Non disclosure by seller

chechan_2

I have just bought a property and recent discussions with neighbours have revealed an ongoing dispute about outstanding work which needed to be done for the past year. Seller didn't want to pay then put property on market assuring neighbours that any prosective buyers would be informed of work needing done sothat it could go ahead ASAP. None of this was included in sellers report or to our solicitors. Neighbours seem nice and just want to solve issue as we are joint freeholders. They have given me copies of emails between them and seller detailing all of this. It also states that the seller deliberately hid the lack of sound proofing from prospective buyers by asking neighbours not to move chairs or play music despite neighbours requesting that new buyers should be aware as this problem also requires substantial money to rectify and has been ongoing dispute.
My question is can seller be held liable for not disclosing this information to me? I certainly would have reduced my offer if I'd known.
It looks like there could be up to £20k worth of work needing done which we obviously can't afford having just put all our money into the property. We did get a full enhanced survey done which did not pick up any of the work - it's roof work and they did state that they couldn't inspect roof thoroughly.
Any advice much appreciated!

cattie

You need to contact your solicitor about this as outstanding or known future works should have been disclosed at the time of the sale going through. So let the solicitor take on the legalities of this.

Regarding the soundproofing, it's very rare for a property to have soundproofing, especially if it's a converted flat, so unless you specifically asked if the property had been soundproofed & then found out later that the vendor had lied about such work having been done, then you would have grounds to pursue him for this.

Unfortunately surveys don't pick up all defects, including full stuctural surveys, roofs are only inspected from ground level, often with the use of binoculars & unless there is something obvious, a problem will go unflagged.

Richard_Webster

Is this a flat with a jointly owned freehold and separate leaseholds for each flat?

If so i would have wanted a set of questions about various matters replied to by the other joint freeholders - then they would have had the opportunity to highlight the points in question.