Property Misdescriptions Act 1991

[bellarosa]

Does anyone know anything about it?
Might have to take estate agent to court as they misrepresented/ described a house we were buying and now we cannot buy it. And have incurred legal fees in excess of £500.

can we ask for recompence under the Property Misdescriptions Act 1991?

many thanks

bump

Feeling guilty as I should know the answer to this one, (being an ex-estate agent). Found a link for you which may be of interest, it seems you have to go to Trading Standards first, although not sure if it would be best to approach the estate agent first and make your case asking for money back. Of course they would not have to pay up but may wish to avoid the publicity of an investigation and possible subsequent court case. Try herefor some help .

Thanks,

I have made it clear to the estate agen that i am very unhappy with the way they lead us to believe the property
was available for us to buy when in fact it wasnt!

But am slightly weary that taking legal action against them may incur further expenses..

Are they a member of a professional certification organisation you can complain to?

Ask to see their complaints procedure - they are legally obliged to have one. Then follow it.

Can you come to an arrangement with your solicitor to not charge you the full abortive costs if you use them with your next purchase? we do this with our clients and sometimes charge a minimal (usually £100) fee for abortive costs.
Can you also ask your solicitors advice as to whether you have a case against the agents?

Message withdrawn

Now that you have described the type of issue you are unhappy about I am 99% certain that it is not something you could use the Property Misdescriptions Act for. The PMA mainly says that the property has to be described accurately ie actual measurements rather than a "large" room, photo's must not exclude the ugly great pylon just behind it etc. etc. I think unfortunately that what you describe is quite common, and some vendors actively encourage viewings right up until exchange of contracts - after all, approx. 1/3rd of sales fall through.

However, if you specifically asked your estate agent a question, ie. Is there a sale currently running on this property? then they are obliged to give you an accurate answer. As far as I am aware, (7 years ago now), they do not have to volounteer this information.

Hope this helps.

Get a copy of the estate agent's complaints procedure, follow it, and if you don't get a satisfactory result, make your complaint to the Ombudsman - details here .

We were mis-sold insurance cover by our estate agent and when the sale went t*ts up we were charged full legal and surveyor's fees. We complained first to the EA, who basically told us to get lost, then to the Ombudsman, and were re-imbursed within, I think, a month.

Can you explain why the property wasn't available for purchase? Was someone already in the process of buying it?

If so, then you may have a claim against the vendor's solicitors as, if they are already have a contract out on a property, they are legally obliged to inform your solicitors. If they send out more than one contract, they have to tell all parties that they are in a contract race.

Hi
thanks for all your input

The situation was: the house is an ex-local authority house in north norfolk, and it has a restrictive covnant on it stating that only people who have lived in norfolk for the previous 3 yrs can buy it. We do not live in norfolk.
I asked the estate agent 4 times if the house had a restrictive covnant on it, as i knew that it was very unusual for ex-local authority houses not to have the covnant, and each time they verbally assured me that it did not.

Our solicitor then did the relivant searches and found that there was the restrictive covnant, and so we cannot buy the property.
The estate agent claims that they did not know about it but i find this very unlikley seeing as they must deal with many such properties.

also

in all the litriture about the house ther was no mention of the restrictive covnant.

Basically i would never have proceeded with any legal work had i thought that there could be a restriction on the property.

Surely it is the estate agents responsibility to have such information before advertising a property. Do they not have to see the deeds or register?

It seems to me that this covenant has a huge bearing on the marketing of the property. The failure to make it clear (especially, as you say, you specifically asked about it) is negligence on their part. If they didn't know when you asked, they should have made enquiries of the vendor (presumably the local authority).

I would speak to their governing body and also to Trading Standards.