Q&A

Your property questions answered.

Do I have a right to know who will move next door to me?

I am buying an apartment in a block where I know there are some affordable housing units. The estate agent says he is not at liberty to tell me which ones these are, yet a work colleague in a similar situation in another development was told and a friend buying in a non-affordable development was told that "young professionals" had bought on either side of her unit. Do I have right to know?

Buyers just about always ask the agent who else has bought in the block. For many it's not so much a question of "who" - what they really want to know is the proportion of investors to owner occupiers.

To be fair to buyers it's not usually out of snobbishness that they're asking, they're not snooping around for information on the occupation of their potential neighbours. A block dominated by owner occupiers is simply the preferable option for most buyers.

The question of affordable units is a trickier one. Some agents tell, others don't. One reader reported that an agent informed her he could not reveal the location of the affordable units on the grounds that it is against "anti-discrimination legislation" when in reality she felt the reason he didn't want to give the information was that he was afraid of not being able to sell adjacent units.

Solicitor Rory O'Donnell of O'Donnell Sweeney is of the opinion that purchasers do not have a right to know who is buying next door or where the social and affordable units are in the development.

"It is clearly a matter on which purchasers are very keenly interested, perhaps to the point of obsession," he says. "I do not see that there is anything wrong with the purchaser demanding the information and exercising their right to buy elsewhere if they do not get it.

"Equally I do not see that there is anything wrong with the builders giving or refusing to divulge this information."

In other words, you can ask and if they won't tell you, you can either decide that it's not really that important and go ahead with the deal or you can simply walk away.

'Sale Agreed' signs seem to be an invitation to be gazumped

In the letters page in the main part of your paper there have been several letters about the problems associated with "Sale Agreed" signs. There seems to be a view that it is an invitation to gazump. If I buy a house can I ask the agent to put up a "Sold" sign, instead of a "Sale Agreed" one.

In a private treaty sale when you put an offer in on a property that is accepted and then go on to pay a small booking deposit - which is refundable - the "Sale Agreed" sign goes up. At this stage both you and the seller can still back out. It is not an invitation to "gazumping" - it is simply the system we have here. As you are aware, in some other European countries, from the moment you agree a price and pay the deposit, the house is yours and you must go through with the sale. Here when you buy at auction, you sign a contract there and then - there is no "Sale Agreed" stage. The "Sold" sign goes up immediately because you must go through with the purchase.

Send your queries to Property Questions, The Irish Times, 10-16 D'Olier Street, Dublin 2 or email propertyquestions@irish-times.ie.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to respond to all questions. The above is a representative sample of queries received. This column is a readers' service and is not intended to replace professional advice. No individual correspondence will be entered into.