New house with a leaking roof! Challenging our surveyors but advice needed please...

Tunstallstoven

Hi

My partner and I are FTBs and moved into our new home in May.

The house is 17 years old and the roof received a score of "1" in the Homebuyer's Survey (carried out by Countrywide). The survey made mention that reclaimed tiles had been used, but otherwise only said the standard: "no repair is currently needed, but the property must be maintained in the normal way."

A couple of weeks after moving in we had our first bit of rain. We were in bed and could hear dripping. Long story short....the roof was leaking! We had a roofer come and inspect it the next day. He said there had very obviously been some major work done to the roof recently (it later transpired that some major work had been done within the year). Whoever the vendor had hired to do this had apparently done an appalling job. The tiles had been replaced very badly with large gaps. The valley (it's an L shaped building) was very wonky and the tiles stopped short of the valley. The list goes on of how bad it was...... but the result was that water was coming into the house and obviously had been before purchase.

Our solicitor said that now the house had been bought, done and dusted, there was nothing we could do, even though the vendor had answered questionnaires saying there was nothing wrong with the house and no major building work had been done. We were disappointed to say the least, especially as the roof quoted us £800 for work needed.

A second roofer said that there was no point "polishing a turd" and that he would only recommend a full re-roof as there was o point doing work on what was already very poor.

We therefore challenged Countrywide's Homebuyer's Report. They sent a Chief Surveyor around who submitted a report to a company called DCS Protect.

DCS first offered to pay us £410, but have made it clear that this payment is made as a gesture of goodwill and that Countrywide take no admission of liability nor admission that the report is deficient. We noticed also in the acceptance form that it said payment is made "in full and final settlement of all claims arising". We queried this and I was confirmed that ANY other matters from the whole of the survey could not be contested in the future. We challenged this and the half-begrudgingly changed it to say we could only not re-challenge the matters we had raised - but we could if anything else unrelated arose in the future.

We're not sure what to do next...... Our instincts tell us that if they thought the Survey was fair and accurate they would have told us to sod off! Whilst it is nice to be offered something, with one roofer quoting £800 for repair and the other quoting £3k-£4k for a total re-roof, £400 seems a small offer. Obviously, had the survey flagged that the roof needed looking at before purchase, this would have had a significant effect on what our final offer for the house would have been.

I should add that DCS's final offer said:

"we have also taken into account the fact that the assessment of liability arising out of professional negligence does not relate to the cost of repair but is based on diminution in value. This, in simple terms, is the reduction in price which the client may have achieved in the event the defect under discussion had been identified by the surveyor within the parameters of the report. The Courts of Law have long held this view and this principle is one which would apply to your own case. Countrywide Surveying Services has seen no evidence to suggest diminution in value has arisen and the goodwill offer, made with no admission of liability, as contained within recent correspondence, is considered to be fair and reasonable."


Any advice as to what we should do would be really helpful. And if we should challenge/go for more compensation, how would it be best to do this?

Many many thanks

Max

(PS - sorry for the long post!)

ILW

Was this a full survey or just a valuation survey?

Tunstallstoven

In between - it was a Homebuyer's Report/Survey....

daveyjp

DCS are a claims management company and the first offer will be cheaper than going to a full investigation.

Tell them you reject the offer and go in with a full demand for the amount this is going to cost to put right and see what they say.

Be prepared for this to get messy, but you need to start somewhere.

Tunstallstoven

Thanks daveyjp - appreciate your advice.

Does anyone else out there have a view on what we should do? Anyone else had experience in this sort of situation?

Many thanks

Max

Curveygirl

Bump bump bump

Tunstallstoven

Thanks for bumping me Curveygirl!!!

If no-one 'round here can offer help or advice, any pointers to places where I cuold get some help/support would be fantastico!

pmlindyloo

This link may help:

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/your_family/home_and_neighbourhood_index_ew/moving_and_improving_your_home_index_ew/problems_with_buying_and_selling_a_home.htm#Surveyorsandvaluers

Tunstallstoven

Thanks for the link mate.

Any other advice from people in the know or anyone who has been in a similar situation?

Tunstallstoven

One last bump - seeing as it's raining!

andrewmp

Take the offer, pay £390, worse things can happen, at least your roof won't be leaking anymore.