Bought House, floor water damaged.

alm721

Can anyone offer any advice. We have just bought a house and after being in for 24 hours I was going to use the washing machine (integrated) as I got down to load the washing machine I thought I could hear trickling water. Turns out the pipe had split at the back of the washer and judging by the state of the floor it has been lleaking for months . We had to rip up the lino and there were literally pools of water underneath it in some places. The entire kitchen floor was sodden. Both my dad whose a builder and the plumber who came out have said the floor needs replacing and possible some carcasses as the water has started climbing the walls and although most of the kitchen itself is ok as it was on legs it will in all likelyhood have to be removed in order to get the floor up and replaced etc it also stinks.
Obviusly our survey did not pick this is so I have a few questions.

1. Our survey was just a standard one, would this be something that should have been picked up or not and do we have any comeback here. There was no mention at all of damp in the survey.
2. We insured the property from exchange of contracts 2 weeks ago but would the cover this as it clearly occured before we owned the house?
3. If not do we have any comeback on the vendors? Would their insurance cover it?
I will contact our solicitors tomorrow but if any one has any advice it would be much appriciated.
Thanks

lincroft1710

Leak in pipe can happen at any time, a trickle of water can do a lot of damage in short time. If surveyor couldn't see it or didn't use damp meter or happened after survey then survey wouldn't mention it. No doubt vendors would deny all knowledge of leak and respond with "caveat emptor" (buyer beware), i.e. you viewed house, had survey and decided to purchase with all faults known or otherwise.

No harm in putting claim to your insurer.

alm721

Thank-you for that we will try with the insurance and see where we get, not holding out much hope though, but the vendors did know as they'd tried to fix he leak with insulating tape! Oh well these things happen.