Discovered damp in my new house

robhav

Hi, I recently bought a new house and when I moved in there was a nasty smell coming from the kitchen. It looked like rising damp had caused condensation and mould growth in the cupboard under the sink. This was not mentioned in our Homebuyers Survey. I called the surveyer and he came round and said it was just condensation and some bleach would sort the smelly mould out. I asked him to check the walls and he had to take the kick-board off to get at them. His meter confirmed the wall is damp.

I wrote to the surveyer asking why it wasn't picked up in the survey and they said they do not remove kick boards or move furniture for a Homebuyers Survey. Therefore, they will not pay for any repairs. Which is fair enough but what bugs me is the report should have said he couldn't gain access to the back wall to check for damp. I would have investigated further if it had said that. What it did say was there is evidence of chemical injection (which there is on the front of the house) and no evidence of damp. Is the surveyer in the wrong here or am I just being silly?

Thanks
Rob

Sarahpuggy

I dont know how helpful this is...but we just got our homebuyers report back and there was a whole section detailing what they COULDN'T gain access to or check...

man-in-the-street

IMHO you should sue the useless surveyor. If they can't discover damp then what use are they?

But the reason for writing is to tell you that bleach is a complete waste of time as far as mold is concerned. (I have had to do some research on this because we have some in our cellar.) You need a proprietary mold remover which includes Propionic acid as a constituent.

BT_man

man-in-the-street wrote:

IMHO you should sue the useless surveyor. If they can't discover damp then what use are they?

I would second that, afterall they do charge a lot of money for their "survey"...

cattie

A surveyor won't usually check out cupboards if they are full of stuff & they certainly wouldn't remove a kick board. Somewhere in their terms it probably states their limitations.

It's the same with a loft, if it's full of stuff they won't report on that.

Most Homebuyer's reports recommend you get your own specialist in to check for damp, timber defects etc anyway, and don't give you any real information as to the true state of the property, other than generalisations and advice about the getting the specialist reports.

marybishop

Which is why you're better off having a full structural survey done but most people don't want to pay the difference. Strange when they're spending so much on the property in the first place but there you go.

pawpurrs

Personally and dont shoot me, but most surveys are not worth the paper they are written on.
Im afraid standard practise not to look behind cabinets and you dont have any recourse.