sons house buying problems

It so far has taken 5 months to buy a house yet he sold his other one in weeks. It is all to do with useless solicitors on both sides and thrown in the mix was the original building firm. That firm in the sale contract demand they give permission as well for the purchased every time it is bought or sold. Something to do with them maintaining the surrounding area and the house owner charged £500 a year. Bloody cheek i call it the house is freehold. anyway at long last it looks as if contract exchange this friday and completion on the 11 June when he can eventually get the keys

Re: sons house buying problems

When largish sums of money are changing hands the rats come
sniffing around ??
They often work as teams as well ?

Donkeyman! 👎👎

Re: sons house buying problems

They have to somehow justify their existence and extortionate costs, in my own recent experience one hour solicitor's time including one letter – £300!

Nice work if you can get it!

Re: sons house buying problems

He had arranged a fixed legal cost as the same company handled both his selling and buying.

I just don't know why a house logbook can't be done somehow with all the legal jibberish in it. Oh yes I do solicitors would loose their bread and butter earnings

Re: sons house buying problems

And what about their trust funds which you are compelled to pay your
deposit into ?
The solicitor receives interest on that so it can add up to quite a bit
if he has fifty deposits in there at any one time, so look out for
delayed deposit payments as the deal goes through !!

Donkeyman! 🤔🤔🤔

Re: sons house buying problems

Sorry but I know nothing about this

Re: sons house buying problems

Seems like a rip off to me. I'd tell them to take their house and shove where the sun doesn't shine.
Then just walk away.

Re: sons house buying problems

If the contract states that there is a £500 yearly surcharge/service charge for maintaining the surrounding area (communal area) then your son needs to walk away from the sale because service charges are the biggest con going and it's been reported about numerous times in the media. Service charges are used as a commodity by the developer and are sold to investment companies. Because the service charge has to be paid every year, investors use that money to make them more money. The problem with this is that the investors being the owner of the service charge can increase the service charge. This causes huge problems for home owners because many cannot afford to pay service charges and if they do not, the person/company who owns the service charge can take the home owner to court and take their house of them.

It's a huge scam that is being looked into by the government because developers and investment companies know that whilst homeowners can pay their mortgage payments, they may not be able to afford the service charge, so home owner falls in arrears on the service charge, owner of the service charge takes home owner to court, home owner cant pay overdue service charges, home owner loses case, developer/investment company take possession of a ££££ expensive house, all for the sake of a few pounds of service charge.

As I said, your son needs to walk away from this.

Re: sons house buying problems

Not really sure, but I beleive that the original developers will have set up a separate company for the maintenance work. It may well be the case that your son can request that he becomes a shareholder in that company and thus be eligible to see the accounts annually.

I'm going through a similar situation with a flat I own, in which the developer did the same thing. When he decided to retire and pass the maintenance onto flat owners, he was supposed to put us down as shareholders and also get a couple of named directors (one of whom is the bloke who is going to run the company and sort our actual maintenance, and the other being a fellow flat owner (which will mean that all other owners will get to have a say since she'll have access to accounts as well as make sure decisions are run by us)). The original developer is being a bit of an arse and delaying things, which is a bit of a nuisance since it's holding up the sale of one of the flats, but we're getting there.

Might be worth your son asking about this.

Edit - for the other flat that I own, I am a director of the management company (which has bugger all to do with the developer). I do get annual reports and advised/asked about potential expenditures above a certain amount. I, and my fellow director (who owns and lives in a flat) have managed to make some changes which have made some small savings, partly down to the way that the buildings insurance was set out and what proportion flat owners ought to pay compared to the shops on the ground level. Not much, but at least we get to see what's going on.

Re: sons house buying problems

Bakerman it’s a bad time to do this in the U.K. there is a shortage of houses to buy .