Any insights on buying a house without approved plans?

[SauRoNZA]

Get your own conveyancer, like in some countries they have two agents being the seller and the buyer. Did this twice now

1. My conveyancer told them to hold back 250k until the plans were approved. We got the transfer, renovated and they delivered plans after we were already moved in.

2. My conveyancer told me to walk away as every time they asked for something more problems arose. In the end we could have issued a 3 month ultimatum but it was easier to pay some costs and get out.

My conveyancer has no legal standing purely a consultant but they did all the negotiating and the selling agent and selling conveyancer could not argue or railroad a pleb like me.

Way less stress for little costs. The conveyancer is supposed to be impartial and work for both sides negating this argument, but in reality they get repeat business from an agent that just wants the sale pushed through

The seller appoints the conveyancer, so considering this is already a **** show before it even began...good luck getting them to agree to using one of your choosing.

 

[TaLamia]

Do you know when the lease expires because if there is one in place, it transfers to you after purchase. The purchase won't invalidate their lease.

Also sounds like it may be a tenant that might not want to get out. Watch out for that.

Good point, will definitely follow up about their lease agreement. But yes, seeing how they're unhappy about the house being put up for sale we would definitely add to the OTP that any eviction action required will be on the onus of the seller and that funds will obviously be withheld until the renter is out, and that they would need to be out before transfer is registered.

Get your own conveyancer, like in some countries they have two agents being the seller and the buyer. Did this twice now

We do have our own, holding our cash right now for when we are ready to purchase. Was setup earlier for the purchase of the first house that fell through. Already trying to negotiate that the seller uses ours. I'm sure there's so much corruption and kick-backs involved in the industry that it will be hard to get that achieved.

 

[yogidabear]

The seller appoints the conveyancer, so considering this is already a **** show before it even began...good luck getting them to agree to using one of your choosing.

Am saying get legal advice, so my examples there were two conveyancers. Mine has no authority as the buyer, and not the appointed conveyancer. So my conveyancer talked to their conveyancer

Both times it worked for me, and the sale I walked away from was quite stressful. Basically I was getting shoved around by the agent and conveyancer after I signed the OTP, and only when I got representation did everything change for the better

 

[Bollies]

As someone who has recently gone through this process I would not recommend it. It takes a lot of time and is very frustrating. You are basically at the mercy of what the municipality feels like. In my instance I had to get a structural engineer out to sign off on the buildings. After this I had to get approval from the electricity department and the water department. There is also a fee every time something gets submitted. This can be very expensive.
Then after that the building inspector picked up that one of the carports was build to close to the road according to the title deed. So had to get a town planner to apply for title deed restrictions to be lifted.

So in the end if you want to do it make sure you know everything about the property and it’s restrictions. It can become very costly very quickly.