New Assisted Decision-Making Act and House Purchase

finny

Registered User
Messages
79
We put down a deposit on a vacant house 7 weeks ago. The property has been on the market since June of last year. We are also sale agreed on our own home.

We found out last week that one of the joint tenants sadly has Alzheimer's and is going into a nursing home. We understand (though their solicitor has been slow to reply to our query requesting details of the actual legal position) that there is no EPA in place. We have been told via the agent that "there is a court date on 26 April" to apply under the new ADM Act. Having done some research, the Act only comes into commencement on 26 April and the procedures to apply for anything are not yet published. I think applications needs to be made via the Circuit Court (the Civil Circuit Court in our County is not sitting again until November). So, it seems impossible that they'd have a court date on 26 April to get an order allowing them to issue a contract.

Does anyone have any idea how long before the vendors (or her representative under the new Act) might be able to enter into contracts and close? I understand if it was a ward of court process it could be many many months. Our solicitor is not clear on it as it's new legislation.

I don't want to mess our purchaser around as they want to have a QS visit this week. I'd like to let them know we can't enter into contracts anytime soon and give them some indication of when that might be. And give them the option to walk away before they incur any costs.