Conservatory and Home Buyer Report Dilema

lisap4123

Here are 2 of our many current problems following buying a house.

Home Buyer report which we paid £500 for missed lots of things which we found on moving in eg:
- none of the external doors to the house would close or lock
- some UPVC windows also wont lock / have crumbling plastic around the locks
- Toilet not properly secured to floor so rocks
- holes in shower so water runs into airing cupboard behind
- cracks above patio door
- wasps nest
- badly leaking garage
- garage door didnt lock, was repaired when we realised but still caused problems resulting in a break in and bike being stollen
- Back upvc door is bowed so hence doesnt fit in the frame leaving gaps in places and a strong breeze to blow through
- Conersvatory problems: cracks to both left and right inside and out where low wall joins house wall / doors misaligned so couldnt be closed or locked and internal seal sticking out plus a nail acting as the pin through the hinge.

I have emailed the surveyor reporting the problems we have found which he missed - but no reply yet.

Do you think these are things which should have been spotted by a competent surveyor? I think so but I have heard lots about surveyors doing the minimum on homebuyers surveys.

What can I do about it? Would i have a case against the surveyor?

Additionally on the conservatory issues, when we bought the house the vendors had no paperwork on the conservatory as it was the owners previous to them who had it built. But a friend recomended a company for windows and doors as we need a new front door. The company rep came out and quoted for the door and we asked her view on conservatory at same time. She looked at cracks etc and said built on cheap, botch job, hasnt been pinned to wall and its moved we would always pin to the wall.

Following day director of this company calls my husband as it was them who built the conservatory and it still has 1 year of warranty. Very decent of him to call and own up to this. He views the conservatory but then on the phone gets very agressive and defensive and claims there is nothing wrong with the conservatory, that it was pinned (but no evidence) its a tiny crack and just needs some muck in it and a bit of mastik, that it will last for years, but that he isnt prepared to put that in writing. He has said he will send us a copy of guarrantee and plans (but not received) and that he will provide an engineer from his co to patch up the cracks and look at the door and window problems. But thats it. He said get a structural engineer report if you dont believe me. He said he would refund us the £30 for the guarantee - but then that may mean that the guarrantee is no longer valid - but not sure if its valid to us anyway as it was 2 owners previous who had conservatory built !

Structural engineer report is £400+ when we already paid £500 for the homebuyer report who missed these problems. We havent seen the report and dont know if the guarrantee is even transferable to us.

What should we do? Are we just dependent upon the directors good will?
:eek::mad:

teneighty

With regards to the conservatory there should be a movement joint between it and the house as there is always likely to be differential movement between the two structures. I would accept their offer of raking out the crack and filling it with a flexible sealant assuming it is a straight crack along the junction between the house and conservatory.

As for the survey, that's a bit more tricky. Sadly alot of the surveyors who work in this field have such a large volume of work they do miss a multitude of minor defects. However at the end of the day they are all quite minor so the financial loss you have suffered is fairly minimal. Worth asking though and suggesting to them that you may pursue a claim against their professional indemnity insurance but I'm not sure you would get much if anything back.

daveyjp

Without seeing the Homebuyer report it's a bit difficult to comment, but in general a Homebuyers survey and report is to advise you of any items which will require major expenditure - none of what you have mentioned falls into this category.

What you have listed are all minor and may well still be reflected in the wording of the report - i.e. property requires updating, minor repairs required etc etc.

Leif

I think a lot of these Home Buyer's Reports are little more than Google surveys. And they are so full of weasel word cop outs that it is hard to get any come back.

phill99

There will be caveats/terms and conditions in the HBR which will be the way out for teh surveyor. They don't do any service tests such as water so how would they know the the shower leaks?

The HBR is designed to look at the major elements of the house. It doesn't look at wheteher every door lock is correctly working or not. If you wanted that level of information you would be paying 3 or 4 times what you have paid.

iamcornholio

The RICS Homebuyer report is little more than a glorified checklist.

It will cover major structural issues, but little else. You need to read the attached guidance notes which should have come with the survey

Having said that, although a surveyor may only be engaged to conduct the survey in accordance with the homebuyer items and format, there will still be a duty for him to comment on (separately if need be) anything which is patently obvious and of great significance which may not be within the report tick list

Most of your items are minor and may not be covered.

For your conservatory, some movement is inherent with any addition like this and you may just be seeing a settlement crack or some [normal] seasonal movement. The joint betweent he new and old walls should be made with a flexible mastic and not cement mortar and not plaster - as this will typically crack in this location

Unless you can get your fingers in this crack, ( ) then you should not worry about it, and just monitor it over a couple of seasons before repairing

jc808

Loved the story above:

'What cowboy built this!!! What shoddy work, its not pinned to the wall and theres a gap in the maastic!!!'

'What do you mean we d- er, well... it was on the price you see. You get what you pay for... not supposed to pin it to the wall... well maastic cracks over time, er... your not recording this are you?'

lisap4123

Thanks for the views and info.

The solicitor has just advised us that she has got the warrantee and has already asked the company to transfer it to us, so thats a step forwards.
But that explains why the director of the co contacted us - not out of moral duty but because he knew our solicitor was on the ball !
Will see how the repairs turn out and keep everything crossed.