Can Developer force me to close contract?

brigade said:
Please explain?
Do you really think that the problems with our economy are solely down to the property bubble?
Are the jobs lost in Limerick just a result of the property bubble?
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His point is that young people trying to buy their first home were tormented by contstantly being outbid by specuvestors who could leverage their existing property to buy investments, driving prices up and up and up.

The fundamental problem with our economy is the housing bubble, amoung many other things it gave the government loads of cash enabling them to constantly tweak the minimum wage upwards.

The jobs in Limerick are partly as a result of the property bubble because as well as the minimum wage issue all the services required by Dell, the cost of materials, putsourced labour etc. are greatly higher.

Everything is relatively overpriced in this country and the property bubble is one of the fundamental causes of this.
 
The problem is not the minimum wage which is circa €18,000 per annum but rather the massive amounts of money people made at the other end of the spectrum thus pushing up prices. If everyone earned €18,000 there would have been no housing bubble, but then that is getting towards communism which was a disaster in any country that tried it.
 
Robin Banks said:
Why should the developer give you even 1

Man up and start figuring out how to pay the developer what you agreed to, instead of trying to weasel your way out of your legal obligation.
quote]

Couldn't agree more, you took a risk and got burned, you didn't see this crash coming because your greed clouded your vision.
You already had a family home so why did you feel the need for this appartment and now you may lose both.

as quoted man up to you mistake and stop looking for sympathy.
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Just for another angle on this thread, there are others out there (me included) who bought these properties off the plan as a home and not an investment. We have rented for 3 years and are now being forced to pay the full asking price for unfinished developments (yes, my particular apt is finished, but the development is a building site and not currently being worked on). I do not feel I am paying for what I signed up for 3 years ago, but I am being sued by my builder and facing court action to complete the deal. My point is that some of us that signed up 3 years ago were not "idiots" (to quote above) trying to play the market, we were just nievely trying to get on the property market during times of very inflated prices. These contracts were heavily in favour of the builder as far as I am concerned.
 
FKH said:
The problem is not the minimum wage which is circa €18,000 per annum but rather the massive amounts of money people made at the other end of the spectrum thus pushing up prices. If everyone earned €18,000 there would have been no housing bubble, but then that is getting towards communism which was a disaster in any country that tried it.
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Of course the problem was the minimum wage as stated by Dell umpteen times, don't ignore the elephant in your face. Ireland has a peculiar political system, a type of strange socialism that emphasises high minimum wage and 100,000s of people on the dole doing nothing much, which doesn't contribute anything to the tax net and therefore makes the situation worse. I think the minimum wage should be adjusted down slightly to allow companies to hire more workers on same budget. It was inevitable that Dell would leave as they are not a 'value added organisation' but a 'cost-downer', lowering the wage would have preserved jobs temporarily at least. The minimum wage is not really the whole point though, it's competitiveness across the board, there's no such thing as a free lunch and Ireland exists as part of the world economy and if you work or have a business in Ireland you must compete (do it better or cheaper or faster) or fail. You want a high wage you've got to bring in the high revenue, common sense!
 
mainasia said:
Of course the problem was the minimum wage as stated by Dell umpteen times, don't ignore the elephant in your face. Ireland has a peculiar political system, a type of strange socialism that emphasises high minimum wage and 100,000s of people on the dole doing nothing much, which doesn't contribute anything to the tax net and therefore makes the situation worse. I think the minimum wage should be adjusted down slightly to allow companies to hire more workers on same budget.
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And what happens when six months later, Dell decide that the lowered minimum wage is still too high for their tastes?
 
inamuddle said:
Just for another angle on this thread, there are others out there (me included) who bought these properties off the plan as a home and not an investment. We have rented for 3 years and are now being forced to pay the full asking price for unfinished developments
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Why did you choose to buy off the plans instead of buying something that was already built??

I am boggled that someone would make the largest purchase of their life off a picture. I wouldn't buy a shirt or a pair of pants on ebay myself, but there you go.

So you weren't a canny investor, you were a saintly FTBer afflicted with laddermania. Either way - you took a chance and it hasn't worked out for you. Oh well..
 
Robin Banks said:
Why did you choose to buy off the plans instead of buying something that was already built??

I am boggled that someone would make the largest purchase of their life off a picture. I wouldn't buy a shirt or a pair of pants on ebay myself, but there you go.

So you weren't a canny investor, you were a saintly FTBer afflicted with laddermania. Either way - you took a chance and it hasn't worked out for you. Oh well..
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Personally, I agree with you about buying off the plans. However it's a little easy to say these things now. Remember the govt has been the builder's friend and effectively encouraged FTBs to buy new instead of second hand with the stamp duty regime (until recent changes) and the FTB grant (when it existed).
 
inamuddle said:
These contracts were heavily in favour of the builder as far as I am concerned.
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Can you tell us please why you would sign such a contract, so that we can try to understand how so many people ended up in this situation?
 
Bronte said:
Can you tell us please why you would sign such a contract, so that we can try to understand how so many people ended up in this situation?
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I'm not disputing the naievity of this but a lot of people didn't think the developer could be so harsh in the contacts or didn't understand the terms of the contact. I've met several people who's apartment lease agreements mean they do not become members of the management company at all until the developer vests. It's written in such legalese that most normal people who spotted it wouldn't understand it anyway.

