Has anyone successfully made deal with builder

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foxylady

Registered User
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Basically the story is bought a place 3 yrs ago off plans , It still is not completed and nowhere near it, even after completion date of 18months, builder' solicitor says we cant have deposit back and wont release us from contract.

Do you think if we contacted the builder directly we would have any better luck, we even offered to let them keep our deposit to release us and still no joy.
 
search through the other posts on this. what does your solicitor say? was the completion date included in your contract and what penalties/provisions were made in the contract for non-completion within the specified timeframe if any? you should really talk to your solicitor, 3 years is a disgrace.
 


Solicitor says contract is the standard norm for house purchase and only option now is to take them to court ( this could take at the very least a year )
 
I do not want to give case-specific advice based on the limited info available but it would be normal that if the completion period in the contract has expired, you can serve a completion notice; If place is not finished within the notice period, you can rescind ( i.e. terminate) the contract and get back your deposit. Note, however, that the deposit was probably released to the builder, and you will probably be an unsecured creditor for this money; So only take this option if you are willing to potentially lose your deposit. Otherwise, hang in there for now.
 
Good advice from MOB.

Your solicitor hopefully mean that court is the final stage and it could be resolved before that, the threat of court can be enough. Is this a solicitor you hired privately or were you introduced through the developer or EA?
 


Completion notice was served on them over 6 months ago and this was ignored, they wont give back deposit or release us from the contract.Also to go to court we have to first pay counsel almost 1k just for an opinion.
 
Senna said:
Good advice from MOB.

Your solicitor hopefully mean that court is the final stage and it could be resolved before that, the threat of court can be enough. Is this a solicitor you hired privately or were you introduced through the developer or EA?
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Solicitor was given to us by ea who incidentally are across street from them
 
foxylady said:
Solicitor was given to us by ea who incidentally are across street from them
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I would talk to another solicitor, your own is not doing anything for you. I would phone your solicitor and ask for all relevant documentation relating to your house be released. A half hour of time with another solicitor may give you alot more options, maybe get family, friends or work colleagues to recommend an independent solicitor.
 


Ihave put the scenario to a couple of other solicitors as well and they seem to be of the same opinion to be honest and if this is the case i certainly dont want to be paying on the double if you know what i mean
 
Hi. A couple I know are in a similar situation. The 18 onths in their contract was up last September. The house was not ready so they assumed(as did their solicitor) that they could return the contacts and be allowed out of it. But apparently in all standard building contracts is something called time of essence, which basically etends the 18 months. This was only noticed when the contract was run by a barrister. Her solicitor knew nothing of this. Anyway she finally had a long meeting with her solicitor and barrister yesterday and was told that her €20k deposit is almost certainl gone and that they will be extremely lucky to be let out of the contract. It all depends on how'nice' the builders decide to be to a first time buyer couple. If the builder issues proceedings and it goes to court the barristers starting fee is approx €10k. Worst case scenario is that the builder will sell the house at a very reduced cost and they will have to pay him the balance between that amount and their contract price. As the house is in Adamstown I'd say the chances of him selling the house are slim, no matter how much he reduces it by. The other issue is that one half of the couple has lost their job so chances are they will now not get their mortgage. Does anybody know what might happen here where someone simply cant get mortgage approval because the whole process has dragged on so long???
 
dub1 said:
Her solicitor knew nothing of this.
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Getting away from the main point but is there any recourse against a solicitor seen they didn't know about something that was in a contract?

If you search on here or possible boards.ie, there was a thread about a person who got out of a contract as the completion notice was not met, cant remember if the deposit was returned, but getting out of the contract would be top priority.
 
MOB said:
. Note, however, that the deposit was probably released to the builder, and you will probably be an unsecured creditor for this money;
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This is absolutely dreadful. No protection for purchasers yet again.
 
deal and builder do not go together.
Same for contract and protection for purchasers.
as to go to court to solve this (or at least to try to solve it) i would think twice.
I am not being pessimistic but as i was told by my own solicitor when dealing with a similar problem to yours :"if you want justice do not go to court"
Best of luck
 

I dont want to go to court at all but thats what Im told my options are or else wait and just buy the place
 
"This is absolutely dreadful. No protection for purchasers yet again."

There is limited protection. Both Homebond and Premier Guarantee have a deposit protection scheme. But after three years, I think the deposit protection has probably lapsed. So - unsecured creditor in this case, in all likelihood.

The reality here is that the OP had an ordinary piece of transactional business;

She now has - at least potentially - a litigation matter.

She can choose to leave things sit and hope for the best.

She can choose to spend money on counsel's opinion so as to be able to make a fully informed choice about her available options. If things eventually turn out fine, it is I suppose possible to regard this as money wasted - but it would be worth it to me to know where I stood.

She can choose to go to another solicitor if she is concerned that she has been badly advised.

Anything other than 'hope for the best' is going to cost money. Going to law is always expensive. If the initial €1k for counsel's opinion is a problem, why not pool resources with other buyers in the development who are presumably facing the same mess?

I would be inclined to spend the money to get counsel's opinion.
 

I would agree with these suggestions. Form a group from other people in the same position and then the €1000 would not seem expensive. Would pay the 1K to get prpper advice in either case as 1k is better lost than the whole deposit or woesr being forced to complete if there is a legal way out of this.
 
There is limited protection. Both Homebond and Premier Guarantee have a deposit protection scheme. But after three years, I think the deposit protection has probably lapsed. So - unsecured creditor in this case, in all likelihood.



What exactly is this scheme as 3 yrs has not quite lapsed yet
 
Both Homebond and Premier Guarantee offer deposit\stage payment protection which is designed to protect you if you hand over a deposit and the builder goes bust. So it is only relevant in a situation where:

1. You are entitled to a refund of deposit.
2. Builder is unable to pay it to you.

And, as I say, there is a time limit; Offhand I can't remember what it is, but I rather suspect that it would be 12 or 18 months (with an option to extend, if I remember rightly)
 
I agree with MOB 1K for counsels opinion would be worth it. It's cheap and you would know where you were at legally speaking.

On another point it's very convenient that the homebond deposit scheme has such a short timespane when we know that builders are commonly going way beyond contractual signing for completion.
 
Well, you could call it 'convenient' but I don't think there is anything sinister. Homebond is effectively an insurance scheme. They can't really cover deposits on an open-ended basis, as it would be impracticable to make proper provision without some certainty on their exposure. Achieving this certainty means imposing time limits. In this regard, it is no different to other forms of insurance.

I have since checked a policy document. It is a little complicated; they insure a deposit for two years from registration of the house or one year from the 'operative date' whichever is later, but limited to 6 months from Final Notice and with an option to get a 6 month extension by writing to Homebond.
 
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