Buying Process First Step, First Hurdle!

It was quite surprisingly simply although I’m not quite sure what I expected. I rang Jamie Small at Serliana (property investment company) and said “Ok, I’d like to buy the apartment at Park Central in Birmingham”. I gave him my credit card details for the reservation fee (£500) and that was the process started. I got a “thank you” note from Jay Parmar the MD and an invitation to call him direct if there were any issues which I thought was a nice touch and we were off!

Had a bit of a problem almost immediately! The developer (Crest Nicholson) said that Serliana had not sold the apartments that had been allocated to them within the timeframe agreed so they were being withdrawn from them! Obviously as I had already just paid the deposit I was alarmed! I took Jay up on his offer and spoke to him directly, he called the developer and few hours later I got a call from him telling me it was sorted out and an email from their office as confirmation. I also called the developer to confirm this as well, bit untrusting maybe but better safe than sorry!

Got a number of documents from Serliana via email, floor plan and email answers to some additional questions we posed. As a part of their deal they insist that you use their solicitors Breytenbachs and I got an introduction from Lenza Breytenbachs with a description of their services. They said that their charges are discounted as much as they could but I didn’t really have anyway of confirming that.