Scotland-Gas fire condemned, seller should pay to fix - will I win in court?

jenniferfluff29

Hi everyone

Looking for some advice. I am in Scotland. The gas fire that was in our house that we bought was deemed unsafe during the annual service (which I got done) and has been isolated by the gas safe engineer. The fire is ok but the brickwork inside the chimney breast need re-cemented, as the fire is being re-connected it needs to be up to current specs ie fixed open air brick plus gas pipe will need re-sleeved.

The missives in Scotland state that you have 5 working days to report a fault on the heating. The fault was reported in 5 days, the sellers solicitors wrote to our solicitor and told us to obtain quotes then she would write to her client and get the matter resolved.

We are now 2 months on from the quotes being supplied. The seller is not coughing up the money and my solicitor is getting the run-around.

My solicitor says we have a good case (but won't guarantee that we will win as no solicitor will do this) . My solicitor says that they will be hoping that we forget about it. Apparently we will need a court solicitor (I think) and we should get the majority of the fees back from the seller. Has anyone had any experience of this type of thing?

I don't want to be out of pocket with court fees but I do not want to have to pay for the repairs which come in at around £400.

Can't believe that someone can get out of a legally binding document.

I sold my house and I would have repaired my heating with no problems as it says that you must in the missives.

Anyone who has any advice on this matter would be gratefully received.

thanks

fluff

BitterAndTwisted

It's going to cost you a lot more than £400 to pursue this through the courts, in fact I suspect you might have incurred approaching that amount already by consulting your solicitors. It might cheaper and less stressful to just pay for it yourself, enjoy your new home and move on

jackieb

Our gas fire didn't work when we moved in last year - we got a Corgi registered plumber in - we got a couple of quotes too. The sellers weren't having any of it. They just said it was working when they sold it.

Our garage door fell off the day we moved in and the shower didn't work. We reported all this to our solicitor the same day we moved in and got quotes the following week. They just didn't accept any responibility at all. Our solicitor said we could have taken them to court but I didn't want the bother. Our solicitor even asked them for a token gesture of a couple of hundred pounds but was turned down for that too.

We're in Scotland as well. It was very frustrating.

Isn't it half the cost that your entitled to? I don't think it would be the whole £400 anyway.

bobby-boy_2

£400.00 equals about 4 hours time for a solicitor. Very frustrating I know but I would let it go as the stress waiting on going to court etc and as you say no gaurentee of a win and if you do "we should get the majority of the fees back from the seller." Should and will are different and majority of fees is not all.

Sorry if this is not what you want to hear.

PS I am in Scotland too.

jenniferfluff29

Agree with everything said, except there is nothing in missives that says that they seller only needs to pay half the costs - don't know where you got this from. However, yet to speak to solicitor on this matter.

Just out of interest trying to find out if anyone else was in this situation.

Will be seeking solicitors advice anyway, even if we don't get full costs back we are going to make a stand. Maybe out of pocket for legal costs but will feel better that we haven't been walked over yet again. The law seems to do nothing for the law obiding individual.:mad:

thanks everyone