Thousands of investors who agreed to buy off-plan hotel rooms or apartments are facing legal action from property developers because they cannot complete the deal. Mr Percy is unable to remortgage his home, and is considering converting his final-salary pension, worth £90,000, into a self-invested personal pension (Sipp) with which he could buy the property. In May 2007 Steven Dowd, 31, and Helen Glanfield, 44, paid a £79,000 deposit on two off-plan flats at Caspian Wharf in East London, a complex to be built by Berkeley Homes, one of the UK’s largest developers. Although Mr Dowd accepts that he has lost his deposit, Berkeley Homes is suing him to recover the difference between the price he agreed to pay and the price the builder eventually received from the final buyer, plus damages. read more

Technorati Tags: property, times, apartments, deposit, agreed, buy, investor seminar news