Sale agreed on house advice needed

dooley319

hi folks,
we have put a holding fee on a new house back in the 1st week of march when we recived our mortgage aproval ,
At that time we were told by the estate agent that the owner has a retention going through to replace
the septic tank to a chemical treatment Tank and to move it 20-30 meters back from the house including the boundry (he also owns the land behind us)
We got a phone call yesterday saying that the application for retention only went in yesterday,we thought there was just 2 months to go but now there is 3 and the time limit for us to draw down the money is 3 months this could result in reapplying all over again for a mortgage,
would anyone have any advice on how to speed the contracts up,

dats_right

I'm not quite sure what you're asking, if it is that you want to speed the Contract for Sale up then you can ask your solicitor about the viability of inserting a special condition making the sale subject to planning approval and preferably within a certain time frame eg. 3-6 months. But this won't resolve the underlying issue (unauthorised development) any faster, as the Council will continue to work at there own pace and are unlikely to be inclined to speed up the process merely to assist a quick sale of the property. Most importantly such a special condition will not mean you can complete the purchase before the planning matter is resolved.

There is however a downside to signing a contract with such a special conditon and that is that you will be locked into a binding legal agreement to buy the property and if another better property where to come up in the meantime you will be unable to 'pull the plug' and buy the better property. Also these planning problems often have the capacity to drag on for months and sometimes years, so there is no guarantee that this issue will be resolved within the time frame you expect.

Op this isn't your fault but the planning issue really should have been resolved by the vendor prior to putting the property on the market. Many people in your position would not sign contracts until the planning problems are solved and would continue to keep their eyes open for suitable alternative properties; especially now as it is more likely that prices will continue to fall in the coming months rather than rise. So be wary about committing yourself to buy a property at an April 2009 price when you mightn't actually be buying it for another 3-6 months or possibly longer!

quozl

Don't sign anything, and keep looking for an alternate house if you really want to buy now, imo.

Your 'holding' deposit is with a reputable escrower, such as an EA company, right? That's a long time for them to be holding it. And I use 'reputable' in comparison to the completely unknown current property owner.

3 months from now, things will have dropped some more. Even if it's only 1% a month, that's still a decent chunk of change.

You are not beholden to this property seller, even if they weren't messing you around.

Freddie59

OP check these sites:

www.treesdontgrowtothesky.com

www.thepropertypin.com

www.irishpropertywatch.com

www.irishhometruths.com

juke

dooley319 wrote: »

would anyone have any advice on how to speed the contracts up,

Until the retention planning permission is granted, there's nothing really you can do. Your lender will not agree that you drawing down the loan without it.

Have you contacted you lender/broker to get the 3 months extended?

dooley319

Hi folks thank you for the information ,
i contacted the bank yesterday and our mortgage is up in june put we were told it would just be a matter of handing in uptodate payslips to re issue our mortgage for another three months,
we really want the house so guess we will have to wait but keep an eye out for anything that comes up in the mean time,
only other thing that was suggested to us was to inquire with the owner as to moving in as cartakers while we are waiting for retention,