OFF-PLAN PROPERTY · FIRST-TIME BUYERS
Everyone agrees there is a cooling-off period. Nobody agrees when it started.
A buyer signs a booking form at a weekend exhibition, pays a reservation fee, and is told they have a period to reconsider before the deposit stops being refundable.
The developer's copy is dated when the paperwork reached their office. The buyer remembers the Saturday.
Between those two dates sits the whole question of whether a withdrawal was in time, and the only records are two pieces of paper held by the two people who disagree.
One transaction, two records, fourteen days apart
What the buyer holds
- A booking form signed on Saturday at the exhibition hall
- A payment receipt timestamped by the bank that afternoon
- A verbal assurance that the period is fourteen days
- A photograph of the signed page, taken because it felt sensible
What the developer holds
- The same booking form, stamped as received on the following Thursday
- An internal register that records the Thursday date
- A standard clause running the period from receipt, not signature
- No record at all of the Saturday conversation
Neither party fabricated anything. They are each holding an accurate record of a different moment, and the contract only names one of them.