Seller lied in Property Information form

holly_hobby

You didn't say if you have declared the property has a history of "flooding", within your blds insurance ?

I would also only proceed on a "no win - no fee" claim basis - as thinking you have a good chance, is completely different to actually achieving judgement in court.

Hope this helps

Holly

steve_f_3

I declared that the house doesn't have a history of flooding - but the garden and shed flood regularly.

harrup

steve_f wrote: »

The statute of limitations on a claim of misreprsentation or breach of contract relating to property purchase is 6 years in the UK.

I have sought legal advice from 2 distinct law firms and they are certain I have strong case, presuming I am not exaggeratig or lying.

These forms are written in plain Engish and are for sellers to fill out, not lawyers. The forms are designed to protect the buyer in scenarios exactly like these, where there are problems that are not necessarily discoverable on a legal search or structural survey.

---

I am also in the situation where I could not honestly sell the house without disclosing this - there I have bouht a house thay is virtually un-sellable.

I will win this case, and I hope it bankrupts them, they have made life hell for me and my kids.

Hmm, sure looks as if you already know the answer to your dilemma. Again, all power to you and good luck.

But it makes your original question a bit perplexing which asked:

"After 2 years, can I seek compensation for this lack of disclosure?"

So either you aren't as sure as your last message reads....or ?? I'm confused why you would ask a question on a lay forum when you supposedly already have the relevant experts answer supporting your case?

No offense intended, just curious.

holly_hobby

Well thats positive, as it means that you aren't claiming one thing (flooding issue), but then citing something else elsewhere (ie not considering a flooding issue for blds ins purposes), and I presume this didn't result in a loading to the premium.

You say you hope the exercise bankrupts the Vendor (meaning that you won't get any payment yourself), but what exactly will be your claim and compensation sought ?

H

steve_f_3

Holly: I was just venting, I was feeling pretty angry towards the seller whenI wrote that (re: bankruptcy) I just want them to know they will not get away with this.

I can remember when we went for a second viewing, my wife really wanted to go out into the garden (it was raining heavily) and they had loads of excuses for why we shouldn't go out. They didn't know where the back door key was, they don't like going out in the cold, we should come back when it was sunny, etc etc. Fuming and kicking myself remembering that.

Harru: I have sought legal advice since I created this thread. I am updating my situation as it changed to help people like Woodieandco who have asked me to keep them posted.

There's nothig worse than finding a topic which mirrors your own solution, but the poster bails halfway through without letting you know what happened.

mufi

There was a vaguely similar case a few years ago involving a Thames-side property. Sorry, I can find the initial reports of the case, but can't find a link giving the outcome; Google may help.

From memory, though, there was some secrecy involved in the final result.

holly_hobby

Oh Steve, I can completely understand your frustration - as I said in my initial post my own garden has issues very similar to your own(which were not revealled), and again lots of secrecy from the Vendor.

Their obvious actions in determined evasion of permitting your inspection of the garden etc, esp when the weather was wet and the watertable/drainage issues would apparently be evident, plus their deliberate( ?) omission in the vendor details, to refute when asked, if there were known and significant drainange issues to the property (which you say clearly defined the property to include all area within the boundries), does appear to suggest deliberate concealment - and where I don't believe Caveat Emptor could be used in any form of defence.

A succesful action would be based on negligence/mis-representation, and the fact that if you had known of the garden issues, and IF in possession of the facts, you would have not proceeded with the purchase, then you may have leave to bring action for misrepresentation to rescind the contract and sue for damages.

I am also presuming nothing was mentioned in the survey re apparent draininage issues ? Is this in a flood area generally ? Did you have a basic (for the mortgagee's purpose), homebuyers or FS ?

Holly

laurel7172

I sympathise. I really do.

But it's frighteningly easy to run up a legal bill in excess of £2-3k.

How confident are you that you will be able to (a) find the vendors (b) win the case and (c) extract the money plus costs from them thereafter?

I understand that you're angry....and in an ideal world there would be an easy, cheap and guaranteed way to compel these cheats to pay up.

But, as somebody who, very early on in their career (NOT a lawyer), saw a family lose everything over a protracted legal battle (the case was eventually won, but the defendant immediately declared bankruptcy, leaving the successful plaintiff to cover his own legal costs), I would advise against letting your anger, however justified, make this decision for you.

moneyistooshorttomention

laurel7172 wrote: »

I sympathise. I really do.

But it's frighteningly easy to run up a legal bill in excess of £2-3k.

How confident are you that you will be able to (a) find the vendors (b) win the case and (c) extract the money plus costs from them thereafter?

I understand that you're angry....and in an ideal world there would be an easy, cheap and guaranteed way to compel these cheats to pay up.

But, as somebody who, very early on in their career (NOT a lawyer), saw a family lose everything over a protracted legal battle (the case was eventually won, but the defendant immediately declared bankruptcy, leaving the successful plaintiff to cover his own legal costs), I would advise against letting your anger, however justified, make this decision for you.

I'd agree with this poster:T. It certainly came over to me quite strongly that you are furious and might not act logically and then go on to pursue this matter legally regardless of all the cases we read of people spending all sorts of time and money over issues like this.

Some of the fury would be with yourself for your own actions - in not insisting on looking at that garden at the time. For someone to say that they couldnt find their own back door key is very suspect indeed and I would have said at the time "Find it - right now - or I'll just decide I don't want the property, as I havent been able to see all of it" phrased marginally more tactfully than that - but the message would have got over that I was unable to decide yeah or nay without my chance to look out there.

Another thing I am wondering is as to whether the price you paid for the house was commensurate with it needing work doing on the back garden (ie that bringing up the level of the soil etc mentioned earlier on the thread). Was the price what anyone would have expected to pay with a non-flooding back garden or did you think at the time "Don't know how - but I seem to have struck lucky and paid less than I thought this house would fetch?". It may be that the house price was fixed a bit lower than it otherwise would be in order to allow for this defect (in other words - you would need to bite the bullet and use that "price reduction" for the necessary work).

dimbo61

If you can find a " No win no fee" solicitor to take this on for you then great.
IF NOT then please consider getting the work done with drainage trenches and plastic drainage pipes done this summer.
We have had 2/3 very wet summers and many people have suffered massive flooding of there homes ( Did they sue the previous owners?? )
If you hired a man and a mini digger to remove a couple of feet of clay and have that replaced with top soil and proper drainage you may end up with a nice garden and not a huge legal bill!