Seller lied in Property Information form

steve_f_3

Hi
I bought a house 2 years ago.

The garden and brick build shed floods regularly after medium to heavy rainfall. .It's happened 8 times in 2 years. 6-8 inches of dirty water, takes nearly 2 weeks to dissipate. The after-effect is a near permanently soggy lawn, and the shed is filthy and needs to be emptied and hosed down.

Neighbours either side are unaffected. They never flood. They say my property has always flooded as far as they can remember, 20+ years.

Just dug out the Property Information Form TA6 and found the following:
"
Note: 'Property' includes all buildings and land within its boundaries.
7.1 Has the property suffered from flooding? If Yes, please give details. [they ticked NO and left the Details box blank]
Note: flooding may take a variety of forms: It may be seasonal or irregular or simply a one off occurrence.
"

After 2 years, can I seek compensation for this lack of disclosure?
I would morally and legally have to disclose it if I sold the property, and it's looking like 3-5k to fix it.


Thanks for reading.
Steve

JQ.

That sounds exactly the kind of thing the Information Packs were designed to highlight, so yes I'd definitely be going after them and no, 2 years is not too late. Presumably it's taken 2 years for you to discover it's a recurring problem.

Definitely worth speaking to a solicitor about, I would.

budgetdiyer

If you are not sure speak to your solicitor.

Personally i would take that question to mean flooding as in flooding from a river etc. Is that the type of flooding your experiencing?

Yorkie1

[STRIKE]Define "property". The house hasn't flooded. It's a shed and a garden which have flooded.[/STRIKE]

Ask your solicitor. (But ignore the rest of my post!)

JQ.

Yorkie1 wrote: »

Define "property". The house hasn't flooded. It's a shed and a garden which have flooded.

Ask your solicitor.

Try re-reading the OP

Thrugelmir

steve_f wrote: »

It's happened 8 times in 2 years. 6-8 inches of dirty water, takes nearly 2 weeks to dissipate. The after-effect is a near permanently soggy lawn, and the shed is filthy and needs to be emptied and hosed down.

What's different about your property to your neighbours?

Yorkie1

JQ. wrote: »

Try re-reading the OP

Darn that small print!

Post now edited, ta JQ

dimbo61

Or you could go down to B&Q and speak to a nice man about your problem.
We dug a trench around the garden and put a plastic drainage pipe in the bottom ( it has lots of small holes and allows the water in ) and then covered the trench with stone. This guides the water to the drain and helps stop flooding

Wanton

steve_f wrote: »

Note: 'Property' includes all buildings and land within its boundaries.
7.1 Has the property suffered from flooding? If Yes, please give details.

00ec25 wrote: »

the house has never flooded so they "correctly/reasonably" replied no.

The question wasn't about the house.

steve_f_3

Thanks for the replies. I appreciate any subseqent comments too.

I am not sure either if this constitutes flooding in a legal sense. Can't find a solid definition. We are talking about 2000-4000 litres of muddy water. Definitely enough to be a serious drowning hazard for my 1 and 3 year old boys, and a sanitary hazard for my dogs (not to mention the continual damaage it causes to the lan, the fact I have to regularly clean out the shed, and the likelyhood of structural damage to the shed)

I have taken some legal advice:
1) I have to track the sellers down (I have their names only, no idea where they moved to) so my solicitor can send them a letter saying we intend to take them to small claims court.
2) I need witness statements from my adjacent neighbours, who I am friendly with. Both tell me that this has been a problem for 15+ years, and both are of the opinion that I have been stiffed by the seller (who they did get on well with)
3) I need to get some quotes for remediating this problem to quantify the amount of compensation to seek.


This isn't a gardening\drainage forum, so I won't go into all the details, but my garden is 8 inches lower than all surrounding gardens. So their rainfall seeps into my garden too (as water will find the lowest point to settle)

A landscaper can bring up the level properly to match the neighbours for 2-3K. Needs to be done properly and carefully to ensure we do not transfer the problem to the neighbours. Also needs to be done properly so we can reassure any potential buyer down the line that we dealt with it prolerly (since we will have to disclose it)

The other problem is the shed. It is also 8 inches lower than it should be, so if I raise the garden, we need to safely raise the floor and damp proof course of the shed too. Ideally I'd get a drain installed beside the shed and have that connected to the drains that take rainfall from the gutters at the house (done properly with compliance from Water Board)

I can (and do) pump the water away, but this is not a permanent solution. Digging a soakaway is not a permanent solution either, according to a garden drainage expert who took a look. There would need to be perforated pipes all over the garden leading to a very deep soakaway, which is as costly as fixing the root cause.

Thanks again for reading.

steve_f_3

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