Property Problems - Part III

It turned out that when I agreed to change the apartment that I had purchased back in 2003, I wasn’t fully advised of what I really needed to do. When I first bought the unit, I selected one on the 21st floor in the middle block of a 22 floor condominium complex. A year into the purchase, I was told that the developers had sold units on floors that they have yet to get approval from the local council. It seemed that there was a floor limit for buildings in the area in that all buildings should not exceed 19 floors excluding underground facilities. Since the unit I bought was on the 21st floor it basically meant that I was screwed.

The developer decided to change the plans and add more units to the approved 19 floors and offer them to unit buyers on the 21st and 22nd floors as replacement. All of the affected unit owners were given the choice to either get back our initial deposit or select a replacement unit in the new floor layout. The unit size and price remained the same but the physical location of the unit was different from the original layout. I decided to take the replacement unit offered instead of getting my deposit refunded like almost 50% of the other buyers of the affected units. So instead of owning a unit on 21st floor of a 22 floor complex, I was now an owner of a unit of the top most floor of a 19 floor complex.

What they didn’t tell me was that a new sales and purchased agreement would have to prepared and provided to the back to replace the original that they held for my housing loan. I never thought to check until two weeks ago when the notice for payment of the first building phase came in the mail and showed that I didn’t have a bank loan amount listed to pay for it. The letter stated that if I failed to pay within 14 days of the date of the letter, I would have to pay 10% p.a. of the stated amount as late charges until the total was paid in full.

I’ve been chasing after the developers, lawyers and bank officers since the notice and it has just been a run around of blame avoidance. It seemed that my new S&P document has been with the lawyers for a year and no one from their offices tried to contact me to collect them. The lawyers were telling me that it was not their fault that no one from their office even bothered to check if the document was signed and collected. The developers told me that it was not their fault that their lawyers were not doing their job. The bank said that their can’t release payment without the new S&P documents. The bank’s lawyers said that it was not their fault that they didn’t follow-up on the new S&P after receiving the letter from the developers advising them of the change to the sales documents. Not only was I screwed but I also had to pay extra to the developers until the bank released payment to the developer.

So this is where things stand now. I’ve sorted out all the paperwork, submitted it to the bank and would have the payment released to the developers within 1 month’s time. For those planning to buy a residence, take heed of what happened to me. No matter what the developers tell you, double check with you lawyers. They just want to make the sale and would say anything to close the deal. I guess I can take solace in the thought that it could be worse if I had to wait much longer and accumulate more late charges before the bank released the payment. It would definitely be better if it never happened at all but then I would have never learnt this life lesson.