withdrawing from purchase of house

[chippy]

Can you advice me?Im presently thinking of withdrawing from the purchase of a 12 year old house.The sale was supposed to be concluded 5th July,there is a problem with the boundaries,maps are not matching up hence the delay.Due to the current housing market climate,(ie better deals about) im seriously thinking about withdrawing from the sale.Question 1 do i now have a bargaining tool for to haggle a lower price? Question 2 legally how am i fixed if i withdraw totally from the sale ie deposits put down,fee with my solictor etc etc. Any advice would be appreciated! Chippy

 

[ClubMan]

Question 1 do i now have a bargaining tool for to haggle a lower price?

Have you signed contracts yet? If you have then I don't think that you can haggle and you could be forced to proceed with the transaction. You should be asking your solicitor.

Question 2 legally how am i fixed if i withdraw totally from the sale ie deposits put down,fee with my solictor etc etc.

Ditto - you should be asking your solicitor. If you pull out now then the solicitor will be perfectly entitled to invoice you for services rendered to date. Just because you don't go through with the purchase doesn't mean that they should not get paid for expenses incurred.

 

[rebellad]

I am in a similar position - we were intent on going through with the sale up to a month ago but the solicitor on the sellers side is so slow getting stuff done. We also got the survey done last week and there seems to be a lot of very small little things that will take a bit of time to get done. Put down booking deposit over 2 months ago and wanted to be in by the end of August as the lease is up on the place we are renting - that doesn't look very likely now. No contracts have been signed so is it just a case of informing the auctioneer that we are pulling out??

 

[Purple]

If the contracts have been signed you cannot pull out. If they have not been signed then you can, and get your booking deposit back. Simple.

 

[Vanilla]

If the contracts have been signed you cannot pull out. If they have not been signed then you can, and get your booking deposit back. Simple.

Most of the time this is the case. But if there is a fundamental problem with the title/ boundaries/ structure- and the purchase was subject to satisfactory survey/ planning permission and so on it is still possible to consider this a breach of the contract on the vendors side and be able to pull out without penalty. Each case must be seen on its own merits- each person should have their own solicitor advise.