To all fellow Met Lofts colleagues: I have finally received the sale proceeds for my Met Lofts studio.
I registered with about 10 agencies and only two responded.
I want to let you know of my experience and what was involved.
To start with, you simply decide how much return you want on top of what has been paid. I had paid 30% when I had it on the market and stopped making further payments. No one chased me.
The agent marked up the sale price as per my requirements and listed it on their website. The offer surprisingly came through within weeks - probably just luck. This was back in September.
I instructed for all fees to be paid by the purchaser and this is 2% of the total price. It may vary between agents etc.
Anyways, I had to send a signed contract to Portmill and some ID to my agent. I never signed anything before as I was always dubvious so had to sign the main contract.
They send this off to Portmill who then make a new contract in favour of the buyer.
This is signed by both parties and the buyer makes an initial deposit to secure the property. If he pulls out the deposit is kept and my agent agreed to share this should it have happened. The buyer deposited £15,000 so was quite serious.
The new contract looks the same as the old contract just change of name really. There is a new payment schedule for the buyer and Portmill were quite flexible to tailor it how he wanted it taking into account the outstanding payments on my part.
The buyer agrees this and receives a full contract to sign and transfers the rest of the money. Basically he transfers the 30% or whatever amount you have paid to date and the bit you want on top.
Between the agent and Portmill they took care of everything with regards to the paperwork - I only signed one or two documents. I must admit that is was quite easy but it does take alot of time and at times I was fustrated with the agent who I felt was slow or up to something, especially when they had all the money, it took them nearly 3 weeks before they paid it and I was a little worried at this stage as this is all done without a solicitor and there is no formal comminucation just emails. Also my agent started becoming rude and saying as far as they were concerned the money had been sent and it was the banks problem not theirs!!
Anyhow on the plus side I asked for the money in AED and converted at a very good time into sterling. I basically doubled my investment. So if you work out how much you have paid and double it - this is what you need to tell the agent you want from any new buyer (unless of course you want more!!)
I know many of you are considering resales, so here are the details;
Agent: Live Dubai
Home 0208 849 8002.
I dealt with Nadine but found James to be of better help when they were sitting on my money as Nadine was quite rude.
The guy at Portmill was very good. It was good to speak to him to ensure that the agent was doing what they should be.
His name is Mills and his number is 0207 025 8531.
So here you all are. I hope it works out for you guys in the end but at least there is hope on resales front. Apparently my buyer contacted UKCIG in Dubai for an explanation on the delays so knew exactly what he was getting into and must have received a satisfactory response.
Best regards
NP1
