BARRY HEALY & COMPANY SOLICITORS MONAGHAN T/A HEALY LAW PROPERTY SOLICITORS
PROPERTY
Securing That House - Some Tips to Remember!
We are mad keen on this house and signed for it – but when is it ours?
Even if you do the deal and shake hands with the selling agent and he takes a payment off you for € 2000 booking deposit, telling you the contracts will be on their way to your solicitor very soon, those welcome words are worth almost nothing as a binding contract only comes into existence when both vendor and purchaser have signed the contracts and they have been exchanged between the parties.
When is the purchaser asked into his solicitor’s office to look over all the contract documents and actually does sign them there and then and without inserting any loan approval or other conditions- does that make the arrangements binding? No, it does not. When the signed contracts are delivered to the vendor solicitors offices along with a big cheque/bank draft for say € 30,000 being the full deposit, is there a binding contract now in place? No there is not and both the vendor and indeed the purchaser can walk away at this stage.
Only when the already signed contracts are also signed (unconditionally) by the vendor and returned / exchanged with the purchaser’s solicitor and arrive in the purchasers’ solicitor’s office does a binding contract arise.
This state of affairs is less than ideal and can create a situation where the vendor may retain the contracts unsigned by him and try squeeze a higher price out of the hapless purchaser by indicating he has received a better offer from a third party. Or he may jettison the purchaser altogether and strike a deal with a completely different purchaser who offers more. This is known as gazumping. But remember if the market is sluggish, it can work for a purchaser too. Before a binding contract comes in to play, a purchaser might discover the roof or chimney needs serious repair and hold out for a pro rata reduction on the sale price before he signs the contracts. This is known as gazundering!
All of this comes to an end when the contracts are signed and exchanged between the parties and no further changes whatsoever are allowed to the contracts. The size of a deposit is actually irrelevant. Even a huge deposit will not commit the parties until those contracts are signed by everyone and exchanged.
After the Purchase: The Horror Stories You Don’t Want to Hear!
“They’ve taken away the cooker and all the curtains we especially wanted!”
Another matter to be incredibly careful about on a purchase is the furniture, fixtures and fittings which may or may not be included in the sale. The writer has seen more hassle and disputes over fireplaces and carpets and presses in his experience as a solicitor than over the house itself. I once had vendors sell a nice Ranelagh house and then bring my purchaser client to court over a €150 rug. Try to establish clearly what is not for sale and what is being included with the house itself.
Generally, most fixtures (fireplaces, rads etc) stay with the property while some fittings (lights, rugs, lino etc) may be removed unless otherwise provided for in the contract. Fireplaces are not to be moved under any circumstances unless perhaps both parties have agreed to their sale. A lot of old carpets, presses, curtains etc are worth extraordinarily little but quite handy to tide the purchaser and his family over for the time being. It is hardly rocket science to go through all these items with the vendors agent and agree on a list of items what you may like to purchase.
Unless you are buying a Picasso over the fireplace, none of these items even an old table or bed should set you back very much. If you want none of them at all you are perfectly entitled to ask the vendor or his agent to arrange to have all of them taken out of the house before you take over. And the day before the sale closes, you should arrange with the vendors agent to show you the house so you can see it is vacant and that items which should be there are actually present.
I heard of a young couple who did just that after the sale closed on a Friday (having paid over a substantial sum of money) and when they opened the hall door to their new home, they found all of the vendor family still eating their dinner and watching the Late Late show.
Clarity is king. Don’t accept a clause that says, “curtains in the living room are included in the sale”. Believe me, several purchasers have taken over their new home to find a ragged old pair of curtains in the living room while the nice wool ones they had admired and wanted are nowhere to be seen. Ensure the wording is something like “the purchase price includes the current cream wool curtains in the living room”.
Most vendors and purchasers are fair and decent, but some vendors can be truly awful. My wife and I offered a vendor € 2/3 k for all contents in the bungalow (the selling agent Sherry Fitz advised us this was a fair price). But the vendor wanted €10,000 for most old stuff and we refused; telling him he had therefore to remove all these fitting, carpets etc out of the house. In the end he nearly steamed off the wallpaper, removed all the light fittings, unscrewed some bulbs, removed all the carpets, and underlay but left scores of sharp carpet tacks everywhere. He also – illegally – took some freestanding units in the kitchen which we forced him to reinstate. Truly the vendor from hell.
So be careful and agree in writing with the agent what you want and what you are prepared to offer for it and don’t go overboard.