Residential Property Case Studies

I was instructed by a client resident in Australia to act for him in connection with the sale of his flat in London. The flat had been on the market for some time but a buyer had not been found.

It subsequently became clear that the client was in serious arrears with his mortgage as well as service charges. I had to write a number of holding letters to the mortgage company and landlords.

When a buyer was found I was able to proceed with the sale very quickly and kept the mortgagees and the solicitors instructed by the freeholders to recover the arrears at bay.

We were fairly close to exchange of contracts when the seller’s father contacted me to ask if I was aware that his son had flown to London, gone to the High Court and declared himself bankrupt. This was quite a shock to me and I believed at that stage that the sale would not be able to proceed. However, I contacted the appointed Trustee in Bankruptcy at the High Court. I managed to persuade the buyers to increase their offer for the property sufficiently as to allow the sale to proceed with the blessing of the Trustee in Bankruptcy.

Although the client was unable to settle all of his debts, the mortgage was repaid in full and all arrears in service charges were settled. The best result that could be hoped for in these circumstances.

My client, the seller of a residential property, was in financial difficulty and therefore required a quick sale. He had however, agreed to sell his property to a company at under value for a price that did not allow enough funds to redeem his mortgage. I negotiated with the lenders on his behalf to accept a reduced payment at completion of the sale on the basis he would settle the outstanding amount in small instalments until his circumstances improved.

Unfortunately the buyer company reduced their offer for the property when we were at the point of exchanging contracts. The client was desperate and had more or less decided to hand the keys and possession to his mortgagees. I managed to persuade him to instruct agents to put his property in an auction and also persuaded his mortgagees to delay issuing proceedings for possession until after the auction.

A sale was agreed at a considerably higher price than the original price agreed and contracts were exchanged on the day before the auction.

Completion took place and the client was able to pay off his mortgage in full and walk away with a small sum of money for himself.

Maria has recently been instructed by clients who she has acted for many times previously. They lived in Somerset and rang her to say that they had found their dream house and asked her to act for them once more in connection with their sale and purchase.

Initially their chances of purchasing the new property were slim, as they had not sold their own property and there were other interested purchasers for their dream home.

Maria advised them to be realistic about the price that they hoped to get for their existing property.  They took her advice, instructed estate agents and sold their property very quickly.  Their offer on their new house was accepted.

That was not the end of the story as the executors acting in the sale to them were also transferring part of the deceased’s property to a Housing Association in accordance with a provision of the deceased’s Will.  The contract documentation was complicated because of the inter-relationship of the rights and obligations in respect of the property and that they were selling to her clients, and the Housing Association respectively, as well as some further land that they were retaining. 

Extensive use of email, and scanned documentation, between all three solicitors, meant that the drafting and settling of the contract and transfer documents were agreed quickly.  Her clients’ work commitments meant that they could not travel to Banbury to see Maria, but again extensive use of email and direct dial facilities meant that she was still able to progress their transactions promptly.

Maria’s efforts ensured that her clients bought their dream home – much to their delight.  The executors were so pleased with the way that the sale had progressed that they granted her clients an option to a purchase a coppice on the land that they had retained – an option that they have recently exercised.

Maria recently acted for the purchaser of a flat in Birmingham.  He was a first time buyer who was interested in buying a flat at auction.  His father, who was an old contact of Maria’s, explained that his son was having a problem in arranging a mortgage.  He was not prepared to bid unless the mortgage funding was in place.  The auction was due to take place less than two weeks later time and he asked if Maria could assist his son.

Maria keeps in touch with local mortgage lenders and was able to advise her client that a national bank based in Banbury was prepared to lend to first time buyers at favourable rates.  Maria arranged for their mortgage consultant to ring her client and much to his delight, they were able to offer him a mortgage, subject only to a valuation of the flat that was quickly organised.

Maria’s client sent her the Auction Pack less than three days before the auction.  It ran to over 120 pages and careful consideration of it revealed two major problems with the flat - namely that the landlord had recently gone into liquidation, and there were extensive arrears of service charges.

