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.
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