shifttymike
Senior Member
So I'll try and keep this brief (not something I'm great at). Let's try 4chan 3rd person bullet point style:
- OP finds a house he likes, decides to buy
- Offer signed by both parties 16 Aug 2021
- Bond secured, investment liquidated and deposit & transfer fees paid by 6 Sept 2021. OP is an eager beaver
- Electrical CoC gets done and water leak fixed. Some concern initially as CoC issued without work being done but this gets resolved and new CoC presented
- House was tenanted, tenant finds new place and leaves end Nov 2021. By this point bond attorneys have been waiting to lodge since early Nov, electrical CoC is done
- Electric fence hasn't been used in years. Wires are broken, tensioners are broken, completely overgrown, energiser _might_ work but hasn't been on in years and is installed in wooden bedroom cupboard which is illegal. Won't be cheap to fix
- Now it's December. Waiting for electric fence CoC. Crickets. Agent gets someone in to quote, never heard whether they received a quote from the contractor
- January. 4 months since everything confirmed from my side. Rates figures sorted, only outstanding issue is electric fence CoC. No updates from seller. Seller's attorney says it may well be for OP's account which is straight up incorrect
- Further complicated by fact that estate agent went overseas for holiday, and seller's attorney is not a conveyancing attorney and gave the work to another firm (and took a cut I guess). Probably why he thinks OP must pay for electric fence
- OP acknowledges to conveyancing attorney that rates figures are sorted, asks about electric fence CoC, defers to seller's attorney. No response
- OP has to move on 22 Jan 2022 because of lease in current apartment
My main concerns are that
- The seller will just drag his heels and collect occupational rent. Not ideal because I'm not paying back my debt and can't make changes to the house, plus it's not exactly a favourable figure
- The seller will push on with the transfer without the electric fence CoC. Can be done if declared that no electric fence is present
Should I be getting legal counsel at this point? Or should I just wait it out? It's effectively costing me money to pay occupational rent instead of servicing my bond and there's no reason it should have taken this long in the first place. I also don't want him to pull a sneaky. Literally no idea where to start with finding an attorney, if that's even a reasonable course of action at this stage.
If I even knew what kind of attorney to speak to, I'd consider paying for 30 minutes to just see whether I have a case and what my options are. Is Legalwise a good option for things like this? Seems like they only have a retainer model, not one-off per-minute billing or whatever.
Seems clear that seller is just dragging his heels, he's had since September to fix this. Also possible he wasn't properly informed of his responsibilities, but that's not really between me and him - he's been in CC on all the mails so if he didn't know before, he certainly knows now.
What do?
- OP finds a house he likes, decides to buy
- Offer signed by both parties 16 Aug 2021
- Bond secured, investment liquidated and deposit & transfer fees paid by 6 Sept 2021. OP is an eager beaver
- Electrical CoC gets done and water leak fixed. Some concern initially as CoC issued without work being done but this gets resolved and new CoC presented
- House was tenanted, tenant finds new place and leaves end Nov 2021. By this point bond attorneys have been waiting to lodge since early Nov, electrical CoC is done
- Electric fence hasn't been used in years. Wires are broken, tensioners are broken, completely overgrown, energiser _might_ work but hasn't been on in years and is installed in wooden bedroom cupboard which is illegal. Won't be cheap to fix
- Now it's December. Waiting for electric fence CoC. Crickets. Agent gets someone in to quote, never heard whether they received a quote from the contractor
- January. 4 months since everything confirmed from my side. Rates figures sorted, only outstanding issue is electric fence CoC. No updates from seller. Seller's attorney says it may well be for OP's account which is straight up incorrect
- Further complicated by fact that estate agent went overseas for holiday, and seller's attorney is not a conveyancing attorney and gave the work to another firm (and took a cut I guess). Probably why he thinks OP must pay for electric fence
- OP acknowledges to conveyancing attorney that rates figures are sorted, asks about electric fence CoC, defers to seller's attorney. No response
- OP has to move on 22 Jan 2022 because of lease in current apartment
My main concerns are that
- The seller will just drag his heels and collect occupational rent. Not ideal because I'm not paying back my debt and can't make changes to the house, plus it's not exactly a favourable figure
- The seller will push on with the transfer without the electric fence CoC. Can be done if declared that no electric fence is present
Should I be getting legal counsel at this point? Or should I just wait it out? It's effectively costing me money to pay occupational rent instead of servicing my bond and there's no reason it should have taken this long in the first place. I also don't want him to pull a sneaky. Literally no idea where to start with finding an attorney, if that's even a reasonable course of action at this stage.
If I even knew what kind of attorney to speak to, I'd consider paying for 30 minutes to just see whether I have a case and what my options are. Is Legalwise a good option for things like this? Seems like they only have a retainer model, not one-off per-minute billing or whatever.
Seems clear that seller is just dragging his heels, he's had since September to fix this. Also possible he wasn't properly informed of his responsibilities, but that's not really between me and him - he's been in CC on all the mails so if he didn't know before, he certainly knows now.
What do?