Buying house without a planning document of its layout

Hi everyone,

I'm currently in the process of buying a house. I haven't yet paid the deposit but will need to very soon. The house I'm buying is one of many that is being currently under construction. As far as the plan of the house, I have the developer's brochure, a couple of showroom houses open for viewing, which I had the opportunity of checking out, and I also found the approved plans for the construction here:

I noticed that the layout of one of the showroom houses in the brochure wasn't exactly the same as the actual showroom and I also had noticed that the approved plans for constructions are considerably different from the brochure and the showroom.

Now, the house I intend to buy, according to the brochure is about 90% the same as the showroom house I saw. However, one thing that struck me as a bit odd was that even after signing the sale agreement the broker (Savills) still didn't have an official plan of what the actual house will be like and the closest thing they had to it was plans shown in the brochure.

My question here is: the brochure and the approved plans are inconsistent with the showroom house I saw. Shouldn't I have gotten a plan of some sort? How do I know if the house is like what I've imagined? How could I know what is the exact plan of the house I'm buying?

Thanks in advance!

Haven't you discussed this with your solicitor!?

ClubMan said:

Haven't you discussed this with your solicitor!?

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I've sent him an email, but haven't discussed anything yet as I've only signed the sale agreement earlier today. But this thought is rolling in my mind. Any advice?

Don't put down anything other than a deposit that is fully refundable on request before clarifying this with your solicitor properly. Ideally don't put anything at all down before doing that.

ClubMan said:

Don't put down anything other than a deposit that is fully refundable on request before clarifying this with your solicitor properly. Ideally don't put anything at all down before doing that.

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What should I clarify with my solicitor? Would he be able to get me an original plan of the house?

You don't buy a house without knowing what you're buying. You need to discuss this with your solicitor. Ideally before any money changes hands.

My understanding is this is pretty typical with new build houses. They all differ very slightly as they are built to the original plans so the developers won't sign anything definitive. Hopefully you'll get answers from other people who've bought new builds but I've definitely heard people talk about this before.

Be careful anecdotally we accepted some "minor" changes from plans on ours that made changes in future more expensive. The builder changed the layout slightly from the show house so that they could take a more direct route with plumping and waste but that meant it was in the way when we wanted to do anything upstairs requiring fairly substantial alterations downstairs too. Had they installed as per the show house the routing was much more discrete and changes far simpler.