House purchase goes wrong

klunkclick

We completed on a property recently which had suffered a pipe burst in the attic during the "big freeze" in January, which caused several thousand pounds of damage to the interior. The vendor claimed on his insurance, commenced works, and assured all parties that the monies remaining from the insurance claim would pass to us as the new owners upon completion. We have emails & phone records to back this up. In order to expedite the sale, as our buyer was getting anxious, we agreed to take a price reduction in order to go forward to exchange & complete before the remedial works were finished. The contracts had already been finalised and signed by this stage, with little reference to the works to be completed .

Due to delays in the final exchange and completion dates (we had to obtain a new mortagage offer with a reduced asking price, searches expired, bank holidays etc), the vendor now wishes to withhold the sum negotiated as a price reduction from the insurance monies owed, and also is not allowing us to deal directly with the insurers to finalise the claim. The final claim could be higher than quoted thus far, and for some bizarre reason the vendor was paid the money directly by the insurer, instead of going to the approved contractor. The only option open to us seems to be the solicitor and county court claims route, although I am willing to take it to mediation first if it would acheive a reasonable outcome.

Any advice appreciated!

dopester

How much money are we talking?

Sounds like a job for a commercial litigation solicitor to me.

klunkclick

Total negotiated price reduction £2000.

Rough figures only for the claim, due to lack of information:
Total insurance claim to date ~£10,000
Total spent to date ~£6000

Potential losses are between £2000 and £4000. Enough to take seriously, from our point of view...

dopester

I'd take a look here:

Issuing a claim online
If the value of your claim is less than £100,000 and the claim is against not more than two people, you can issue your claim online. Money Claim Online (MCOL) is Her Majesty's Courts Service Internet based service for claimants and defendants.

https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/csmco2/index.jsp

And associated PDFs to read from this site, including this PDF.
http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/infoabout/claims/index.htm