When buying a condominium, co-op, or new house that has not been built yet, the homebuyer has to do a lot of imagining of what his or her finished home will actually look like. To help, developers show prospective buyers floor plans and maybe even a sample kitchen.
What you actually get may be substantially different from what you were shown. It may have fewer square feet than represented, room sizes and layout may vary, and finishes may not be what you expected. Here is a story about some homebuyers who got less than they paid for.
How do developers get away with that?
*MOUSE PRINT: Â Buried in your contract may be language such as:
“The gross square footage of a unit is greater than the approximate square footage of a unit measured by using the legal definition of the unit. … As is customary in New York City, these gross square footages exceed the usable floor area of each unit.”
Or, there may be a fine print disclaimer on the floor plan itself, such as this:
How in the world could this be legal? It is going to depend on what was represented to the buyer and how conspicuous the disclaimers are.
In New York, for example, there is a law governing developers’ plans for renovations and new housing. In part, it says graphics in advertisements must be accurate depictions:
“An artist’s rendering of a property in an advertisement must be marked as an artist’s rendering and must accurately and realistically depict the dimensions, …” [See New York regulations.]
The bottomline is that you need to read the developer’s plan thoroughly, and not rely on oral representations of salespeople. Better yet, have your lawyer review all the documents to find the weasel clauses.
I think you missed a second example. However, I don’t believe a builder can redefine square footage to whatever he wants it to be. I think this is a scam assuming people won’t take it to court, but any reasonable judge should throw it out. If not, I will start paying checks with some small print: ““The gross amount of check is smaller than the actual amount billed on the legal paperwork. … As is customary in my little world, these smaller amounts are in my advantage.â€
When purchasing a loft recently, the sales office had floorplans with furniture in them so that people could get an idea of the space and how it could be used. When we were given the actual to-scale drawings, it became instantly apparent that the furniture in the drawings we were originally given are not even close to being possible.
Dimensions were noted as approximate, but the sizing of items was WAY off. I was a little surprised when I walked in to the framed up unit for the first time.
Well, the gross square footage usually is counted from the outside, right? Then you add walls on the inside so everything shrinks.
What would really bug me is if the final layout was nowhere close to the representation, and the gross footage was not what was offered. However, I’d also be erally bugged if they gave me a triangular house that met the above requirements–I’ve seen things like this where they squeeze things into curved lots and create askewed houses that make the flow through the house impractical.