To exchange or not exhange?

babyblue · 26th March 2009, 09:41

Hi All,

I am a newbie here and desperate for some objective advice! Please don't get put off by my essay as I do tend to rant! I have put a reservation fee down late last year on a Bloor house, the house has only just recently been built and I have not exchanged contracts yet. The problems I have is that my solicitors have informed me that Bloor have not arranged for the roads to be adopted in the new development. My solicitor has warned me that if Bloor decide not to have this agreement in place, then the road maintenance will be the resident's responsibility and this could run up to thousands of pounds.

To be fair, the development has not been completed yet and Bloor are still building houses so it may be that they will arrange for the roads to be adopted until the site has finished building. However, there is no guarantee in today's economic climate, that they might not afford the bond and pull out without having this put in place.

Also, from the search that has been carried out, I have found that the affordable housing plots are located quite closely to the house I have reserved. My concern, please don't think I am a snob, is that the location of the affordable housing will affect the value of my house when I come to sell. This is probably down to the stigma of 'affordable housing' and although I personally don't have a problem, I have been told it could be damaging in the future.

I will be grateful if anyone can shed some light on this. I am due to exchange contracts next week and I don't know if I am making the right decision!

Tony · 27th March 2009, 00:17

I am pretty sure there is no rush. Personally I would wait it out and see what happens to the road and the prices. At least they told you about the affordable housing this is often hidden from buyers. Anybody can have a neighbour from hell affordable housing or not, is it more likely with affordable housing? - possibly. It depends, if the houses are occupied by nurses, teachers etc, you will be fine probably. Difficult to say really.

Tony

babyblue · 7th April 2009, 13:39

Hi Tony,

thank you for your advice. I have exchanged contracts now with bloor and although they haven't got the road adoption agreement in place, they have agreed to £1000 road retention which will is held at the solicitors and is only released once the agreement is done.