Solicitor complaint re house purchase

[Lilylolamillie]

I’ve posted this in legal but adding here in the hope it’s seen and someone can offer advice.

I purchased a house in 2022. It was built in 2018 and I’m the second owner. As it’s a new build there are estate charges of around £300 year. The house is freehold and I own all of it (with a mortgage).

I’m coming up to remortgage and speaking to mortgage broker who has advised me there is a covenant on the deeds which means the management company need to produce a certificate of compliance in order for me to remortgage (or sell the house). I’ve contacted the management company about this and am sure there will be a charge for this.

My issue is that my solicitor failed to tell me about this restriction. I’ve checked my report on title. She had listed some restrictions with the management company - the need to pay their fees and need for approval for building work which I accepted.

However she didn’t mention this and in her conclusion at the end of the report says
‘the title to the Property is currently good and marketable; and
there are neither onerous restrictions or provisions affecting the Property nor other
matters of a legal nature that should deter you from proceeding in your proposed
purchase of the Property.’

Had I known that I need to obtain a certificate to remortgage or sell the property I’m not sure I’d have gone ahead with the purchase and would at the very least have negotiated further on price.

I feel I have a valid complaint with the solicitor to reimburse me any fees for obtaining a certificate and compensation for me purchasing a house without full information from her. I’m sure now it will be harder to sell in the future and / or worth less. I’d certainly have been very cautious had I been given this information and would probably have pulled out of the purchase. I’d already sold my previous house and was renting so I wasn’t in a chain and was in a strong position to buy.

Has anyone had experience of this? I think I have a valid complaint but before I contact the solicitors want to check. It just seems quite a large bit of information to not tell me.

Any advice appreciated.

I would get legal advice before purchasing the certificate any as it is not a mortgage brokers area to know if the certificate is required, sometimes they are and other times not depending on the wording of the restriction (which is only very slightly different). Any solicitor dealing with the remortgage will look for you as part of the remortgage and deal with it at the time you do not usually need it upfront.

I was buying a house on a NB estate where the estate charges were c£250 a year at the moment. However they are 'unlimited' so in theory if the Estate spent alot of money in a particular year that could be thousands. There will be a problem downstream with these charges as mortgage companies will want to cap them and management companies will refuse.

If you have any positive covenants in the property then you'll highly likely need a certificate on any disposition as otherwise the positive covenants can't run with the property (aka the disponee isn't obliged to pay man co fees). It's a pain in the neck for everyone involved!!

They usually say disposition “other than a charge” so a remortgage would be caught though? As the lender isn’t ordinarily a party of the deed of covenant.

Just by way of update as this is still ongoing.
The management company asked for a copy of the notice on transfer or notice of charge to be able to issue the certificate.
The solicitor I brought the house with sent this to them and told the management company no more info was needed and to issue the certificate.
They issued this last week but it’s incorrect and they’ve listed the mortgage provider as a bank I’ve never used. The info on the house deeds are correct so I don’t know how they’ve added a different bank to my original and new mortgage so now I’m waiting for this to be corrected as it appears to be an admin error their end. Will be calling tomorrow to ask how long this will take as they haven’t responded to either me or my mortgage broker when we raised the mistake.
The good news is that my remortgage is approved but it can’t complete until the certificate is corrected and reissued.