How to be a good dumper
The title alone is enough to tell you the story of how this story came to be.
In January, a couple from London decided to buy a two-bedroom apartment for £600,000.
As part of their agreement, they were to move into a five-bedroom building.
The new owners were interested in the new building, so they bought the land and the building.
The new owners agreed to sell the property to a new landlord and then the two owners agreed the property would be bought by a third party, but they would remain responsible for maintenance costs.
The property’s original owner had moved to a different building, but that was the only one who paid for maintenance.
The next day, the property was sold again.
The third party agreed to pay the remaining maintenance costs on top of the £600k they’d agreed to buy the property for.
The third party who was supposed to pay for the remaining costs was then found to be in a dispute with the owners.
They said they would have to pay a fee to a third-party maintenance contractor and they said the landlord had agreed to cover the fees, but didn’t.
So, the third party paid for the property and it was sold to another person.
They then put the property up for sale again, but this time, the new owners decided they’d pay for a third of the costs themselves.
The owners agreed.
The buyer was an overseas company, which had paid for a maintenance contractor.
The owner agreed to take the property off the market.
But when the new owner came round to check, they said that they hadn’t agreed to the terms.
The buyer and the third-parties dispute continued.
So, the buyer tried to sell their property, but the third parties dispute didn’t end until the next day.
The dispute was resolved, but then, the next buyer arrived and, once again, the dispute escalated.
This time, when the third owners attempted to sell, they got no response.
So they called the police and a dispute was called in the property’s local authority.
The local authority was contacted, and the council investigated.
The council’s investigation showed the new buyer had breached a warranty agreement they’d signed, and they’d had to cover their costs for maintenance for three months.
The landlord was then contacted and they were told to pay out the remaining cost of the property.
The owner who’d been responsible for the original lease agreed to carry on with the new lease.
The council was contacted and, again, they told them to pay all the costs of the new tenants.
The buyers agreed to continue to pay.
But they didn’t take the new tenant’s obligations.
The other tenant, who was also responsible for repairs to the property, didn’t agree to the new tenancy terms.
In March, a local authority inspector contacted the second-partying owners, who’d asked the council for advice about their future relationship with the third company.
The inspector said the second owner had breached their warranty and they owed the property back.
The building manager said they could fix the problem but the property hadn’t.
The inspectors contacted the third owner and, in a statement, they explained that the third landlord had breached the warranty and had to pay them for their full costs.
They said the owner had agreed not to do any work for the new renters.
The landlords were contacted again and, for a further £50,000, they agreed to fix the problems.
The properties was then sold again and the second owners asked the owners for a full refund of the original purchase price.
They were told they’d have to go back to the original buyer and they agreed.
The problem then escalated further.
In May, the owners received a letter from the third seller, saying they had breached warranty and were to pay back the original price of the home, plus any outstanding costs.
However, they also received a copy of the third buyers statement of claim.
In the statement, the second sellers said the building had been ‘deliberately damaged’ by the second buyer.
The second seller also said the third buyer had broken the terms of their lease and that they’d been given no reason to think the property wouldn’t be sold.
The letters from the council and the inspectors didn’t stop the problems escalating.
In June, a third buyer arrived, and, having already paid the rent, the building manager took the property out of the market again.
But in July, the owner of the building who’d taken the property sold it to another buyer, this time for £500,000 and they offered to take on all of the cost of their landlord.
So the owner agreed, and when the building’s management team asked why they hadn´t paid for any of the repairs, they claimed they didn´t have the funds to do so.
The problems then escalated again.
In October, the first buyer arrived.
They asked the landlord why they’d spent the previous month paying out the full cost of rent to the first owner, but hadn’t paid any