Be careful if buying direct from builders/developers.
Myself, husband and another couple had arranged to buy direct and had sorted out a low deposit with the builder and mortgage and the 10 percent costs were to be added onto the mortgage at the end. One week before we were due to fly out to meet with them, Atlas had left a message on my answering machine saying that they were taking over the flights and they would be meeting us instead and that the builders had been 'naughty'..The builders have their own website and are still selling themselves.
Anyway we were told by the builders (onthe one phone call that they would return and speak to us, any thereafter have been ignored) that all deals, deposits etc would remain exactly the same as if we wre still going with them but that it was better we wnt with Atlas.
Now we,ve been out at the weekend, told that Atlas would do everything aprt from the mortgage which the builder owuld still do, cam home and got a call yesterday, mortgage will be fine but now Atlas are doing it and cannot add on the costs which they say will not be 10 percent but 14 PERCENT. They are giving a 3000 euro cashback but this doesn't even cover the extra 4 percent they will be charging! and it means myself and my friend iff going ahead with purchase have one year to find an extra 14,000 approximately euros, which we just can't do. We had paperworl which we,ve faxed off to Atlas this morning stating the deposits and that the costs would be added on, so unless they can do something about that we've lost our dream holiday home which took us 6 month to sort out, I think all Atlas are thinking about is they'll get 2 fat fees from the developers if they sell to us.
Watch this space and I'll let you all know what happens, but beware of offers like Atlas's - the extra euros cashback do not cover their inflated costs.