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Serious defects missed in Colleys Homebuyers report

24

Comments

  • AcStar
    AcStar Posts: 12 Forumite
    edited 30 November 2017 at 7:30PM
    When this is the only route to verify the purchase of the most expensive asset anyone would likely to have then there has to be a simpler/fairer route of redress when things go wrong.

    There is always the possible issue of vendor concealment and it would be obvious if fresh paintwork exists, new carpets, blocked access (on purpose) and so on. Surely the surveyor should be particularly on guard if he/she sees this and built into surveyor training for this very reason?
  • ACG
    ACG Posts: 23,726 Forumite
    First Anniversary Name Dropper First Post I've helped Parliament
    AcStar wrote: »
    There is always the possible issue of vendor concealment and it would be obvious if fresh paintwork exists, new carpets, blocked access (on purpose) and so on. Surely the surveyor should be particularly on guard if he/she sees this and built into surveyor training for this very reason?

    People doing up their house to sell is quite common.
    I am a Mortgage Adviser
    You should note that this site doesn't check my status as a mortgage adviser, so you need to take my word for it. This signature is here as I follow MSE's Mortgage Adviser Code of Conduct. Any posts on here are for information and discussion purposes only and shouldn't be seen as financial advice.
  • AcStar
    AcStar Posts: 12 Forumite
    Hi of course people want to make their houses look lovely prior to sale.

    However when there is a malicious cover up - not saying that happened to me - there should be redress. Saw an article published in the Telegraph on-line on this very issue recently. So this is a current 'up for discussion issue' as vendors need to be liable for misrepresentation. If something is not good for purpose or unsafe it can be returned. In certain USA states the sale of a property can be reversed.
  • Thrugelmir
    Thrugelmir Posts: 89,546 Forumite
    Name Dropper Photogenic First Anniversary First Post
    AcStar wrote: »
    There is always the possible issue of vendor concealment and it would be obvious if fresh paintwork exists, new carpets, blocked access (on purpose) and so on. Surely the surveyor should be particularly on guard if he/she sees this and built into surveyor training for this very reason?

    The terms and conditions under which a survey is conducted are very clearly set out. Subjective reasoning is not included. Buyer beware.
  • AcStar
    AcStar Posts: 12 Forumite
    edited 30 November 2017 at 7:58PM
    Point taken and why I am going to make it a mission to get this changed as we are in the hands of individuals who should be made responsible for cover ups, mistakes and so on. In my case the course of events from my situation have had a severe life-changing impact on myself and my family.
    I am sure I am not alone with this?
  • moneyistooshorttomention
    moneyistooshorttomention Posts: 17,940 Forumite
    AcStar wrote: »
    Hi of course people want to make their houses look lovely prior to sale.

    However when there is a malicious cover up - not saying that happened to me - there should be redress. Saw an article published in the Telegraph on-line on this very issue recently. So this is a current 'up for discussion issue' as vendors need to be liable for misrepresentation. If something is not good for purpose or unsafe it can be returned. In certain USA states the sale of a property can be reversed.

    I guess you're going the "misrepresentation" route then? As I understand that one can take the "vendor deliberately misled me" route and, at the worst, force them to buy their house back again off you. Don't know whether anyone has succeeded in that yet?
  • moneyistooshorttomention
    moneyistooshorttomention Posts: 17,940 Forumite
    edited 30 November 2017 at 9:22PM
    AcStar wrote: »
    Point taken and why I am going to make it a mission to get this changed as we are in the hands of individuals who should be made responsible for cover ups, mistakes and so on. In my case the course of events from my situation have had a severe life-changing impact on myself and my family.
    I am sure I am not alone with this?

    Well there's another thread on here right now by a buyer that didnt get told there was Japanese Knotweed in the garden by their surveyor (Mid-level survey).

    I have two friends that moved here at same time as me - and their surveyor didnt tell them there was JK in the garden.

    My surveyor (Homebuyer Survey) didnt so much as hint that I should get the house completely rewired.

    There's loads of us on the receiving end of surveyors not doing their jobs properly and then trying to protect their own backs.

    Quite frankly - there is a market for a (good) surveyor to write a "How to be your own surveyor" reference book and we could all just buy that and do our own surveys instead/or as well as any "official" one we had done. I would have loved to have a book like that - but couldnt find one:(

    I dont really know what they honestly think we are all paying them good money for....:cool:

    Good luck.

    EDIT; I've just googled - yet again - for that home survey book I tried in vain to find when I came to buy this house. ....and I found a reference to "Readers Digest Home Survey Manual". Quick visit to Amazon.co.uk later and I didnt bother to study it in great detail at that price - about £3 later I've bought a copy and it will be on its way to me shortly. Sighs. I would have been quite prepared to pay £30/£40 for a bang up-to-date technical "how to be your own surveyor" manual at the time I bought this house - and then sat and had a couple of stiff drinks to help me work my way through understanding the technical language I would have expected it to be in.
  • teneighty
    teneighty Posts: 1,347 Forumite
    In response to Money's post, there are good surveyors out there but they don't do Homebuyers Reports for £450.

    Pay peanuts and you get monkeys. Simple.

    The profession has been massively "dumbed down" as the big financial institutions have muscled in and taken over with the large national chains. Working on the basis of churning out as many surveys/valuations as possible with the resultant collapse in professional standards and customer service.
  • moneyistooshorttomention
    moneyistooshorttomention Posts: 17,940 Forumite
    I thought that was around about the "going rate" for Homebuyers surveys (ie the mid-level ones)?? Dont know about OP - but mine certainly wasnt a "big national chain"....

    Just got vague figures in my mind of:
    - bottom level basic (ie the drive-by type stuff) - around £100??????
    - Homebuyers survey - around £400-£500
    - Top-level survey - couldnt say - but I'd guess at around £1,000?

    The price of mid-level survey (as I understood it to be) sounded fairly reasonable at, say, 2 hours (dont know for sure) visiting property concerned and then 1-2 hours writing it up. So, say, £100 per hour. Now that's me taking a very very rough guesstimate of how long I think that would take them? Which represents a pretty decent hourly rate (which many of us would love to be paid) from where I'm standing.

    Just struck me that, personally, I paid mine more than my "solicitor that turned out to be a legal executive":cool:
  • moneyistooshorttomention
    moneyistooshorttomention Posts: 17,940 Forumite
    Just put in a test request on an online site and received quotes for my low value (less than £200,000) house of:

    £385 for Homebuyers Survey
    £474 for the higher level survey

    to give an example of costs. Hmm...higher level survey is less than I thought they were. Though I had always read that highest level survey is what one gets if it's an obvious physical wreck at the quickest glance and/or hundreds of years old touch (not what seems, on the face of it, to be a fairly standard house of modern era).
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