Currently buying/selling a house? How is it going? READ MOD NOTE POST #1

Don't worry about. I listened to bad advice from many people whilst buying.

I'd be curious to know why your solicitor thought this would be a good idea. All that I can think of is that he/she believed that a poor survey result later in the process could perhaps be used to negotiate a lower price.

Hi, I have been following the thread for a while. We finally went sale agreed on a property we viewed in February this year. The house came to the market again in September and we were approached by EA as a second higher bidder. EA says previous buyer couldn't afford interest rate hikes and backed out. We were delighted at first but after the survey not sure what to do. 😔

The house is a semi detached house and went around 100k over asking. (Wasn't priced well by the EA to begin with)

We did the survey and it highlighted a few pressing issues. I was just wondering if anyone would have more knowledge on the below issue:

1. Surveyor thinks that the alteration done by removing the living room wall doesn't comply with fire regulation. The stair now exits to living room so surveyor has recommended to get compliance document. I have read building regulation regarding fire safety and it mentions if there is a wall between stair and kitchen and if the main kitchen area is 3m away from stairs it should not be a problem but I am not sure. Moreover, the slope of the stair is 44 degrees and it requires to be 42 to be compliant.

2. A original owners built a side extension in early 1990s which had planning. The second owner of the property built a conservatory in 2008 without planning. It's around 20sqm. I have read that extension at the back of the house upto 40sqm doesn't require planning but since this house already had 50sqm side extension done, would anyone know if exemption is still available?

Our solicitor has contacted vendor solicitor for compliance documents but he hasn't received anything formal yet. He thinks we should look into other properties.

Would anyone know if the bank look at building regulation/fire safety compliance even if these changes to the house were done in 1990s?

Will this affect home insurance?

We like the house but are very confused now. Just wondering if anyone has been in similar situation or have any suggestions. Thanks.

The bank may not like the sound of that. If they don't feel that they will be able sell the house in the event of a foreclosure, they will not want to offer a loan. Indeed, this may be why the previous buyer pulled out rather than the rise in interest rates.

Personally, unless you really want this house because of the area, I think it's best to look elsewhere.

Also, this line...

"The house is a semi detached house and went around 100k over asking. (Wasn't priced well by the EA to begin with)"

EAs don't do this by accident. Likely, he/she listed it under-value to drive up the eventual sale price by starting a bidding-war.

FYI

If you look at the Council Planning application website - you might see the original house drawings and layout of the stairs that would be included for that side extension in early 1990s which had planning.

Thanks everyone.

I checked SDCC planning site and found just a grant letter dated 1989 with regards to side extension, it didn't have planning drawing unfortunately and just described what is going to be built.

I found another planning document with retention of dormer window construction in 2003 by original owners which was granted. However, this had drawing that showed house with living room wall removed already, as well as side extensions. I also found a house nearby with similar layout and it clearly shows the house having a side entrance(the one we are viewing has front) with stairs in the middle and two walls one for living room and kitchen.

Yeah, it was priced to ignite a bidding war. There were 4 parties bidding; we left after it went over 100k more than asking.

I guess I will have to wait if solicitors gets compliance documents but need to start looking again, so back to square one. Frustrating but learnt so many things to look for.

I don’t think there’s any set rule and comes down to the developer.

We were allowed to get stuff done in the house like floors, etc. as we were approaching drawdown. Not sure if the fact we were delayed played into this or not but we were very happy to be able to get it done before we started the move.

Yeah snag list was done and 95% completed. We were mostly waiting on certs before we could drawdown.

First week in Oct our solicitor advises us to put our insurances in place and send her the deposit money as she was requesting the loan from the bank.

The bank wouldn't release the funds as the undertaking was missing a date. This was corrected and returned.

Now they've rejected the undertaking a second time without giving me any details as to why only telling me they are following up with my solicitor on it.

I rang my solicitor and she hasn't heard anything from the bank,

WTH is going on?

