Plot is different than Auctioneer's description

I am quickly learning that there is nothing easy about buying a house!

Referring back to my post on getting finance for the purchase; I have finally arranged this, but with a different bank, and I had to agree to slightly less favourable terms - http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=35981&highlight=suitable

My new dilemma is to do with the boundary of the garden area.
To keep it short, there is a piece of ground to the rear of the house, which was included on the Auctioneer's brochure, and was included in the viewing of the property. I spoke specifically to the acutioneer about it on a separate occasion to confirm that it belonged to the property, which he assured me it did, and even described where the boundary would be (it is not separately fenced off at present). The piece of ground involved is very small, but as this is a terraced house, it is the nearest thing to a garden, and would be a bit loss to the property.

The contract pack duly arrived from the vendor's solicitor, and this piece of ground is not included in the sale. I am waiting to find out from the Land Registry under whose name this ground is registered, with the short time before the closing date, I will probably take a drive to Waterford.
My Engineer is visiting the property today, and I will await his further advice, but in the meantime, I have a couple of questions about this -

- does the auctioneer have any duty of care/obligation to correctly describe the property correctly and accurately? same auctioneer handled the sale of the next-door house less than 3 years ago, and I would be very surprised if the same issue didn't come up then.
- am i entitled to a reduction if this land is common/registered in another name, and approximately how much would be reasonable? if I push too far is it possible that the house would revert to the underbidder?

Thanks, Mel

You're not entitled to anything unfortunately.
The land on the deeds is what you're buying, not on the brochure.
The auctioneer will say that he was advised by the seller what the boundries were.

You're options now are:
You can try and negotiate a lower price but they're under no obligation to do this.
You can walk away from the purchase.

Don't send out an engineer until this is cleared up as you'll be wasting your money if you walk away.

Thanks bobk;
Is it acceptable for me to approach the auctioneer directly about this? I was told by my (homelawdirect) solicitor that this would need to be handled by the engineer.

It is acceptable to approach your auctioneer directly, but you may get more if your solicitor deals with it.
If you are not happy with the outcome, walk away

The Engineer had to be booked in advance to come today, so I will have to let that go ahead, I imagine this isn't enough notice to cancel an appointment. I will see also what he has to say on the matter.
Thanks for your help bobk, I appreciate it.

The contracts will usually contain a clause excluding any previous descriptions of the property (ie by an auctioneer) and clearly state that you are purchasing the property as described in the schedule of the contract. Has your solicitor been in touch with the vendors solicitor? Pre-contract enquiries might clear this up for you. Has the auctioneer asked the vendor if who owns the property. Surely they would know ???

I am going to phone the engineer shortly, and see what further he has to say after his visit today.
I did have a general idea that the auctioneer could not be held to anything, I remember seeing disclaimers on brochures etc before.
My solicitor has been unhelpful about this, saying it is outside the scope of work provided for his fee, and has passed this on to the engineer. (I mentioned before that I am going with a Homelawdirect solicitor, and am fast wondering if this is a good decision, I am even having to make photocopies etc myself, and feel that he wants the job done with the least amount of hassle to himself.)
I haven't contacted the auctioneer as I didn't want to act improperly - the map in the contract was the first inclination that there was anything amiss.

Hi Mel,

Whatever is marked in the contract is what is available to you. I have viewed houses where the auctioneer flippantly tells you knock a tree here and there to get light into your garden, and under pressure will admit well I don't know really who owns ihe tree". Your engineer will be in no better position to tell you. Auctioneers are salesmen at the end of the day, what you get in writing is what you have for certain.

How exactly do you expect an engineer to be able to determine whether this land belongs to you or not? It's either on the title deed or not, surely? Quite possibly you've wasted your time and money bringing an engineer into this. Engineers are for structural surveys, not boundary disputes. Who exactly recommended bringing in an engineer, and why?

The solicitor advised me that the Engineer was the person to do any work in relation to boundaries, and that he would not - see my post above.

I spoke directly to the auctioneer yesterday who is checking with his client.

I am rapidly losing confidence in this project. The engineer did his survey yesterday, and while I knew that this was a renovation job, he was far more pessimistic than I would have expected. I'm not sure what I should do.
He estimates that it will cost approx 70K just to get the house in sturctural order, not to mind decorating.
The repayments on the house (cost of purchase plus an advance of 23K towards works) will cost me in the region of 1100 per month, i have savings of about 15K and am due my SSIA in March/April next year, this should be worth approx 20K when it matures. I had hoped to get the work done for appox 40K, but this looks less likely now.
In the meantime I am commuting a 50 mile round trip to work to save on rent by living at home for a while - this will have to continue until the work is complete - and am losing out financially on overtime that I could be doing.
With the way that the housing market seems to be going, and given that the industry I am working in is pretty secure and practically immune to a downturn in the building industry, would i be better off to rent somewhere for 12 months and keep my eyes open in the meantime?
I earn about 40K, have good potential for a promotion this year. I also have a child to consider, I am a single parent.
I'm really starting to feel the pressure on all this after talking to the engineer yesterday.

Update from auctioneer this morning is that there is an error on the map and that the vendor's solicitor will be instructed to correct this.

Given the information from the engineer yesterday, does anyone have any advice on whether I should proceed? He told me that if he writes an honest report then no bank will mortgage the property, so this may already be out of my hands. I have the option of saving myself a couple of hundred euro by him not writing the report.