Dexters Estate Agents
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Mislead me by hiding the information about flat that I'm trying to buy
I viewed a flat last December that is listed as leasehold and the seller agreed on the price 1st of January. Since I live in a rental flat and wanted to move in as soon as possible, I asked the seller and the agent about the chain, leasehold, and the other potential things that might delay the completion and they misled me by saying that everything was supposed to be smooth, and I should be able to move in early-mid April. For the last 2 months, the seller has been blaming his solicitor being slow because the deal is not done yet. I was digging into the agreement and I found out about this thing called "staircasing", which I had no idea. After I asked the agent (from Dexter) and my solicitor, I found out that the seller doesn't really own the flat yet and he's trying to turn it into a leasehold from shared ownership. There is no date for the completion of staircase to this date and it's still pending, Dexter tells me that they hope to set the completion date and the deal is legit. So in fact, the seller lied to me about owning the flat with this agent who works for Dexter (they claim that they were not aware) and they have been trying to put me on hold by saying the completion date should be set in 2 weeks for the last 2 months. I told them I will pull my offer 1st of July but I'm very surprised that trying to sell a flat that you don't own is not illegal in London and I apparently can't do anything other than waiting or pulling my offer even though I will be required to pay for the legal fees in addition to wasting 6 months. The worst thing is that since there is a break clause for the flat I live in, I let my current landlord know about this flat and he started looking for a new tenant and I'm required to leave the flat in a month.