Search the Community

Hi there, I’d really appreciate some advice with this one. I’ve been about to exchange on a leasehold property for the last few weeks and a last minute problem has risen with the lease extension. The lease was 89 years and it’s been extended to 999 years however it hasn’t been registered as yet with the land registry, despite in being started a year ago. The process has been expedited but, despite indications otherwise from my solicitor, it looks as though it’ll go on beyond my current mortgage offer which runs out on Thursday(!). A new title number has been raised but it’s not been completely registered. The management company who own the freehold is made up of the owners of a set of nine properties of which this property is one of. A few of the properties got together to process this a while ago. The vendor, who does seem trustworthy, assured me there’s no risk to proceeding. They’ve said that all the legal documents prove that the lease extension has been submitted and paid for and will go through just not in time for the transaction. I’d be grateful for some advice here. Is it a problem that it’s still awaiting registration with the land registry? I’ve negotiated a good price on the property and I’d really want it to go through but don’t want to make a stupid mistake. Many thanks Paul

Hey everyone, my wife and I are trying to purchase our first btl property. We are in the darkest spot right now. We've been trying to purchase a property (any) for a whole year now and the first two properties we made offers on fell through. First one due to the vendor getting cold feet and feeling he could get much more for his property. The second one we had to pull out after 3 months of the vendor not being able to provide the most basic of queries. On this last one we've been in a battle for it since June. The vendor advertised it for 110k, currently renting out at 575 pcm, 2 bed flat with 951 per year for service charge + ground rent. On this property we knew a bit better what we were doing and we visited a couple of properties and made lower offers on all of them within the range of what they were worth. And this one got accepted for 102,500k. I got a Hometrack report on the property on the 30th June when we viewed it and it states that the price of the property at the time was estimated at 110k with a range between 102 - 120k confidence level "high". So we were happy about this. Then things went downhill. The vendor has been slow at every single opportunity he's had, we've had to threaten to pull out once during the process, so bad the communication was. Our solicitors and mortgage brokers couldn't understand what the delay was on some simple things. So we've been waiting and chasing the vendor and his solicitors for about 4 months to get the enquiries done. We've even called the agency to get the rental information directly from the agency because the vendor's solicitors couldn't even pick up the phone to get it from them. But we FINALLY get all of it and the only thing left to do is set the completion date. That was a week ago. Again, I know they are the slowest in the world so I keep nudging a bit every 2 days until yesterday I call the agent and tell them I want to know what the delay is this time. An hour ago the agent calls me and tells me the vendor wants to increase the asking price to 110k. He's seen that there are two properties that have sold recently for 130 and 113 in the same area and he wants the same. The one for 113 was sold in May and the 130k in July, they are comparable because they are not in the same building but they are on the same plot of land where 4 different buildings were built on the same time on 2001. I'm very wary that even if we were to accept 110k he may change his mind again before we exchange. Is that even possible at this point? Can I change the mortgage I've been given at this time? Wouldn't that affect the rates? To be honest, we are devastated, all the money we've poured into searches, solicitors, etc and especially all the time and effort that has gone into this and I don't think I have it in me to fight anymore. I told the agent I will think about it but to expect a no from us mainly because of how badly the vendor has behaved at every step of the process. She said it was mostly the vendor's solicitors that were slow but I mean that is his responsibility at the end of the day! Anyway, so we are very biased towards the vendor and the idea of giving him more money after the appalling behaviour he's had towards us is eating at us. We need someone with fresh eyes to tell us their experiences, advice, etc because we are torn, we want to walk away from this awful experience but at the same time we feel we may never start on property at this rate. Looking at rents in the area I can see there are properties for rent asking for 625, 650 and 737 and we know that the 575 is low for the area so we would expect to achieve 600. What would you guys do? Renegotiate? Tell him to stick to his original deal? Accept the 110k? Walk away?