NEED ADVICE: Surveyors, negligence, or mortgage company duty of care

nicky_bodmin

I bought my house five years ago re mortgaging my other house for a deposite. Then remortgaged the proerty a year later. The same surveyor was instructed by the both the mortgage and re mortgage company to supply a valuation of the property.
Shortly after the re mortgage I started having major flooding problems this brought to light that the property I had bought at full market falue was not worth more than the land value only. I started to have finanical problems that meant that I had to pay for this house and lose my home, because I couldnt afford to pay both. I should have been able to sell house number two with a profit that would have covered most of my mortgage on my home. Instead I was forced to sell it, because the house number 2 mortgage company would have taken my home anyway to cover the sort fall due to the negative equity as a direct result of the surveyors negligance on the valuation. I have been paying for 5 years a mortgage that is about houndred thousand over the value of the property. I have told the mortgage company of the problems and they are not interested at all. I have had lots of different advice from several solicitors each saying different things. I want to put this mess right. I dont no who to approach to put this mess right. All I no is I have lost almost every thing I have worked all my life for because of it. Please help advice me on anything that will help me on this. I must have rights as a consumer but no one is interested in telling me what I do next

Nicky

churchrat

hi
I'm afraid that your post is quite hard to understand--could you perhaps edit it and put in paragraphs, shorter sentences and more detail?
thanks

clutton_2

What sort of survey was done ?

Did it mention the flooding risk ?

pawpurrs

Sorry to hear the situation that you are in. However I dont understand how the surveyor is at fault here, why is the property flooding is the main question, one of the questions on the SPIF is has the property ever been flooded? If the property was prone to flooding then this should have been answered truthfully. How does it flood and why?

PasturesNew

I've tried to understand, is this right?:

I live in a house, I remortgaged that house and bought a BTL property - the plan was to sell this in a few years and with the profit it would clear my mortgage on my main home.

However, my BTL property has flooded and because of this and because it was a newbuild and because the market has crashed it is now worth peanuts.

Can I sue the surveyor because of the change in value?

Is that what you mean?

lincroft1710

Please let us know all the different advice you have received from solicitors.

G_M

the property I had bought at full market falue was not worth more than the land value only.

If you can prove negligence/incompetence by the surveyor you may have a case - what kind of survey did you get and what did it say?

If the vendor lied to you eg saying there was no history of previous flooding, and you can prove there WAS a history of flooding, you may have a case.

Otherwise it was your decision when you bought how much you were willing to pay.

Cash-Is-King

Nicky sorry to hear about your situation, as others have said you first need to make clear a few very important points.

It sounds like you bought your house at the market rate, whatever it was, and when the sale was agreed and you moved to get a mortgage for it they sent out their valuer to see if the house was worth what you paid for it based on current sale prices of similar dwellings in your area. They did this to ensure they lent you a sum that was less than the value of the house so if you defaulted on the mortgage, they could take it back and sell it to recoup their money.

From what I can gather, you had a VALUATION surveyor who was working for YOUR lender. You mentioned suing the surveyor for negligence, did you instruct a surveyor to advise you i.e did you instruct a Building surveyor to give you impartial professional advice prior to your house purchase - if you did, you would have a case, if you didn't you don't.

Please clarify if you hired a surveyor or not.

Fire_Fox

A valuation isn't a survey: it's the market value on the day that the surveyor visits, not before and not months later. Did you have a Homebuyers Report or full structural survey on the second property? If the house is a new build and the flooding is down to problems with the build you may have a claim against the developer or, if they have gone bust, you may be able to claim from the NHBC.

nicky_bodmin

PasturesNew wrote: »

I've tried to understand, is this right?:

I live in a house, I remortgaged that house and bought a BTL property - the plan was to sell this in a few years and with the profit it would clear my mortgage on my main home.

However, my BTL property has flooded and because of this and because it was a newbuild and because the market has crashed it is now worth peanuts.

Can I sue the surveyor because of the change in value?

Is that what you mean?

thanks for the reply. The surveyor said in survey that there was not chance of flooding.
The value of the property today is not a reflection of our economical climate but as a result of a long list of problems.
The vender bought the house as a shell rebuilt it and exstended the property with a totaly seperate dwelling,.a one bedroomed house.
He didnt apply for any kind of planning to built the second house, and as a result of this
There is no foundation on this new 2 story extension
No building regs have been applied to the build.
The list is so long and none of the problems to a trained eye would have gone undetected

G_M

Did you have a Homebuyers Report or full structural survey on the second property?

If you had a full survey then it sounds like your surveyer was negligent. What professional body does he belong to? They will have a complaints process.