Really in serious trouble with property

TCM

Glass fused light wrote:

Your first step is to go back to your solicitor and clarify what checks were made by them and what assurances were given by the seller, do this by a face to face meeting with whom ever was dealing with the transaction and have your list of questions done in advance of the meeting so that you keep the conversation on track.

Absolutely.
Your solicitor is responsible for ensuring all aspects of the house (from your perspective) purchase comply with legal requirements and that nothing can come back to 'bite you' as it were.

4ensic15

davo10 wrote: »

Actually they do help the complainant:


https://www.lawsociety.ie/Public/Complaints-against-solicitors/Negligence-Panel/

All the law society do is give a list of solicitors prepared to sue your solicitor for negligence. They don't investigate negligence themselves. Negligence of itself, or apparent negligence, is not regarded as an inadequate professional service. Inadequate professional service complains are usually poor communication, telling lies, not furnishing fee estimates, no responding to correspondence and not doing the work in a timely manner.

The_Honeybadger

This happened when we bought our house there was (and still is) planning contributions owed on the property, our solicitor picked it up and made the sellers sign a declaration stating that they are responsible for these fees.

It delayed things for ages and my wife in particular would have agreed to anything at the time to get the sale through but my solicitor dug her heels in, glad she did now.

Gumbo

davo10 wrote: »

Have to admit, in my experience the person doing the survey of a property for sale has never checked the planning, they just check the condition of the property to see if there is anything of concern. I wasn't aware that they check planning and if contributors paid. I would have thought that would be the solicitor's job.

No, it’s a standard part of a pre purchase building survey.
The solicitor never visits the site so they never know that there’s extensions, planning issues etc only for the surveyors report.

TheIronyMaiden

We've just bought a house OP that had a large shed built out the back by the previous owner. One of the first things my solicitor talked to me about was having to hold things up until she got the certificate of planning exemption for that shed, she wasn't continuing until she got that from the seller. She said that I could sue her if she hadn't checked that out and there was a planning problem with it. So I would imagine it is the same in your case.

Best of luck with everything OP, buying a house is such an expensive time without any of that messing!

Iodine1

I might be wrong here but I get the impression that the renovations were done by the previous owner, but on top of the sale price? I think that means that they were like extras done by the builder (previous owner) at the OPs request, which could mean the OP is responsible for Planning, whether it was obtained or not etc?

memomtoo

Iodine1 wrote: »

I might be wrong here but I get the impression that the renovations were done by the previous owner, but on top of the sale price? I think that means that they were like extras done by the builder (previous owner) at the OPs request, which could mean the OP is responsible for Planning, whether it was obtained or not etc?

renovations and extensions are done by previous owner and they charged us 50k extra for all these(its wont even take that much for these works, we found out from few builders here)

astrofool

So, you bought the house for €290,000, then paid €50,000 for works to be done by the previous owner, which apparently breached planning rules somehow, or incurred a cost from the county council to carry them out?

It all sounds very strange, was this a rural or urban dwelling? Was the house new, or second hand? Is it in an estate, or a one off?

If you commissioned the works, then it's likely the bill will be with you to settle.

uck51js9zml2yt

I find it odd that a buyer would ask a seller to do work on a house before it's bought.
This just doesn't make sense!

Sleeper12

KevinCavan wrote:

Was it a cash buy? That’s the only scenario I could think of that would land you in such a predicament.

Cash or mortgage would make no difference. Solicitor seems to have dropped the ball on this.

riclad

Its up to the solicitor to check is there any outstanding bills due on the house before the sale goes through.
Did you tell him you were paying the owner to carry out repairs on the house.
Any building work might require planning permission or at least a cert of exemption from an architect ,the solicitor should know this.

Iodine1

It looks to me that buyer bought house then paid €50k extra to have work done (stated to be too dear but agreed). Solicitor may have transferred original house without the extras, so may well have cleared everything as they should have legally and thus may not be at fault. They would also have no say in the price or the value of the 'extras'. Post is not very clear on the details.