Contract signed, deposit paid but contracts not returned.

Hi all;

I have signed a contract and paid a 10% deposit for a house
in a new development. This was over 2 months ago and the
developers solicitor has not returned the signed contracts. My
solicitor has told me that he has contacted the developers solicitor
but has got no response. The house is close to being finished
and the same design style is now being advertised for 10K more than
my contract price.

I would appreciate if anyone could tell me if there are any time
limits to how long the vendor can hold onto my deposit without
responding ?

Also can I instruct my solicitor to withdraw my offer or put
a deadline in place, given that the vendor has not yet
signed and returned the contract ?
(I couldn't quite get a clear answer on this!)

Thanks for any insights/suggestions.

Has your deposit cheque been cashed? If not, then the developers are presumably keeping their options open ( i.e. to sell to someone else at a higher price) rather than just being a bit slow.


I would appreciate if anyone could tell me if there are any time
limits to how long the vendor can hold onto my deposit without responding ?

No - its the same as how long is a piece of string and ultimately it comes down to what you're willing to do. Keep your fingers crossed and hope all goes well or take the bold step and demand either signed contracts or your deposit back - unless of course deposit cheque was not cashed in which case you should be able to cancel it.

And finally, this is the wording that both sets of solicitors use when engaging in pre-contract negotiations:


Please note that we do not have any authority either express or implied to bind our clients in any way and we must emphasise that neither this correspondence nor any negotiations had between our clients shall constitute a note or memorandum within the meaning of the Statute of Frauds until such time as both contracts are signed, exchanged and a full deposit is paid.

mf

Thanks for the reponse mf

The original 'holding deposit' was made out to the developer
and was cashed. The balance of the 10% deposit was made
out to my solicitor and cashed by him within days of my signing
the contract.

My gut feeling is that the developer is keeping his options open, but
by the sounds of things there is little I can do about that.

I guess I better start looking at what else is available.

Thanks again.

made out to your own solicitor ? Is this normal practise ? Wouldn't it be either the builder or their solicitor?

The solicitor said I could make it out to vendors solicitor, but I felt safer to make it out to my solicitor as he is working for me. This didn't seem to be a major issue.