DevelopmentSite: The sale of a ready-to-go apartment site in Sandycove for €6.65 million earlier this year has been referred to solicitors, reports Jack Fagan
A purchaser who bid a record price at auction for an apartment site at Sandycove in Co Dublin - owned by businessmen Richard Murphy of Chartbusters and financial adviser Patrick Rocca - is not proceeding with the purchase, according to the auctioneers.
In accordance with standard practice, the vendor has issued a 28 days notice to compel the purchaser to do so. Failure to complete can lead to the forfeiture of a deposit and the possibility of a vendor suing for additional loss.
The corner site of 0.55 of an acre at 40 Elton Park has planning permission for 15 two and three-bedroom apartments and was sold at a Hamilton Osborne King auction on March 10th for €6.65 million. The price would have worked out at about €533,000 per unit - easily the highest in the Dublin area - once additional costs are taken into consideration.
The decision not to complete the purchase is now being dealt with by solicitors for both the vendors and the highest bidder.
Michael Hynes of Hamilton Osborne King, which handled the auction, said they had been notified that the top bidder would not be proceeding with the purchase. No reason was given.
The successful bidder at auction normally pays a deposit of 10 per cent of the purchase price. If that guide was followed in this case - and there is no suggestion that it was not - then a deposit of €665,000 would have been lodged with the auctioneer immediately after the auction.
The selling price for the Sandycove land equated to €433,000 for each apartment but, when stamp duty and an estimated €700,000 is paid to Dún Laoghaire Rathdown Co Council in lieu of the social and affordable housing scheme, the overall price rises to about €533,000 per unit.
Developers also have to pay 12.5 per cent VAT on the selling prices. Development and fit-out costs generally run at around €2,153 per sq m (€200 per sq ft) but this figure might be above that level because of the cost of installing an underground car-park.
The €6.65 million selling price at the HOK auction represented a significant increase on the €1.96 million paid for the same site at a Lisney auction in June 1999. There was then a bungalow on the site and the consortium that bought it later got planning permission to demolish the house and replace it with 11 apartments.
More than 20 months later Mr Murphy and Mr Rocca acquired the site in a private transaction. Last December An Bord Pleanála gave them permission to increase the number of units to 15 and the car-parking spaces to 24. The permission cleared the way for relatively large homes - the 13 two-bedroom apartments will range from 77-115sq m (828-1,237sq ft) while the two three-bedroom homes will have floor areas of 150 and 174sq m (1,614 and 1,872sq ft).
