House completion dragging on & on & on

Lex Luthor

My brother put a deposit on a house about Sep '05 and then paid the pre-contract deposit and signed about Nov '05. Original verbal completion date was for Apr '06, but this has passed by. He did his snag in Sep '06 and submitted this but then all of a sudden there was an issue with the site on planning grounds and one thing after another the planning application took nearly 6 months til mid April '07 to get approved.

So obviously nothing was done on site in the period of the planning application and things have limped along very slowly since they came back on site sometime around end of May. Nothing whatsoever has been done on his snag list and excuses based on the bad weather have been used as to why they haven't finished any work.

There are about 6 houses that looked like they are finished from the outside, but only one person has signed and completed, but talking to them, they wish they never did as they have a list as long as their arm to have snags completed.

Is there a standard time that they need to have the property completed by? Should it be in the contract?

Can he contact anyone apart from his solicitor to help with this as the developer is taking longer than than the time it took the Great Wall to be finished?

muffler

Nothing much we could help you with here as this is a legal point. There is a contract and people are bound to that contract which should include a penelty clause.

I was going to move this to the legal discussion forum but for whatever reason the system wont let me.

Maybe Im banned from there

Lex Luthor

muffler wrote:

Nothing much we could help you with here as this is a legal point. There is a contract and people are bound to that contract which should include a penelty clause.

I was going to move this to the legal discussion forum but for whatever reason the system wont let me.

Maybe Im banned from there

Its in Legal Discussion Forum now

muffler

Lex Luthor wrote:

Its in Legal Discussion Forum now

Yeah, I had initially moved it to a sub forum which cant be accessed without a password and Ruu duly moved it to the main forum here.

You should get a few pointers here more so than in the planning & construction forum

Lex Luthor

muffler wrote:

There is a contract and people are bound to that contract which should include a penelty clause.

He is going to contact his solicitor today to see if there is such a penalty clause that affects the developer also...I'm sure he mentioned that he was told that he would have 14 days to close after he was told the house was ready for snagging, but that was about 8 months ago and nothing of the snags except 2 or 3 have been done so he is making sure that this is done before he signs.

Missus Pongo

It may be slightly different in the North, but I had nightmares with my snag list. The builder kept getting me to sign bits of paper saying everything was done to my satisfaction, and when I refused, he refused to complete the snags. Then he went bust. Set up as some other company and went bust again. Last heard of swanning around his Donegal mansion. Hope he built it himself, the sh*te. Anyway, the building works are covered by the NHBC so if anything major goes wrong, it should get fixed. Also, our developer was wonderful - I know, hard to believe. But he stood over the snags that were supposedly fixed, but that were just patch jobs. Before yer man went bust, the developer refused to take our money until he was satisfied that the houses were ok.

Lex Luthor

this builder though doesn't seem to be in any rush to complete the snags or force the completion....just a slow operator by all accounts

godtabh

I had similar problems.

You can demand to have the house finished once the other side issues the final notice to close. There is a term for it but cant think of it now. Basically my solicitor said that if you issue it they have 2 weeks to all outstanding works or the contact is voided.

It didnt come to that and I persued the builder for interets. Best I could have got was a grand but prob only get half of that.


All I have to do is get my solicitor to tidy up the mess he made with the home loan. Cause of his mess he has been providing a bridging loan free of charge to me since May 11. He let the mortage offer go out of date but only told me two weeks after I moved in!

Hi52

The time limit for completion should be in the Building Agreement/Contract for Sale you signed. Usually its about 18 months from the signing of Contracts although this isn't standard and you should have your solicitor check for you.

Dependng on circumstances, your Solicitor can serve a 28 day completion notice on the developer once the time limit has expired. If the builder does not compete, you can persue him for interest (although no one really does, not worth the hassle for the amount you get) or withdraw from the Contract (again, depending on the terms of ithe contract)

Kearnsr, just as a matter of interest, how did your solicitor close your house purchase if your letter of offer was out of date? How was he in funds to complete without your mortgage? just wondering...

godtabh

Hi52 wrote:

Kearnsr, just as a matter of interest, how did your solicitor close your house purchase if your letter of offer was out of date? How was he in funds to complete without your mortgage? just wondering...

He hasnt told me. As far as I know he has put in place bridging loan which must be costing him a fair few quid but he doesnt seem in any rush to get things sorted.

Its either that or the company put forward the funds themselfs.

Either way the builder has been paid.