Completed, moved in , found serious rat infestation

Mezza1979

Is there any recourse on this?

We have lived there 3 weeks now and originally had a pest man come out to inspect and bait on day 1 of living there (having had a sleepless night thanks to the Rave the rats were clearly having in the loft and cavaity walls). After 2 weeks he seems unable to get the problem under any kind of control so we have called in another. he's been great, very thorough, and has looked at all aspeacts, drains, cavaity walls, under floorboards etc. He's confident he know their access in and out and can sort it over a month so we've moving forward with that but in the meantime.... the cost is not small to sort this and the owners clearly knew there was not only a problem, but a significant one at that given the volume of !!!! in the Loft. The new pest chap says its clearly been a problem for several years and has been left untreated! (eww! How the !!!! do people live like that). There is also 3 large fairly new rat traps in the loft. So someone knew! Alos the neighbours both sides (we're ina semi-detached house) both knew about the problem and said thatb the previous have known for years about it.

We think that the previous owners should have declared this issue as its not only unpleasant but a health risk.

is there any law about this? I have to speak to the Solicitor (as i don;t know of its worth it)
Thanks all!

WestonDave

Trouble is "buyer beware" is the standard basis for buying property - if you/your solicitor didn't ask about rat infestations or even if the property is in a habitable state then there is no serious obligation on the vendor to disclose it. There are things which are repeated problems like neighbour disputes and these are part of the standard enquiries asked - hence why it has to be disclosed as those enquiries have to be answered in full and truthfully. But if the question isn't asked....

Morally of course you are probably right but unfortunately in law, you probably don't have much grounds to do anything.

Mezza1979

well, the people who sold us the home are folk we know well and live in the same area as us. They each run a business. Would'nt sound too good if we made it known to locals that they sold this home knowing there was a serious infestation. Think i shall be having my solictor write a letter to them asking them to stump up half of the costs.

Thats fair! IMO

ILW

Did the surveyor not pick it up?

Dukesy

I suspect that their answer to you would be to deal with it yourself.

This REALLY underlines the point that, when making the most expensive purchase you will ever make, you should inspect the place properly. If the amount of faeces in the loft is that evident, why did you not spot it when you viewed the house? Presumably you did, as everyone buying a house should, inspect the loft yourselves?

HarryBarry

Mezza1979 wrote: »

well, the people who sold us the home are folk we know well and live in the same area as us. They each run a business. Would'nt sound too good if we made it known to locals that they sold this home knowing there was a serious infestation. Think i shall be having my solictor write a letter to them asking them to stump up half of the costs.

Thats fair! IMO

Was it not possible to spot this before you moved in ? Survey or something?

If I had sold the house I probably wouldn't be willing to pay anything and would just say I had presumed you had spotted this but were not bothered about sorting it yourselves (and that the price reflected the condition the house was in at the time... ie with rats part of the deal).

olly300

Mezza1979 wrote: »

well, the people who sold us the home are folk we know well and live in the same area as us. They each run a business. Would'nt sound too good if we made it known to locals that they sold this home knowing there was a serious infestation. Think i shall be having my solictor write a letter to them asking them to stump up half of the costs.

Thats fair! IMO

They have no legal obligation to pay you any money and if I was them I would refuse to.

Secondly if you accused me of a rat infestation I would go after you for slander if I had the money, or nasty spread rumours about you.

In other words be careful how you go about this.

olly300

HarryBarry wrote: »

Was it not possible to spot this before you moved in ? Survey or something?

If I had sold the house I probably wouldn't be willing to pay anything and would just say I had presumed you had spotted this but were not bothered about sorting it yourselves (and that the price reflected the condition the house was in at the time... ie with rats part of the deal).

If there was a rat infestation and you had a full structural survey as the surveyor has to look under carpets, etc then s/he would find rat dropping, smell urine and/or find rat damage as they would be looking at floor boards, pipework etc.

If they had any other survey then the surveyor has no legal duty to find it.

artbaron

So you didn't check out the property before buying it and want to lay the blame on somebody else? In answer to your question, no, thankfully the law is not on your side.

Ivana_Tinkle

artbaron wrote: »

So you didn't check out the property before buying it and want to lay the blame on somebody else? In answer to your question, no, thankfully the law is not on your side.

Not sure why the OP's getting such a harsh response. It seems reasonable to assume that the vendor would have cleaned up the droppings before viewings/survey.

Unfortunately I agree that you've got no claim against your scummy vendors, though.

artbaron

Ivana_Tinkle wrote: »

Not sure why the OP's getting such a harsh response. It seems reasonable to assume that the vendor would have cleaned up the droppings before viewings/survey.

We read the OP

"but a significant one at that given the volume of !!!! in the Loft"

"There is also 3 large fairly new rat traps in the loft. So someone knew!"

"How the !!!! do people live like that"

Plus, you can't hide an infestation like that even if you tried. You can smell it as soon as you go into an infested loft.