Telephone calls to the liquidator confirmed that the freehold interest was about to be transferred to the management company, run by all of the tenants in the building and which was still trading.  Once the transfer was completed they would assume the former landlord’s responsibilities under the lease.  Further telephone calls to the seller’s solicitor resulted in an undertaking that the arrears of service charges would be paid from the sale proceeds.

Having resolved both problems Maria was able to reassure her client that he could safely bid for the flat he hoped to purchase. 

His bid was successful and he is now the proud owner of his first property.

Guy represented six tenants who had been served a notice by their landlord of its intention to sell the freehold of the residential block of flats.  One of the tenants had recently bought and been represented by a colleague in our Residential Property Department, and had therefore recommended that Spratt Endicott be invited to quote for the work. 

As the residential property department did not have the expertise to do this it was passed to Guy.  He made contact with the tenants’ representative and briefly explained the process and the timescales involved so they could make a decision as to what action to take. 

To protect the individual tenants Guy drafted a participation agreement which meant that before any significant costs were incurred, each tenant fully understood and agreed their individual obligations throughout the process and in particular made it clear what should happen if a tenant wished to sell their flat during the process.  Guy also obtained all the necessary Land Registry documentation at the outset to ensure correct people were involved.

Guy’s advice was that the freehold should be purchased in the name of a company bearing in mind the number of tenants and therefore our Corporate Department were involved in assisting with the setting up and advising on this.

He drafted and served the necessary Acceptance Notice indicating the Tenant’s interest and the matter went to auction.

The landlord’s notice of what they wanted/meant was incorrect and although the landlord could have withdrawn their notice this would have meant that they could not have sold the property for a further 12 months.  This was pointed out to the Landlord’s advisors and meant our clients were in a stronger negotiating position in buying additional land. 

The client was appraised of the date of the auction and that they would have the opportunity of buying the property at the same price as was achieved at auction, but they would need to act within the statutory timescale in order to do this.  This meant when they were told of the value at auction they could quickly agree whether to purchase or not, as they had the finance arranged and the necessary signatories were available so they were able to meet the necessary deadlines.

The clients now own and manage the freehold of their building.

I have developed an expertise in shared ownership leases.  They are becoming an increasingly important part of conveyancing – particularly for first time buyers hoping to get onto the property ladder for the first time.

Over a period of several months I developed a good working relationship with the Housing Association’s solicitors.  I was encouraged by them to apply to the Housing Association to have my firm added to their panel of preferred solicitors.  I made the application and was delighted when they agreed to add my firm to their panel.

The benefit of being so appointed became very apparent following the recent launch of a new site of ten units that the Housing Association were about to offer to prospective purchasers. 

Before the launch I asked to review the contract documentation for the site.  All of my legal enquiries relating to the site were answered, and my amendments to the contract and lease documents were approved, before the launched.

Although the site was approximately forty miles from Banbury I visited it to meet the Housing Association’s sales representative and agreed a scale of legal costs for their prospective purchasers.

The launch weekend was very successful and I took instructions from six prospective purchasers to do their conveyancing.

Having previously approved the documentation I was able to deal with the conveyancing aspects for all six purchasers very quickly and all were very pleased to move into their new homes within a month of instructing me.

The Housing Association was equally pleased as all of the purchases were completed before their year end, which was important to them for funding reasons.

I have introduced six new clients to the firm with every expectation that further work will derive from them over the forthcoming years.

I was recently instructed by a couple who wanted to purchase a buy-to-let property to rent out.  They had already found a property that they wished to purchase, had lined up tenants to let the same and wanted to proceed quickly.

I always make a point of trying to find out as much information as possible about the transaction at the outset, which proved very useful in this instance. 

I was able to discover that my clients were remortgaging their own property to raise the deposit needed to purchase the buy-to-let property.

As a consequence, I was able to conduct both transactions simultaneously, to the obvious benefit of my clients as they were anxious to proceed quickly.

The purchase proved to be complicated.  Whilst my clients believed that they were purchasing a freehold property from a mortgagee in possession it transpired that all the mortgagee in possession was entitled to sell was the leasehold interest, as their former borrower had owned the property on a Shared Ownership basis.  In such cases the freehold interest is always retained by the Housing Association.

