12 Aug 2011 2:10 AM:
You're a good lot to be showing an interest ......should have come on here for advice years ago!!!!
Our story is complicated...but it goes something like this---
We had a fantastic apartment for holidays and maybe to move to live in later on. .....but it was draining us financially so had to sell.
We needed to sell it quickly as each month meant big mortgage payments and property value decreasing.
We finally got a buyer.( using an agent).
They put a deposit down.....but time went by. They kept saying there were delays with the mortgage.
They finally came back with the fact they couldnt get the mortgage in one payment.....so our solisitor arranged a contract where they would rent to buy. ie They paid us the mortgage and community as rent each month....and paid us the money for buying in stages.
As we were pleased to have a buyer we agreed- and a contract that we were happy with was drawn up.
We were happy enough as they had paid the first instalment up front....which meant that if they didnt pay the second one we kept all money already paid. They also weren't to have access to the property until all money was paid.
Any way....the inevitable happened....they didnt think they could raise the second stage payment. Our solisitor said it would be ok tho as his relative would take over the contract and continue where the others left off. We realised that the relative would be getting a good deal as the first stage payment was already paid....but we just wanted to have the property off our hands.....so the name on the contract was changed to the solicitors relative- who then paid the second stage payment. It was agreed hat any extra solicitor costs would be covered by the relative.
Our solicitor then contacted us to say the third ( last) stage payment had been made and he had been to the notary to complete the sale. The apartment was now sold and the buyers were living in it. All finished at last!!.
But... not all the money owed us had been paid. ie a months rent short (nearly 1000 euro) and the final stage payment was not fully paid. (approx 8000 euro short).....so we contacted our solicitor... didnt get any help from him....so we finally managed to contacted the relative direct. The relative was very suprised that I had found their phone number ( turns out they were a solicitor too!). They told us that they had not been able to raise the 3rd stage payment, so the apartment had been sold on again to someone else- by our solicitor.
The solicitor never informed us of this.....when we confronted him he said it was to help us. Thats well and good....but he should have informed us. We could have terminated the contract and kept the 2 stage payments.... then sold it again ourselves. Someone had a very cheap apartment as the 2 stage payments were already paid.
I wonder how our solicitor managed to complete the sale of the house when the buyer was a different person than the one on the contract...but as he has p/a I supose he could do that ok.
Any way....we bit our lips...and just focused on the fact it was at last sold....ok someone made a lot of money....but we were still getting what we originally asked for.
But.....we still havn't had all our money. Its over a year now. The solicitor insists the buyer isnt responsible for the missed payments by the other ones.....yet we have emails from solicitor to say his relative (buyer number 2) would take over the contract and pay all monies owed. The contract was clear that completion would only be if all payments were made.
On top of that our solicitor has sent us a bill which includes 5000 euro for selling the property for us...!!
So thats our story..... according to us we are owed about 10,000 euro. Our solicitor says that the buyer wasnt liable for the shortfall. And according to our solicitor we owe him 5000 euro- ontop of the huge bill he sent us for handling the sale.
......but life goes on... with lessons learned!!!!!
Thread:
Costs and charges for selling property?
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