Will builders pay my Solicitors fees??

blondeandirish

My partner and I have just gone through 12 weeks of purchasing a property which we were due to complete tomorrow. The property had underpinning carried out in January due to a tree roots which were removed in October 2009, we were fully aware of this issue and as the property came with a renewed 10year NHBC warranty we thought everything must be fine. Until it came to obtaining buildings insurance, we have approached various insurance companies which included one that specialize in insuring properties with subsidence issues. We have faxed the Engineers report to all that have requested it and we keep being told the same answer. We can insure but excluding subsidence, we are then told that they would require a full structural engineer inspection 12 months after the work has been carried out before they would consider giving us full insurance. The specialised insurance company told us that the property should be left to settle for 12months before it is sold by the builders.
Therefore, as we now have a solicitors bill of £1200.00 but a property that is not insurable and therefore unsellable, can anyone advise if we would be within our rights to approach the builders to pay our solicitors bill?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

clutton_2

you can but ask... you could always ask your sol to do an extended and conditional exchange contract... whereby in 12 months time if the report is satisfactory you will buy it - if it aint - you wont.. would they rent it to you for that period ?

CloudCuckooLand

Probably not. Without 'exchange' there is no contract to commit them. For heavens sake don't exchange, whatever you do. You'd be taking on their lemon...

Have you tried asking to take on the building insurance - if there is any - of the current owners.

The specialised company are right. If the same insurance company get to monitor the subsidence, they may not care who owns it. Its the same problem, that they will be stuck with insuring for the foreseeable future.

No other insurer will touch it with a bargepole.

Should have been your first question before committing to any other expenditure.

Some lessons in life are more expensive than others.

blondeandirish

Clutton - Thank you for your response. The property was built in 2004 and it had to be bought back by the building firm (large national company) because of the tree root problem. We have been advised that the original insurers have an obligation to carry on the insurance but because the previous owners left 18 months ago we cannot fin out who they were. The builders have now said we can apply to their insurers, when they gave us the details, they turned out to be the first insurers to turn us down. We have resumitted the insurance request to them on the basis that they are the builders insurance and guess what the 47 page engineers report had to be faxed over to them AGAIN.
We have toyed with the idea of perhaps them offering to rent it to us and if they do offer this then it is something we will definatly consider.

blondeandirish

CloudCuckooLand - Thank you also for your response. Yes I know we have been naive with regards to not considering the insurance issue in the first instance adn now we are paying the price. Not only financially but I have also transferred my eldest son to a secondary school in a new area that he didn't want to go to, this was made more difficult for him as it is his first year in senior school.......that's the most expensive lesson i've learnt!!
Your quote is so right!

Richard_Webster

Did the structural engineer not check the work and provide a certificate at the end?

blondeandirish

Hi Richard, we've had a full engineers report from the engineers for the work that was carried out in October '09, then the NHBC requested that extra work be carried out, this was completed in January 2010. The NHBC were then happy to reissue a full 10 year warranty on the property but all the insurers say that the NHBC warrantly is irrelevant to the insurance.:(

G_M

blondeandirish wrote: »

... We can insure but excluding subsidence,......but a property that is not insurable and therefore unsellable, .

So it IS insurable, just not against subsidence. This is unsurprising.

You can ask, but I doubt the builders will pay. My advice? An expensive lesson, but walk away.

blondeandirish

Thanks G_M, we are walking away but I want to try and find out if there is anyway that I can try and reclaim our solicitors fees from the builders as no one will be able to purchase this property with a mortgage, I believe that the only purchases will be anyone that is a cash buyer.