Legal Problems in Cancelling Purchase of an off The Plan Property

Asking for friend but have taken a keen interest after finding out the details of the situation and trying to look for a solution to the matter.

Basically i'm trying to find out what's the best way to deal with this situation. From the beginning, my friend purchased an off the plan property in NSW. Tragically, not long after the partner passed away due to unforeseeable circumstances. Now the friend has engaged their solicitor to rescind the contract, in order to get back the deposited paid. The solicitor has started this process, which involved a fee from the vendor solicitor. This has been paid however the vendor solicitor is now saying the that they are waiting for execution of the deed from the vendor. The vendor is infact one of the city councils.

Now my friend's solicitor has followed up many times all met with the same explanation. It's been almost a year since the the deed of rescission was submitted. Now my friend is stuck in a precarious situation and had to leave Australia for an extended duration which has left matters hard to deal with. Hoping to steer things in the right direction, i spoke to my friend's solicitor who has recommended this be escalated through to Fair Trading.

Is this the best way forward? Has anyone else come across a similiar situation and how did you escalate matters to resolution?

TLDR
Trying to get deposit back from an off-the-plan property purchase. Legally nullified contract due to reasons related to mortality but vendor solicitor floundering with no results.

 

I hope your friend's solicitor isn't the same as the vendor's... If so, I'm not too surprised that your friend isn't getting anywhere.

Otherwise, I don't see how anyone here could do a better job than an actual solicitor instructed by your friend. If he or she isn't getting anywhere, then maybe time to get another opinion from a different solicitor.

 

Friend's solicitor is not the same as the vendor's. I'm fine with escalating this matter through to fair trading but i'm just wondering if this is the way to go and what my other options are.
Is there a way to go through council for example? If they are the vendor is there no way to follow up with them directly or am i just stuck at the vendor's solicitor as the roadblock?

 

These are things that your friend's lawyer should be dealing with.

Online "advice" sought on behalf of a friend with only partial information is about 7 magnitudes worse than actual legal advice from an instructed lawyer.

That said, I have some initial thoughts - I find it hard to believe that the vendor's solicitor is an actual roadblock, or that fair trading is somehow the next step for your friend to escalate the issue to. I say that because I am a lawyer that has occasionally advised on similar situations, and my advice was more in line of legal liability and possible court procedures.

So I suspect that either your friend is not telling you the whole story, or his/her lawyer is woefully incompetent or not even an actual lawyer that has been instructed by your friend.

The best advice to give to your friend is to find another lawyer to properly instruct and get advice from.

 

Thanks thatbum. You're right the scenario is pretty dire, with me possibly not knowing the full story but i can assure you that my friend knows as much as this, since they've forwarded their correspondence from their lawyer to me, whether the lawyer knows more than that i don't know. Given your feedback i now suspect (even more) that their lawyer is incompetent.

At this point i'm thinking what possible avenues i can take with this lawyer to further the progress. If there's some action that i can do to somehow escalate the issue in the correct manner than that's something i want to take or am i asking for something that doesn't exist?

 

Why would you be doing anything with your friend's lawyer? You don't even know if you're getting the whole story from your friend, or from the lawyer. It seems like a terrible waste of everyone's time to me.

Why isn't your friend doing something about this?

 

Unfortunately i think it's a cultural issue to not be pushy. I don't know. What kind of advice would you give if you were in a similiar situation?

 

Ask questions or wait and wait and wait.