Reluctant seller availing of a tax relief of some kind?

Hello All,
Does anyone know of a tax relief of any kind which can be claimed if you have your house one the market (i.e. you are actively trying to sell it).

The reason I ask is because I'm interested in a property but have some reservations about the sellers motives. (This property is currently his primary residence).

This house has been on an off the market since it was built in 2002. The seller has accepted offers on a number of occasions in the past (During the boom) but backed out of the deals at the last minute leaving the buyers out of pocket with solicitors / surveyors etc.

The seller now says "he definitely wants it sold this time".

I'm just wondering what his motive for having it permanently (almost) on the market could be. Could he be availing of a tax relief of some sort?

I've done some searching but could come up with nothing.

Sorry if this is in the wrong section, please move it if it is.

Regards,
Ned

Re: Reluctand seller availing of a tax relief of some kind?

Your searching has produced the correct result. There is no tax relief available just for putting ones PPR on the market. That being siad, if the seller is under pressure from some financial institution he may be using the "actively on the market" appearance to let them think that he is making effort to sell and discharge his obligations to them. However this would have no tax issues.

It could be something to do with a family issue. One spouse could be pressuring the other to sell or something.
I'd steer clear of it unless you are prepared to go through what could be a rollercoaster sales process, with disappointment at the end.
I was in a similar position with a house where the sellers backed out, having pressured us to sign our part of the contracts. Turned out a domestic dispute between partners, she refused to move out of the house so the sale had to be called off.
Twice I have had the original estate agent and another estate agent coming back to us asking us 'if you could get that house for X amount would you be interested, he's thinking of selling it again'.

If you made an offer, you could always see if you could get the sellers to sign something to say they will cover your legal costs if they pull out of the sale if contracts have already been issued.

Are you sure it is the seller who has pulled out? The reason I ask is that this screams title/structural/planning issues to me. Ie that buyer puts in offer that is accepted but once contract is sent to their solicitor or once the survey is completed issues surface that makes the buyer pull out.

If you're sure the seller is the problem himself then you could buy subject to survey- ie get the vendor to sign a contract subject to your survey being in order etc, that way he is committed before you pay the costs of the survey.

Thank you all for your replies.

sadie said:

It could be something to do with a family issue. One spouse could be pressuring the other to sell or something.

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This is something that I had considered and may well be the problem.

sadie said:

If you made an offer, you could always see if you could get the sellers to sign something to say they will cover your legal costs if they pull out of the sale if contracts have already been issued.

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Vanilla said:

If you're sure the seller is the problem himself then you could buy subject to survey- ie get the vendor to sign a contract subject to your survey being in order etc, that way he is committed before you pay the costs of the survey.

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Your comments are something I had considered but, when I put this question to a solicitor I was advised that there was little you could do until they signed the contract to sell. I've since been told that there are ways to try to safe guard against wasting money on solicitors etc. I'll need to look into it a little more.

Vanilla said:

Are you sure it is the seller who has pulled out?

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Yes, I know one of the couples who were stung a few years back when he pulled out of the sale. They did their structural surveys etc and there were no problems there. Its also been confirmed by an estate agent who had the property on his books a few years back.

Regards,
Ned

a structural survey might point out that planning permissions must be supplied before the contract is signed but will not require them to finish the survey - if the house was in any way altered without the necessary planning permissions or the final result deviates from the permissions, this might be a problem ...
to cut the long story short - my suggestion : go and look for a property elsewhere, this guy apparently cannot be trusted