of flats for sale, and increasingly desperate sellers.

Having said all that, find out how much it was to extend the lease. Could be 5 figures or more. If she paid this, then she has already compensated you for the lost months... and the flat is worth a lot more as a result..

dougk_2

I guess it all depends if you plan to live there several years - if prices do drop - they will go up again over a number of years so it won't matter!

If prices go up without dropping you have won too.

The only risk if you plan to be there only for a short term - well thats my view of things anyway.

IS the mortgage cheaper than renting - if so its another bonus to you!

cattie

Morgan, I was charged a handsome price for the cooker, curtains & fitted wardrobes when I bought this place. Some vendors do like to make extra money this way, while I myself include such things as part of the sale & if there are any items of furniture etc.I no longer require I ask the buyers if they would like me to leave them behind. I believe in playing fair, bad sadly there are many that don't.

I had a shock with the first place I bought, finding the vendors intended to take the garden shed! When my solictor informed them that I had thought it was included in the sale & that they had even allowed my surveyor to look it over & include it in his report, they relented & said they would leave it behind.

If, as Woby Tide said, the cooker was mentioned in the sales details, then you need to be firm about it being included in the price.If not & you really want the cooker, then try to negotiate the price as low as you can through your solicitor, pointing out how stressful & inconvenient the delay in purchasing the property has been & that you had hoped as a gesture of goodwill she would include the cooker. She would be a very silly person to lose a sale this far down the line for the sake of this, especially from first time buyers.

Good luck & let us know how you get on.