Apt size not whats it's supposed to be

S

Scooby

Guest
When we originally bought (over a year ago), we did so after viewing the show apartment. The 2-bed apartrment was listed in the sales literature as Type S and the width of the second double-bedroom was listed as being 9ft with an overall floor area of 818sqft. We measured the show unit at the time and it matched up so all looked good.

There are 2 type S apts per floor in each block so you would assume that they would be identical in size, right? Wrong!

It seems that on one side of the building a type S is as specified but after measuring the one on the other side (the one we bought) we found that the width of the second double-bedroom is only 7.5ft with an overall floor area of 775sqft. We did measure the one on the other side as well and it was as per the show unit.

We reckon that this differnece in size is worth about 5,000. We bought a type S and there was no mention that the one on the side we picked would be smaller. If we had known we would have picked the other side.

Any advice on how we should approach this issue with the selling agents and what outcome we can expect?

This difference is size was not indicated in any literature and we were sold a type S
 
Talk to your solicitor. He'll know what legal grounding you have here.

I bought off plan and this was one of my concerns. Solicitor said I would have some legal recourse if the sizes were way off. 43sqft may or may not be deemed inacceptable. I don't know. Your contract with the builder might shed more light on this situation and again, your solicitor is who you should be directing your questions to.
 
thanks Gabriel - will of course do that but just wanted to hear if anyone else has come up against this type of thing before and what the outcome was.

The main issue is that with a room 9 ft wide you can fit a double bed across nicely but with the missing 1.5ft it gets very tight at the end of the bed.
 
I'm guessing here...but if other people who paid the same money and bought the same apartment have the proper size and you don't then it stands to reason that the builders messed up big time and I'd imagine that you have a fairly strong case to either receive a sizeable discount or pull out of the deal and get your money back. But, like I said, I'm guessing and just using common sense.

Best of luck anyway and I hope things work out in your favour.
 
Same situation

A guy i used to work with had the very same situation.

After 3 years and a court case he got a refund of some money (dont know how much but he said it wasnt enough). And he was still stuck living in a smaller house than he was supposed to be.
 
extras

hopefully it won't come to that!

might try to go down the route of getting a few extras fitted for free. Builders might be a bit more accomodating as the cost will be less to them.
 
Hi Scooby,

I'd think long and hard about going down this route. Depending on what extras you're talking about you're essentially letting the builder off the hook and possibly doing yourself out of thousands of euro. Will this much smaller bedroom affect the resale value for instance? It might. It's one of the things I'd consider very important if viewing a potential property.

Talk to your solicitor before doing anything, and with all due respect to Daithi's friends story...you can't presume this will be the same in your case.

Remember, this is where you're going to live. I understand that your natural instinct is just to want to move in regardless (that's how you feel when you buy a new property) but be patient. It'll be worth it in the long run. Best of luck.
 
The small print on most property brochures has a note to say that the measurements can't be relied upon, though I've no idea if this legally covers the builder in a case like yours.
 
This is just a presumption but I'd guess its up to you to check the sizes. If this isn't the legal position inaccurate square footage figures wouldn't be as wildly variable as they are.
 
Perhaps the dimensions in the brochure are correct but are reduced by the fitting of dry lining, skirting, other fixtures/fittings etc. to the actual walls - i.e. the dimensions are the "raw" dimensions but the actually "finished" dimensions might be less that those? For example our house had particular dimensions specified for the bedrooms but by the time the fitted wardrobes were installed we "lost" some of this space. We didn't really consider this untoward.

How did you calculate the value of the missing space at Eur 5K?
 
measurements

OK, here's where the figures came from.
In the original brochure, the size of this room was 9ft wide. We measured the width of this room in the show unit and it was 9ft wide (all fittings, wardrobes etc were in).

A week or so ago we got into our own apt building and measured the width of the room in our apt. The walls were in and plastered and the built in wardrobes are there too. The width of the room in ours is 7.5 ft.

We done the same in the same apt across the hall and the width of their room was 9ft as in the original show unit and in the brochure.
 
Re: measurements

Did you measure the rest of the apartment? Maybe you have the same overall space but it is distributed slightly different across the different rooms (e.g. the studded partition walls between this room and those that are adjacent are in a different location in yours compared to the show and other apartment units)?
 
had same problem

Hi

I had the same issue when I bought my apartment a year ago. The length of bedroom & hall were 3ft shorter than specified. The living room & other bedroom were correct. Had a look at the 2 bed across from me and it had the 3 ft. All apartments on one side had it and on the other side we lost 3 ft??? Pointed this out to the builders & they told us that in the specifications it said size might differ and to be honest at the time the apartment was so late being finished (1 yr after I was originally told) I just accepted this.

I just wonder if this issue is common with apartments and why this happens?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top