I've gone back a couple of posts on your story. Any tips for a family considering doing similar... selling and buying. We had an exploratory conversation with a broker and we can afford a mortgage that should get us what we'd like in the area we want BUT the deposit is the big challenge and we'd likely have to sell before closing on a new house which feels incredibly sketchy. Now, where we are has little on the market so we think it'd be snapped up quickly but we've no family near where we want to move to (which would involve having to get kids into a new school) so it's either the sale/purchase goes like clockwork (ha!) or we'd need to find short term rental (ha!). Add to that, it's a drip feed of houses in the bracket we're looking at in that new area. It feels like madness to consider the move but it also feels like madness not to put up with short term pain for the long term good.

Eeek, that's tough having to sell twice. Good to have a sense though that it is possible to have the current home "sold" while you try to close the purchase on the new one. One thing we were thinking of doing was having solicitor and auctioneer ready to go (and anything else we might need) to sell our current home until we saw something on the market we wanted to go for. At that point we put our current up for sale and hope everything goes ok... like you say delays can happen.

We're in a similar-ish boat actually to ye... bought in 2016 and the value should be a good deal higher (not double but around 40-50% higher). We've put a lot of work in to the house too, so that might help bump up the resale value. We'd loose the nice 2% fixed interest as well but that's the short term pain.

Thanks for the info. I think our next step is to talk to some auctioneers.

Oh one other question. Are there tax implications on selling the current house at a profit?

Not sure if anyone has been following my updates, but just had a call from AIB to confirm our application is gone into final checks.

Fingers crossed all goes smoothly. If anyone has any questions about buying via the Local Authority Affordable Purchase Scheme, please feel free to reach out, I've had a lot of experiences with it though this.

Extremely frustrating!! It’s house we absolutely love! But they’ve been dragging their heels!

and to rub salt into the wounds, their EA has lied to us about a bid on house they’ve been viewing. We viewed the same house as potential back up before we knew they were! We were actually the first to view and they were the second to view the next day. He told us they had a bid on the house two days later. Only reason I know they viewed that house is because he told me the exact house which is fair enough. They want a certain house…

I rang the EA selling that house and she told there was no bids at all! So who’s lying?

I’m bald as an eagle but I’m losing more hair by the day!!! 😂

We've had our house up in Dublin 3 (Clonliffe rd) since June. Its a lovely, bright, airy 3 bedroom house with all original features, walkable to town, big high ceilings, built in early 1900 or so. Its very liveable, we've been there since 2008 and we take care of the place.

Can't get anyone interested. We've dropped the price but still no real interest. We had one offer below asking, that person disappeared, we had another offer again well below asking, that person also disappeared. We've had probably 12 open viewings and I'd say half of them nobody turned up. The most we ever had was maybe 2/3 groups.

A couple of things, we have a north facing garden. This grinds my gears, the orientation. Estate Agents obsess over it. We get the sun in the back of the garden where we sit out, from May - September, for the whole day. Like not some of the day, the whole bloody day from 8am - 8pm, because the back of the garden isn't overlooked from any side. The back is glorious, basked in sun, yet I would say that a large percentage of people probably don't view the house or consider it because of the orientation.

So, we're looking at options. Our EA has basically said that we will come back in February and push it then, but thats 3 months away.

1. We could turn the front garden into a car space. Our neighbours did it. It looks great. It might be a big addition for some people? Maybe a spend of €7/8k.
2. We could put in colourful shutters, resand the original floors etc., to make it more attractive to the early 30 somethings. Maybe a net spend of €3/4k
3. Could maybe put €1k into the garden, make it look a bit nicer.

So maybe spend 10-15k.

Thoughts on all of this? I just feel if we put it back up in February, the same way it was, that we most likely will get the same result.

Or is the market completely gone?

Thats what people are saying, don't spend another penny. I don't fully get that. Why not try make the house more attractive to people. Does a front driveway make a house more attractive? It doesn't for me, but maybe it does for others? We need more people to visit the house, just need to really get the numbers up. Whats €10k if you make an extra €20k. If it goes the other way, its again not the end of the world.

Its a very wide road, fully lit, never had any issue at night. The odd head banger on their way to ballybough, but you get that in most areas of Dublin.