Paying for vendors plans?

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ney001

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As explained in previous threads we are in the middle of trying to buy our first home - we came across this house via private sale and it was all very very quick - they wanted out asap and we wanted in asap. Anyway things progressed rapidly until their solicitor sent the contracts at which time my solicitor realised that the hadn't sent the original documentation, they hadn't sent original maps etc etc so we knew that the process would be delayed for a while (until start of August). Anyway tonight the vendor rang me and put the following scenario to me, has anyone heard of this and what do you think?
The house was sold with full planning permission for an extension - to be honest this really didn't interest us as we couldn't afford to build for a couple of years anyway -the vendors showed us the plans they had drawn up and gave us a copy for our records - we thought no more about it. So vendor rings me now and says that they never paid the architect for the plans which were 1500 euro and he thinks it only fair that we pay half of the cost of the plans - is this normal practice? , I'm not really comfortable with them ringing me directly anyway, I believe all of this should go through solicitors No?
 
Contact your solicitors. The vendor is completely in the wrong. You're already paying for the plans since the house was sold with planning permission.

I'm sure I would have told him where to stick his plans. And that's why these things are always done through the solicitor.

This isn't a stamp duty evasion ruse though is it?
 
No, I don't think that's normal practice! They hired the architect to do the plans, not you, so they should have no expectation of you coughing up for them. If full planning permission has been granted, you can get the outline plans off the council planning department for a small fee anyway. If, however, you think you might extend in the next 3-5 years (check when the PP lapses), and they are offering to sell you the complete set of architect's blueprints, then it might be worth considering.
 
IMO any house sold with plans to extend has already had its price hiked. They charge extra so that you have the privilege of spending another small fortune on an extension at a later date!
 
Ceepee, getting the drawings from the Council and using them to build from, or even to do working drawings from, would breach the architect's copyright. (i.e. (s)he could sue you).

Ney001, legally of course the vendor is the only person who has to pay, the problem is whether in a Seller's market, you will be able to hold out - could the vendor pull the sale and try to sell to someone else? Especially if it will be August before things get sorted out.

I suggest that you tell the vendor that their particular proposed extension is not what you want/need; or stronger still, that it is completely inappropriate for ye for whatever reason (e.g cost, design, no. of bedrooms etc.). I imagine that your case would be strongest if it is put that the design has no value to ye.
 
This house was sold on the basis that they had full planning permission for an extension so I agree that the price was already hiked up - the house sold for 10,000 more than the asking price anyway. The vendors are basically saying that it's costing them money because of the delays - but the delays are ALL on their side - their solicitor didn't forward the original docs etc so now we are waiting on a load of legal searches before anything can happen - we also need to check the boundaries because the solictor forwarded a map which my solicitor wasn't happy with - vendors said that they 'think it only fair' that I pay half of these fees.

We had a look at the plans - they are fairly basic and we would be changing them rather drastically anyway - plus I have a good reliable architect contact through the family so I'd be using him - I basically don't want to pay for someone elses ideas/dreams
 
Cut out the nonsense from the vendor fairly lively. Don't even make it look like you are considering it. Talk about a chancer.
 
Superman said:
I suggest that you tell the vendor that their particular proposed extension is not what you want/need; or stronger still, that it is completely inappropriate for ye for whatever reason (e.g cost, design, no. of bedrooms etc.). I imagine that your case would be strongest if it is put that the design has no value to ye.
Click to expand...

Exactly, tell them the plans are not what you had in mind, even perhaps say that you have YOUR architech commsioned to design something different.
 
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