Buying Site - Planning just approved

[Voodoo]

Hi all,

We placed an offer of 150k for a .75acre site about 4months ago which was accepted. Seller was originally looking for 250 for it... location is really nice in a small, quant but well-to-do village.

We have just had planning permission approved on the site and waiting for the letter to come through to allow us to start. We signed a pre-contract with the vendor to say we would purchase the house within 60days after receiving PP.

My question is do we have any option to go back to the vendor regarding the price? I still think 150k is alot of money for a site...

 

[mf1]

Well, you can ask. But if you've agreed a price and signed something..........
The vendor may or may not find it easy to sell the site again, now that it has full planning.

mf

 

[mickeyg]

One other consideration is that the PP may come with an enurement clause and the permission is therefore only available to yourself. In such a situatio is would be difficult to re-negotiate the price.

 

[wjc]

Voodoo I know exactly where you are coming from. My own situation is we have 14 acres of land but needed an extra 1/2 acre with about 80m of road frontage to get planning permission for entrance as we did not have adequate sight distances. Approached my friendly local farmer a couple of years ago and he was looking for 200k for 1/2 acre! After about 6 months got him down to 100k. This was in 2007. Planning took about 1 year with further information etc. Went back this year after pay cut etc and hoped he would take 20-30k less. Not a chance! Probably have to give it to him otherwise I will not be building on my own land. Will break my heart and pocket to give it to him! In your situation 150k is an awful lot of money for a 3/4 acre site. What part of country are you in? Remember you will have to pay 6% stamp duty on this as well. I would go back and talk to him anyway. Article in farming section of Irish Independent 2 weeks ago which had John Gormley on about an 80% windfall tax on sale of newly zoned land and sites. Not sure if this will come to pass but I would find article (Tue 22/9/2009), show it to him and tell him you would be willing to close before budget but he would have to give you a discount on agreed price. Tell him you would be doing him a favour closing that quickly as funds are not fully in place yet. worth a try. Was there a building on site already or was it just corner of a Farmer's field?