Recovering costs incurred if sale fails?

robnet77

I went sale agreed on a property whose owner died recently, the house was put on sale right after that but the seller is not entitled to sell it until they complete the probate process (it turned out they only started the probate 6 weeks after I went sale agreed with them!!).

Now, the law has recently changed and the sale is being delayed by a few months.
As a result, I have now pulled out of the purchase, but I have already paid for the bank survey and structural survey: can I recover these costs, considering that the seller has not issued a contract and is not currently entitled to sell that property, also they haven't got a BER certificate...?

They gave me a tight timeline to get the surveys done, for a property they could not even put on the market? Is it worth suing them? thanks.

superman28

I would seek professional legal advice,, just give a solicitor a call and get a quote and see if you have a case,,

Eldarion

Hate to be the bearer of bad news but I don't think you have much legal standing on this one. Surveys and valuations are considered lost costs and the seller is in no way liable for them should the sale not go through for any reason prior to contracts being signed.

You are of course entitled to your deposit back if you've transferred that already to the EA but in all fairness your solicitor should have walked you through these things already.

Mrs OBumble

Yeah, but in this case, the OP was dealing with either a chancer or an eejit, not a seller.

If I tried to sell you something that I didn't own, and caused you some out-of-pocket expenses, then I'd expect that there's some law which would regulate my behaviour. Maybe a lawyer could even argue that my behaviour was attempted fraud.

OP - solicitor time, IMHO. Stress that the apparent vendor had no right to sell.

robnet77

thanks to everyone, I will check with my solicitor!

Victor

Normally, you would have no right to recovery.

What is novel here is that they seem not to have had the right to sell. Even that is a limited hope. I understand it is an offence to advertise a property without a BER Cert - that might give you leverage.

JohnBee

Surely advertising a property which cannot be sold, and thus inducing a potential buyer into incurring costs could be considered fraud no?

The_Conductor

JohnBee wrote: »

Surely advertising a property which cannot be sold, and thus inducing a potential buyer into incurring costs could be considered fraud no?

Possibly- but it would be for the legal people to decide.
With cases like this- chasing the eejit could cost you more than you'd manage to extract from them- you have to balance up whether its worth it or not.

Some people chase these type cases- purely to make a point- but in larger scale of things, its akin to cutting off your nose to spite your face........

We need to implement some sort of system whereby a sale pack is provided to potential purchasers- whereby it has a basic survey done, a BER and a list of other information. If a potential buyer wants to do additional studies themselves- so be it.

Its a bit unusual a case- but that aside- legal costs alone will likely vastly exceed any recompense of survey fees etc........

marie rosanna

The_Conductor wrote: »

Possibly- but it would be for the legal people to decide.
With cases like this- chasing the eejit could cost you more than you'd manage to extract from them- you have to balance up whether its worth it or not.

Some people chase these type cases- purely to make a point- but in larger scale of things, its akin to cutting off your nose to spite your face........

We need to implement some sort of system whereby a sale pack is provided to potential purchasers- whereby it has a basic survey done, a BER and a list of other information. If a potential buyer wants to do additional studies themselves- so be it.

Its a bit unusual a case- but that aside- legal costs alone will likely vastly exceed any recompense of survey fees etc........

In my experience ( mother died last year). We could do nothing with the family home until it came out of probate. During this probate period all kinds of searches are done to ensure that those in the will are entitled to share of family home etc as long as they dont owe money to revenue, or that there are no other wills or relatives around. My point is that as far as I know and my experience to date, the family may have put that house on the market, without seeking legal advice. We could do nothing with my mams house until it came out of probate (this took one year, and my mom had a clear and simple will) and I agree a sales pack, ( they have in other countries) should be introduced.

plodder

JohnBee wrote: »

Surely advertising a property which cannot be sold, and thus inducing a potential buyer into incurring costs could be considered fraud no?

Not a lawyer, but to be fraud it would need to be done "knowingly" which is not likely to be the case since there's no way the sale could have been completed anyway. A civil action would be easier, but even then, you'd have to compare what the "vendors" might have done , ie got legal advice) and what the buyer might have done also - ie. got legal advice. I'd be surprised if it would succeed, but again, I'm not a lawyer.