I persuaded the seller’s solicitors to action the staircasing provisions under the provisions of the Shared Ownership Lease. The Housing Association then performed its own valuation and accepted that the price being paid by my clients reflected the true market value of the property

I co-ordinated the efforts of both the solicitors for the Housing Association and the mortgagee in possession to achieve a simultaneous purchase of both the freehold and leasehold interests, by my clients, and they have subsequently been registered as the freehold owners of the property.

Despite being somewhat complicated from a conveyancing perspective I was able to complete both my clients remortgage and their purchase within a month of obtaining instructions, and without the clients’ losing their prospective tenants.

I recently acted for a property developer who had bought a plot of land with the benefit of Outline Planning Permission for three houses.  After checking the boundaries as per the title deeds, and the site itself, it became apparent that they did not match and the discrepancy needed to be rectified before completion could take place.

It also became apparent from the physical inspection of the site that a surface water drain serving the owner of the plot of land adjacent to the development site, and who had sold the site originally, ran under the development site but no right had been reserved in her favour to formalise her continued right to use the same.

My developer client accepted my suggestion that the neighbour be offered a Deed of Easement in respect of the surface water drainage in return for her assistance in preparing a definitive plan of the site, and the plan was prepared quickly.

Initially, the Land Registry refused to accept that the title boundaries were wrong but on my insistence the site was surveyed by an Ordnance Survey Surveyor who concurred with my view, and the title plan was updated accordingly.

The terms of the Deed of Easement were quickly agreed and executed by both parties.

My client was pleased that the cause of potential delays in its sale of the three properties had been rectified before building works began.  The development was very successful and all three properties quickly sold at list price, despite the current state of the housing market.

By resolving the problem that I had identified before the development started my client was able to avoid delays in its prospective sales and was able to make huge savings on the interest that it would otherwise have had to pay to its bank.

This transaction involved the sale of a house with land and equestrian facilities. The Land Registry title contained some anomalies, and the boundaries were unclear in places, but otherwise the sale was relatively straightforward as regards legal issues. The main difficulty was that Michael’s client, the seller, and the buyer both had different agendas as regards the timescale for exchange and completion.

Having resolved the Land Registry and other issues, Michael was able, with judicious handling, to exchange contracts at a time of his client’s choosing, satisfying his need to tie in various other matters, and without unduly antagonizing the buyer.

This case involved the purchase by Michael’s client of a large country house with several acres of land at a price in excess of £2,000,000. The seller required exchange of contracts within ten working days of receipt of papers, part of the land was the subject of overage provisions, there were some issues as regards building control, Michael’s client lived at a considerable distance, and the searches in the Home Information Pack were hopelessly out of date.

A visit to this sort of property is essential in order to establish any boundary discrepancies and other matters, and to get a “feel” for the property, and Michael carried this out at a very early stage. Having done this, it made for a much easier understanding of the paperwork, and therefore a much quicker transaction. Virtually all the correspondence between Michael and the seller’s lawyer, and with Michael’s client, was dealt with by email or fax, and all searches were carried out online. The building control issue was dealt with by means of an indemnity insurance policy paid for by the seller.       

As a result, Michael was able to resolve all the problems and report to his client to enable exchange of contracts to take place within the timescale stipulated by the seller, with a completion date convenient to Michael’s client also being achieved.

Michael was instructed by a developer client in connection with the purchase of a site with planning for mixed residential and office use. Exchange of contracts was required within ten days by the seller. Title to the land consisted of seven separate Land Registry titles, each with its related documentation, and the transaction was further complicated by the fact that options affected several parts of the land. Other issues which arose related to covenants and access to the site.

By keeping in constant contact with his client, and adopting a practical and constructive approach to the complexities of the transaction, Michael was able to achieve exchange by the deadline laid down by the seller. After completion of the purchase, Michael arranged for all the titles to be amalgamated into one, making the subsequent sale of the office and houses built by his client much easier and smoother.