Feeling a bit stupid, advice needed

reesla

Recently bought and moved into a house that was built in 1989.

We had a full homebuyers survey on the property and no where in the survey did it mention that the house was only partially double gazed. In fact only 3 windows out of about 20 are double glazed. The surveyors report refers to the double glazed windows as being in good repair but nowhere does it say about single glazed windows.

I feel stupid as I should have checked each window indivudally (they are wooden surrounds so all looked alike:o ). However, surely if we paid the surveyor to look at the property, he should have picked this up? All he picked up was a tile in the bathroom was cracked, a loose paving stone outside and the bath panel was loose!

Can I write to him and the mortgage comany to tell him that we are unhappy with his work? If we knew before we completed we would have reneogotiated the price!

Please advise!

mountainofdebt

What did it say in the EA details?

To be honest I don't think you have any recourse with the surveyor.

reesla

No mention of single glazed windows in the EA details

stolt

does it specifically say double glazed windows for each room, or did they leave that bit out when mentioning the rooms that are only single glazed, i would have thought that if they mention double glaze you may have some chance with the EA, but not sure if they have a get out clause in small print saying something along the lines that you need to double check the details mentioned in the particulars

silvercar

A homebuyers survey is not a full structural support so you can't expect the same level of detail.

The home buyers survey will pick up faults rather than suggest improvements.

Having single glazed windows is not actually a fault.

benood

For what it's worth, in energy saving terms I think it takes about 50 years to recover the cost of changing to double glazing from single.

Polovski

something similar happend to me - my report says that all the windows are double glazed, in fact none of them are - do i have any grounds for recourse with the surveyor?

silvercar

Polovski wrote: »

something similar happend to me - my report says that all the windows are double glazed, in fact none of them are - do i have any grounds for recourse with the surveyor?

If it was a homebuyers report or structural survey you possibly do. This would be because the survey explicitly said something that was false and you could be expected to rely on the fact when making your decision to purchase. I say possibly because you would have been expected to notice this error and query it prior to purchase. I would therefore expect that any compensation would be limited to a token amount rather than the cost of installing double glazing.

If it was noted on a mortgage valuation, this is done for the benefit of the lender not the buyer and you probably aren't entitled to anything.

courtjester

I agree with silvercar, the survey cannot be criticised for not commenting on the single glazed windows - a survey is a report on construction and defects.

Although it is surprising perhaps that the report did not comment in description that the property was only partly double glazed, if there were no defects with the single glazed windows, then legally, there is nothing to complain to the surveyor about in not mentioning them.

As far as the agents particulars, there might be an issue on the single glazed windows if the property was referred to in the particulars as "fully double glazed" or "full double glazing". However, if the agent only referred to "double glazing" it cannot be implied that this meant every window.

If the agent has misrepresented the particulars, they are liable for such errors.