March 21, 2009 – The curtains may finally be drawn on Glashaus, judging from the looks of the construction site. The 25 story 262 unit South Loop project never made it past the foundation work and now the site on 1327 South Wabash seems to be abandoned as well as the sales center not fielding any more calls. This can’t be good news to those who put earnest money down on one of the pre-construction Chicago condos in this development.

Back in January of this year Crain’s ran an article about Chicago real estate projects that were either delayed, on hold or close to being scrapped due to slow sales and lack of financing. Among those listed, Glashaus had several vocal dissatisfied buyers who claimed they had been trying to get their money back from developer Piedmont Group for some time and to no avail.

A Mr. Manish Shah was interviewed in the article and stated that in late 2006 he had put down $24,000 towards a $440,000 two bedroom condo in the building with the assurance that the unit would be delivered in the later half of 2008. By October 2008 Glashaus still wasn’t constructed and the developer sent Mr. Shah and other buyers a letter stating that construction time tables had to be pushed back and deliveries would now be in late 2010. At that time Mr. Shah had still not been able to get his deposit back and told Crain’s that, “The money that’s locked up is opportunity lost,” he says. “I’ve been trying to get out of (the contract), but I can’t.”

Without a drop dead clause in a condo contract, buyers may assume they have no recourse if their Pre Construction Condos in Chicago doesn’t deliver in a reasonable amount of time. But a law was passed in 1968 called the Interstate Land Sales Full Disclosure Act. It states that for any condo development with more than 99 units the builder has to file a report with HUD stating that they will deliver units within 2 years and a copy of this must be given to each buyer before a sales contract is signed. If 2 years pass with no condo delivery, the buyer then has 2 years to break the contract and possibly get all of his or her deposit back.

[tags]Glashaus, Chicago Condos, Chicago Real Estate[/tags]

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 21st, 2009 at 3:17 pm and is filed under Mortgage Information.