Do you think all this will suddenly catch up with me?-AnonLetters are welcome, and everyone who has a suggestion quoted will be sent a bouquet from Interflora.Send comments and suggestions to Virginia Ironside at the Features Department, The Independent, 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5DL (fax: 0171-293 2182), by Tuesday morning If you have a dilemma of your own, please let me know.. I can't give you my name as you will understand.When I was about 14 my brother came into my room occasionally and after a while we had sex. Without the protection of legal advice on leasehold intricities from a good conveyancing solicitor, they will be walking into a minefield. Such a solicitor would raise all the necessary inquiries concerning landlord/neighbour harassment, and advise on the unsatisfactory terms of the lease, all of which would probably result in bringing the prospective buyers to their senses and the sale going off.Arthur Warham, Blackpoolnext week's dilemmaDear Virginia, This is a very tricky problem but it concerns me. A flat with a restrictive lease and a loony neighbour in tow could only be sold to a mug.
Unless your prospective buyer asks pertinent and direct questions about the lease, the neighbour or planning restrictions I would not raise these matters at all. If they do ask these frankly obvious questions then more fool them.Mr Maynard Chitty,LiverpoolGrit your teeth, bite the bullet, put a pillow in your mouth to muffle the screams of your raging conscience and exchange contracts. Did the previous owner warn you about your psychotic neighbour? Would you have moved in if they had? Thought not.Jamie Same,BalhamThe fact that the prospective buyers are "doing their own conveyancing" shows what foolish innocents they are. At the back of my mind I kept thinking of the parent who might buy the car for her son, who'd only just passed his test, and kill himself on the M4 I was in a cleft stick. Finally I told the dealer the problem and made him promise on his mother's grave that he would warn potential buyers of the problem or make sure his garage sorted the problem out He promised. I have no doubt he never kept his promise and never meant to.
I took the money and felt dreadful.Clara and her husband could say to the couple that the landlady had been known to be a little difficult sometimes That might salve their guilty consciences. But apart from that, they should remember the old Latin phrase Caveat Emptor - Let the buyer beware.what readers sayWhen selling anything that is shoddy, inferior or second-rate your only hope is that a "mug punter" will show an interest. Unlikely, I know, but quite possible.We have all had to learn lessons in our youth and very few people help us out. We've all bought scent from a tout in Oxford Street and found it was just water; we've all bought soap and dusters at the door from people selling for religious organisations and found the soap turns to a kind of gritty stone and the dusters fray at the hems; I once even bought a dead tortoise from a market pet-shop that they persuaded me was just "asleep". We've all had to learn the hard lesson that when something's cheap we ought to be on our guard.I was in a similar position recently when I had to sell a car which had an intermittent fault.
