Developer wants to buy my house - WWYD

[Dinoswearunderpants]

Hi all

It's very early days but I just wanted to hear people's thoughts on what they'd do in my situation.

I live in a semi detached house and the other side of my neighbour is a car park which the local council are looking to sell.

A developer has written to both myself and neighbour asking to meet as they are interested in acquiring our properties.

I haven't met with them yet as I've had a lot going on, however my neighbour has and they are quite keen to sell. They've had various issues and I think so long as the price is right, they will look to sell.

I thought the developer would need to buy both our properties to do their development but it turns out that even if only my neighbour sells, they could knock their house down and turn mine into a detached house.

I was never considering moving as I love the area and my neighbours but it sounds like they are very much keen to move.

I know nothing about figures but honestly can't see how they could offer a substantial amount more than asking price and still make their development profitable.

It leaves me in such a dilemma. I could stay but be stuck with a building site next door for who knows how long. I also worry that I'd need some sort of legal advice and this is going to cost me. Plus I know they do it all the time but what if something goes wrong and my house is damaged? Not to mention the noise and dust.

Then they'll be this new development which I have no idea if it will impact my property. They've mentioned residential care home so that could include noise pollution and parking issues.

Have you any advice/opinions please?

I would club together with your neighbour and get a really good quantity surveyor with experience of the area (you can look on RCS website or go into a local estate agent with experience of selling land for recommendations).. Get them to value your properties. They will also be likely to be able to assist with the repercussions if you don’t sell. If you do want to sell them you get them to go in and negotiate for you. (You can sell the plan to your neighbours on that basis - may costs a couple of grand but ultimately they will pay for themselves if they want to sell).

Don’t even talk to them until you have established all your rights.

There is some sort of law pertaining to compulsory purchase that gives people fewer rights if they have already started a dialogue or negotiation. It might or might not be relevant to you.

You need specialist advice and if you don’t get it here try legal or property / DIY board . People who work in planning visit the Property Board.

Don't believe what the developer is telling you. Sounds as if you have a ransom strip. Go to a RICS member who specialises in valuation of development land. Expect to get paid well in excess of market value if the car park is capable of redevelopment into housing and is a suitable size.

This is not a CPO situation.

Get really decent specialist advice (legal and surveyors)

And although compulsory purchase goes exist it is time consuming and costly and they have to demonstrate they have made all possible efforts to negotiate, so don't allow this to be used as a point to pressure you

Oh gosh I didn't even think of that. I have a free legal advice service at work so think I'll contact this today.

I know we'll need to get a Surveyor involved but I'm reluctant to start paying money out of my own pocket as it feels quite unfair.

I also find it fairly unlikely they could do it without buying both semis. So again, very decent expert advice is needed

I work for a developer. If you negotiate hard you will get a price far above what you ever would on the open market and it will change your life. They should also give you the time you need to move at your pace, so you can shop around.
I would expect at least a 50% price uplift to compensate the inconvenience and your reluctance to move. There is no point doing it unless it's substantial. You could engineer a move that means you have no mortgage on the new place.
Life changing. Good luck.

I wouldn’t stay - it sounds really fucking stressful with all the what ifs you mentioned. The PP above says you’ll get a fantastic deal, so go for that option and move somewhere where you can be low-stress again.

@Dinoswearunderpants you do realise that you can demand double or even triple the value of your house???? I know someone this happened to and they got more than twice what their house was valued at!

As PPs have said, you should be able to negotiate a higher price than on the open market. I would also press for your ongoing stamp duty to be paid plus moving costs.

Sell for as much as you can

Yep. You and your neighbour need to work together.

Don't get free legal helpline advice - it is too generic and may be wrong. A RICS member should be your first port of call now, but they need to have experience of land development, promotion and ransom strips. Depending on the size of the car park and potential planning results you could be into a considerable sum. It is not unreasonable to purchase the development land yourself, though the council will be reluctant to sell it to private landowners without experience in development.