People hired solicitors to help them with their property purchase and most solicitors were too busy making money to bother reading the documents they were instructing their clients to sign. Yes there's an element of personal responsibility but solicitors were hugely negligent too. How come no solicitor (that I've heard of) told their clients that the lease they were signing gave the developer three years to complete, that it was not predicated on mortgage approval, that it did not make them members of the management company or gave the developer so many votes that they would have no say in how their money was spent? People were signing a legal contract and their legal advisors didn't bother to read it.
 
Markbp to that I would ask, didn't you know that you needed a mortgage to complete, didn't you ask when it would be completed so that you would have a mortgage ready when it became time to pay for the property. I mean if you're buying something off plan the first thing one would ask is when will it be completed surely?

I don't understand your assumption that 'a builder wouldn't be so harsh' This is his business and livelyhood and of course they are going to make people comply with contracts for that is what a contract is for.

I'll leave the management company/agent issue out of this as that's a minefield.
 
Bronte said:
Markbp to that I would ask, didn't you know that you needed a mortgage to complete
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You're forgetting that most people caught up in the frenzy had never bought before or, at best, had never bought off-plan before. As far as they knew, they _did_ have a mortgage and they didn't know the bank could withdraw it or refuse to let them draw down on it. Most of those people have never applied for a mortgage before. It's very easy to look down on people who made mistakes and who were naive but the reality is people make mistakes. They hired solicitors to help them through a very complex process and the solicitors let them down. As far as I'm concerned, this is professional negligence.

Btw, I didn't buy off-plans and I didn't get caught out when I purchased so I'm not looking for pity.
 
"People were signing a legal contract and their legal advisors didn't bother to read it."

Please read this statement and spot the issue. Did the people signing the contract read it? And if they did, and did not understand it , why did they sign it?

"Shurely shomebody elshe should be reshponshible for thish"

mf
 
Good stuff, get a bit of a sneer in there to make your point. That'll win any argument. Next you'll be letting me "it's a bit Irish"...

Did you read the rest of my post(s)? Have you ever read a lease agreement? I've read plenty for different owners and different estates and even now I struggle to understand them. I'm not stupid by any stretch of the imagination. They're not written for normal people - they're written by solicitors in a way that has to be extremely carefully put in order to avoid any legal problems.

When any business is signing a contract, they hire a legal expert to examine the contract and let them know about any potential pitfalls. When people buy houses or apartments, they hire a solicitor to check the property rights and advise them when signing any contracts. Solicitors failed to do their duties as far as I'm concerned and tens of thousands of apartment owners are in trouble because of it.

If you're a first time buyer, how are you expected to know that having mortgage approval is not enough - that the bank can withdraw that approval because of something outside your control? How many people knew the ins and outs of management companies and could understand from their lease that vesting would not take place for years and could easily be postponed indefinitely? We all know that now but how many young people in 2005 knew that? You can sneer and be as condescending as you like but people doing something for the first time cannot know all the answers.
 
Interesting idea. Shoot the messenger. Why not listen to the message?

Can I assure you that many solicitors set out the pro's and con's to their clients of buying property off plan. And d'ya know what? Those clients were by and large not interested. They just wanted the product not the preaching. They were very much the product of their upbringing and society.

No-one likes hearing a reality check - it is so much easier to find a scapegoat to shunt the responsibililty onto.

And equally no-one knew we were going to be in this economic meltdown - these are people caught in the crossfire. Thats what happens in recession.

mf
 
mf1 said:
Can I assure you that many solicitors set out the pro's and con's to their clients of buying property off plan. And d'ya know what? Those clients were by and large not interested. They just wanted the product not the preaching. They were very much the product of their upbringing and society.
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Anyone who was warned about the problem of mortgage withdrawal and any downsides to their lease agreement has only themselves to blame. There are plenty who got almost zero legal advice though and it's those people I feel sorry for.

For example, in my own case, my solicitor did no checks on the management company. He failed to inform me that the company had almost gone bankrupt, was over 150k in debt and had an unsecured loan from the developer. Those are all material facts that I think I should have been made aware of. As it happens, I was able to join the board a year later and help sort out some of the problems but a lot of people won't be in that position.
 
markpb said:
You're forgetting that most people caught up in the frenzy had never bought before or, at best, had never bought off-plan before. As far as they knew, they _did_ have a mortgage and they didn't know the bank could withdraw it or refuse to let them draw down on it. .
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Everybody was a first time buyer one time so I don't get your point about being a first time buyer. In relation to the mortgage, people had to fill out an application form, talk to a bank or broker, provide endless amounts of paper and sign a document that clearly states how long the mortgage offer lasts - or am I missing something. Did people not read the mortgage document?
 
From dealing with every kind of solicitor imaginable I would say that by and large they do their jobs thoroughly and their are a few who are not very good but you don't tend to come across them very often. I had plenty of sales hang by a thread because the solicitor was nit picking on issues that he could have let go and the solicitors clients would actually ring us and ask what could we do to get their solicitor to look past smaller issues! so mf1 has a fair point. I don't think this ftb debate where ftbs are made look like innocent simpletons that were easily shafted is accurate either because for every ftb I dealt with I had at least one over bearing parent to deal with aswell. People make choices and hopefully they can focus on why they liked the house in the first place and not focus solely on what their neighbour is paying for it.
 
Bronte said:
Can you tell us please why you would sign such a contract, so that we can try to understand how so many people ended up in this situation?
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When we bought our house in 1994, our solicitor told us that the contract (standard Law Society contract) was totally biased in favour of the builder, but that we had no choice but the sign up of we wanted to buy any house.
 
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