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???