Aside from the importance of getting good legal advice, whatever the developer is offering they will be willing to pay much, much more. They will try it on at a low price.

I work with developers and this is how they operate. They need you much more than you need them.

Wow thank you so much for your input. I would never have thought they'd pay upfront. Do you also think they'd pay all fees associated with the move so stamp duty on new property, removal fees, legal fees etc or do they often offer just an inflated price for the property and that includes everything else?

Say you’re interested and get them to pay the fees for a surveyor of your choosing (an undertaking) up to a certain amount.

Even if they can CPO they won’t want to, it’s too costly and long and it’s better for them to pay you more (at least 20% if not more) to buy you out.

Have they got planning already for the parcel to the back? Do you want to stay in your house and have it converted into a detached when it’s not meant built to be one and then endure construction for a few years? Have a think about whether you actually want to stay

Negotiation is key to your situation, you need someone who knows what they’re doing to represent you. (Not a quantity surveyor tho like a pp mentioned which is a different discipline)

I think that the only reason to do it is if you get significantly over market value - they need to compensate you not just for the house, but for the inconvenience of moving when you were not planning to do so. Calling your employee legal support service is a good first step - they can probably point you in the right direction.

For context, our house is semi-detached at the end of a road. About a year before we bought it, the previous owners and the owners of the other side sold the 2/3 each of their gardens - the gardens were originally roughly 110 feet. I don't know exactly what each got, but I believe it was around £80-£100k each. For context, when we bought the house a year later, we paid £260k. If the garden had been the original size, the likelihood is that we might have had to pay £275k. It would not have made a significant difference.... And in the case of our house, the original owners were not massively inconvenienced by selling the land in that they didn't have to move etc.....

Never take the first or even their second offer, good luck.

Thanks so much! You all are so helpful.

I saw this as a massive inconvenience but perhaps this could be a lovely exciting new venture.

I think I'd like to move closer to the coast. I've worried about the crime locally so maybe everything happens for a reason.

The car park hasn't been sold yet but this developer seems convinced they'll get to purchase it. They've worked on some really large developments before so I know they are a big firm.

We rented a semi that had been sold to a developer like this. The developer paid £190,000 where other similar houses on the same street were selling for £101,000.

I wouldn't hesitate to sell with those sorts of figures. The people who sold our house had only bought it a year previously, that sort of gain in value in one year is like winning the lottery in this area.

This happened on my parents street and the developer bought 4 houses, turned it into a small supermarket. The people who are left absolutely hate it. So much traffic and they wish they had been asked to sell too.

If your neighbour agrees make sure you do too!

See that's what worries me with the neighbour the other side. We adore them so it would be awful if they're inconvenienced however the car park will be sold regardless so they will have that to deal with.

I got about ( iirc) 30-35% above market plus legal costs were paid. This was 20 years ago and was compulsory purchase by local council for road widening. So push for as much as you can. At least 50% above market value plus your costs paid, I hope.

Many local authorities are developing car parks, garages etc. And many are doing this as a joint venture between themselves as land owner and a private sector developer, who bring the capital and expertise necessary to do the development.

Search 'RICS Land Valuation' in your area and get two quotes for an appraisal of the value of your property to a developer. The value will depend on the uplift available to the developer from the extra land that you and your neighbour will bring in.

The developer may talk about buying subject to planning, which, as it sounds, depends on them getting a planning permission.

If the developer start talking about how they have no money, will pay in installments later or whatever, walk away, as there are plenty of chancers out there.

CPO is incredibly unlikely, it's a costly process and usually only embarked on major strategic projects.

I would imagine that the purchase of your property would be contingent on the car park also being sold. I know with the gardens of our house and the NDNs, NDN told me that at one point it looked like it wouldn't go through as the developer couldn't get permission to do what they wanted to do on the land and the sale was contingent on that. But they changed the plans slightly and agreed to take an extra 2 feet each from our gardens and then it went through.