On rare occasions, things happen that no one can control. However Liam was able to rely on his fellow Partners within the PPP network for moral support and advice.
"As the conversion and refurbishment of the 'small' property is well under way, it's now well over four months since we went sale agreed on the exisiting HMO property. One planning application down and approved and yet we seem still no closer to completion.
The first obstacle we encountered was the Freehold. Whilst we understood that it was a Freehold sale, we soon became aware that from initial legal correspondence that the vendor owned the freehold to half the street and that these were going to be included in the sale –an unexpected bonus for sure.
However, as things progressed, we were advised that this was an error and that no Freeholds (including that for the property we were buying) were to be included in the sale. Whilst the ‘loss’ of the Freeholds was a disappointment, the leasehold (999 year lease and £5 a year ground rent to pay) implications were not a major issue and so we were happy to proceed.
But the fundamental shift from Freehold to Leasehold was clearly a major issue for our finance (bridging) provider and it took over a month to get them to move forward from this.
That was six weeks ago.
We’ve now just discovered that the driveway (to the side of the property) and a significant part of the rear garden (i.e. car park) are actually on the deeds to next door and not on the property that we are buying! As the driveway and part of the rear garden in question have always (for the 101 years since the properties were built) been part of the property, we can apply to the Land Registry for a “certificate of easement” which formally provides us with the rights to access and use the driveway and part of the rear garden in question.
As you would expect, as the purchase will now not include everything that we thought we were buying, our finance provider is in the process of re-valuing the property and potentially their offer. When the paperwork finally does arrive, it is highly likely that we will have to go back to vendor on the purchase price or attempt to include the freeholds for these two properties (at least) as per their original information.
One advantage to us in what happens is that the vendor has voluntarily emptied the property and it has now been empty for over a month and so not generating any revenue.
It’s unfortunate that in our first two purchases, we’ve encountered several problems. However, we take solace from the fact that we have a huge support network around us in the form of PPP and the other Partners. While these issues are unforeseen and not ones that could have been resolved by calling upon PPP’s knowledge and experience, just knowing that other people have been through the same and that we are not alone helps.
It’s now stuck between lawyers and as such there’s very little that we or anyone can do to speed the process up apart from ringing around every day. We’ve certainly learnt not to assume that people are on top of what they are supposed to be doing and if you think that a phone call might be one too many, you’re almost certainly wrong!"
