Misled by an estate agent when purchasing a property

A

Adwas82

Registered User
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Folks,

I am looking for a bit of advice from the lads in the forum.

The situation is as follows:
  • I have gone sale agreed on an apartment in Dublin with a designated car park space in July
  • As the legal work progressed and shortly before contracts were due to be signed, my solicitor confirmed that the title does not include a car park space
  • Valuation, survey, solicitor's work have been carried out already before this fact emerged
  • raised it to the selling agent and since the past 3 weeks i am not getting any answers apart from ;" we are checking". I believe they are holding me up for whatever reason
  • i have multiple proofs, where it has been confirmed that the car park space is included in the price (emails from agent, agent's website, valuation included car park space etc)
I know that the car park space is not going to appear as the title does not include this.
The property without the car park does not work for me.

The question is: what legal grounds do I have to claim the charges incurred so far (valuation, survey, solicitor's work etc) from the agent , on the basis that I have been misled in respect to the car park space.

any advice will be appreciated.
 
I would be surprised if you had any rights at all.

But you should send him a bill for all your expenses.

However, you should report the estate agent to whichever professional association he is a member of and maybe to the [broken link removed]
 
thanks for the comments Brendan. Are you saying that i have no rights, on a basis that either party (seller/buyer) can pull out from the sale before the contract are signed with no implications?
But sure there must be something supporting my cases on the basis of being misled /misinformed i would hope.
 
Your issue may very well be with the owner rather than the agent; surely the agent was relying on information provided by the owner? I'm not aware of agents ever undertaking the level of due diligence that a solicitor undertakes during the course of a property purchase; but then isn't that the purpose of the process? There must be physical parking there if you thought it was included; what are the arrangements in respect of same and would they work for you?
 
thanks for the comment Gordon. Agree the purpose of the process led by a solicitor is to ensure that all is in order.But when you make an offer, which is based on the agent confirming that there is a designated car park space and you will own it, and then it turns out not to be reality someone dropped the ball somewhere and I am not willing to cover the costs of someone's mistake. This particular sale is a receivership sale but i still think agents need to own up to what they have been told by their own client and if needed to seek an evidence before getting into bidding/offering etc.
 
Which leads us back to the disclaimers that appear on EAs' websites, documentation and emails. "We are not responsible for inaccuracies, don't believe a word we say, etc" I'm not saying they should be exonerated from outright lies or deception, but there are limits to their responsibilities with regard to information. Also, always remember, the buyer has no contract with the EA, the only contract is with the seller.

So what responsibilities, if any do EAs have to purchasers?

What about having the sellers' solicitors provide the EAs with copies of deeds, land registry entries, detailed maps, proof of title and the EA cannot advertise the property for sale without these? If the buyers' solicitors verify that all is correct, the sale can proceed with the costs added to the buyers' bill, other wise the seller is stuck with them.

What about extending the Sale of Goods and Supply of Services Act to real property?
 
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