House purchase ‘shared services’. Advice please.

[disneywiseowl]

My daughter & her fiancée (1st time buyers) are in the process of buying a house.
The offer was accepted last March but they havent got a moving date yet. The sellers sold before they’d found a new house & then were going on holiday etc etc.

There are a few issues:
1. No service record/history of the gas boiler. The vendors have said that gas/electric services ‘work fine’ & that if a safety check is required, my daughter will have to arrange & pay for it.
2. No permission from the landowner for the 2 storey rear extension. Her solicitor has said that the vendors will have to apply for retrospective permission & pay the cost. They haven’t confirmed that they will do this yet.

But the biggest concern is about ‘shared services’. The property lease states that the leaseholders are responsible for the reasonable payment of any costs associated with shared services but no-one seems to know what these are. Her solicitor’s asked the vendor to obtain a Management Sales Pack from the Landowner but the vendor has refused to do this.

My DH & I both think that they should pull out but they’ve already incurred costs, survey etc & they’re desperate to get out of their rental house.

Sorry to be so longwinded. You can probably tell I don’t know what I’m talking about. Lol.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[mitch84]

1. Fine. We were asked for this by our purchasers too and said no chance. It’s not a requirement

2. The sellers will need to request permission, or this may be able to be sorted by an indemnity covered by the vendor, the solicitor should advise. Retrospectively requesting permission could take some time.

3. What sort of property is it? Leasehold obviously but a new build? How much is the ground rent and is it being paid?
We had a strange lease on ours and our solicitor advised it was an absentee leaseholder, he requested an indemnity to cover us.

If this is 18 months down the line and still not forthcoming then I would pull out. What is shared on the lane registry?

[Elmhurst 5]

too much uncertainty, for future loss of money. Find something else.

[Mpet]

My biggest concern would be the extension built without permission. Is this a leasehold property?

It’s OK saying they will apply for permission retrospectively, but if it’s refused - what then.

It seems that the sellers are not being particularly helpful.

Personally, I would be looking for another property.

[Claudette]

I would not have hung around for 18 months of no progress! Of course they should pull out, sunk costs fallacy.

[jndt]

As above I would have pulled out of the sale ages ago.

Can they start looking at other properties so loosing this one doesn't feel as bad?

I know they have invested money and a considerable amount of time on this property but it sounds as though it's not worth more money or time. Cut their losses and move on. They'll be thankful of the near miss when they get somewhere else and move in.

[LunaNyteskye]

Cut their losses and run now! Worth losing a couple of thousand now rather than potentially hundreds of thousands down the line!

[Dinglebert]

Another who would be walking away now before it costs far more.

[disneywiseowl]

Sorry, I meant March 21, so it’s only 5 months. It is leasehold. By indemnity - is that an insurance policy? I’ll pass all the responses onto my daughter. My gut feeling is pull out but they’ll probably want to continue with conditions…. Prices round here have shot up in the last year & they’re just ‘wasting’ rent money. Even entry level basic terraced houses are over £200k so it won’t be easy to find another property.
Thanks for all the advice.

[munmun]

Originally Posted by disneywiseowl

My daughter & her fiancée (1st time buyers) are in the process of buying a house.
The offer was accepted last March but they havent got a moving date yet. The sellers sold before they’d found a new house & then were going on holiday etc etc.

There are a few issues:
1. No service record/history of the gas boiler. The vendors have said that gas/electric services ‘work fine’ & that if a safety check is required, my daughter will have to arrange & pay for it.
2. No permission from the landowner for the 2 storey rear extension. Her solicitor has said that the vendors will have to apply for retrospective permission & pay the cost. They haven’t confirmed that they will do this yet.

But the biggest concern is about ‘shared services’. The property lease states that the leaseholders are responsible for the reasonable payment of any costs associated with shared services but no-one seems to know what these are. Her solicitor’s asked the vendor to obtain a Management Sales Pack from the Landowner but the vendor has refused to do this.

My DH & I both think that they should pull out but they’ve already incurred costs, survey etc & they’re desperate to get out of their rental house.

Sorry to be so longwinded. You can probably tell I don’t know what I’m talking about. Lol.

Any advice would be appreciated.

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I would be very close to pulling out but would say the following through my solicitor

Proceeding with this purchase depends on the vendor supplying to me a service certificate for the boiler. I would arrange my own check of the electrics.

If the property is leasehold there is a lease, this should be provided to your daughter by the vendor. They need to read it very carefully.

The vendor should supply the planning permission and building regs certificates.


The vendor needs to understand that if they don't supply all this to your daughter they will need to supply them to the next purchaser. Give a time for all this to be supplied, maybe a month and then walk away