AIBU to renegotiate a property offer..

[Charliechoco]

Me and my partner put an offer down on an apartment, which was incredibly fair, we came in asking price.

However, since receiving the management pack, we noticed there are 20 years less on the leasehold than what was advertised by the estate agent. This means in a few years time, we will have to pay for a leasehold extension, which we did not factor into the price… We are at the top end of our budget.

Am I being unreasonable to renegotiate our offer to reflect the cost of a leasehold extension?

We were not considering properties that immediately required an extension, so it's quit frustrating, given we have already spent hundreds of pounds on legal fees.

We were also told we would own the Garden, which according to the pack, is not the case.

Pull out and look elsewhere. Buying this property will end in a nightmare for you.

I wouldn't be entering into a lease less than 100 years, if it falls below 80 it can be expensive to renew and make selling very difficult. Personally I would only buy leasehold with a very long (ie hundreds of years) lease.

My advice - don’t let the fact you have already spent money on fees factor into your decision.

Yes this is now money lost, but when you are buying property presumably for hundreds of thousands of £, a few hundred £ shouldn’t be swaying such an important decision.

I’d drop out for the garden as that would have been a big draw for me. Was it the estate agent who told you you’d own the garden? They are all a bit rubbish but I’d struggle to trust them if they can’t get a pretty big fact straight

I wouldn’t even think about buying a property that is leasehold. This is probably a blessing in disguise

Absolutely reneg, on the understanding that the vendor pays for the lease extension, but the garden would be a deal breaker for me, and I’d want my costs back, if it was listed in the details.

If less than 100 years and no garden I'd walk away. We looked at a flat that had less than 100 years once and you had to live in it was x amount of time (think 2) before you could renew the lease. It's an expensive business. We walked from the property, left London and never bought a lease hold in the end. If less than 100 years it be hard to resell. Were you told the garden included or was it on the property details. Makes you think what else they kept from you.

At a minimum you should value the lease gap and garden, and if you still want to proceed on then resubmit the revised offer at the subsequently lower figure. You may wish to do it contingent on them extending the lease for you to mitigate risk it is unwieldy.

Was it not obvious that the garden was shared when you viewed? That's quite a big error

The lease will cost a lot of money to extend if less than 100 years, and no garden would be a deal breaker for me

Walk away

Of course you could always just ask the seller to do the lease extension for you and burden the costs themselves.

Before you revise your offer you need to get a survey done to see how much the premium for extension is likely to be.

Also remember you cannot extend it until you’ve owned it for 2 years so if you’d need to do it in the immediacy you’ll want to get the seller to serve the requisite notice and assign the benefit to you to get around the 2 year rule.

all of this will lead to increased fees and a more complicated transaction so have a good thing about whether you want to proceed given the issue with the garden as well.

The agents could/would have been given this information by the seller so only advertising what they have been told to. Seller should have also check checked draft particulars as well.

As an ex estate agent I’d recommend renegotiating price due to garden info and if you’re getting a mortgage you want the current vendor to sort lease out prior to purchase as you will struggle getting a mortgage

Yeah! Get that stuff fixed. Get what you paid for, or the value b of back, or out!!

Speak to your solicitor about your options (assuming you have got a decent one and not a cut-price conveyancing factory). If you are keen on having the property you could require the owners to apply to extend the lease before you buy, stick with the shorter lease and renegotiate the price (if you are getting a mortgage you may have to do this) or walk away. If you have spent money on a misdescribed property you may have a claim against the agents under the Property Misdescriptions Act. If you stick with the shorter lease, you need to be aware of the implications and your solicitor should advise you about this.

I would say you are definitely not being unreasonable as you offered based on the info you had, which is not correct. That being said, whether you want to renegotiate probably depends on whether what you offered was a fair price for what the property actually is (ie could the seller re-list the property with the correct info and realistically expect to get another similar offer easily) and how much you want the property (ie would you be gutted to lose it and are you prepared to potentially pay over the odds for it to not lose it).

It sounds like you've based your offer on the initial information- this has turned out to be false and I think you are well within your rights to renegotiate based on this

My first consideration though would be whether I actually still WANTED the property (ignore the money you have already paid, if you buy a property you're unhappy with it's throwing good money after bad. Better to lose the money and walk away)

If you do want the property, I would take the advice around asking the seller to update the lease and go from there

Absolutely! That's two big issues. I pulled out of a purchase when it came to light that the 'private' garden was actually shared - that was a deal breaker for me.
The lease thing - how long is it actually and how long are you going to stay? I wouldn't want one below 100 years if I thought I'd be there for ten years. Look at recent asked in the area and how long the leases were if you can.

Leases can be extended, a private owned garden cannot. Withdraw and look elsewhere.

Even if you accept both, a reduction in price would be needed but also look to onward selling - an apartment with a longer lease will always be preferable, one with a long lease and a private garden will always be worth more money and easily sold.

I'd pull out because of the garden issue.

deffo renegotiate. Or see if they can give you an idea of the cost of the lease extension and knock that off.

less than 100 and not being up front is v cheeky