Buying house - failed environmental search

Mumof3plusdog

Hi there,
Am at a loss as to what do with our stress irritating house purchase.
What should have been straight forward is turning into a nightmare. (Made worse by being suckered into using the estate agents recommended solicitor as same as vendor keep things easy blah blah. Now realise total mistake and they are USELESS!) No chain, we are first time buyers. The house we are buying failed the environmental search - apparently it is not uncommon for houses in that area to do so as they are all built on an old quarry.
The sellers solicitor contacted the council which means an indemnity policy is now not possible :mad:
The council is carrying out some kind of preliminary investigations which they say will be due for completion end of this month/beginning of June and our lender will not lend until they see this report and see if it affects valuation.
Should we change lenders? A house 4 doors up completed about 3 weeks ago and also failed the environmental search but their lender didn't have an issue (according to the estate agent who also managed that sale)
Seller getting itchy as they have moved out already... we are stressed to max!
Just feel like if we sit and wait for the report and then lender still says no where do we go from there?? New lender and another month delay.... or maybe they say no... surely this house can't be unsellable!!! What should have been straight forward is turning into months and months of headache.
Moan over Any advice from anyone more knowledgeable than us??

is1983

I understand where you are coming from, we are waiting to exchange shortly but due to the vendors onward purchase being in a mining area their lender wanted to satisfy themselves on the value.

Luckily it didn't warrant any further investigation so came back pretty quickly.

Providing you still want to go through with the purchase it might be worth while contacting the vendor as I'm sure they will be concerned about whether you still want to proceed. I know ours were.

I hope it all comes together for you soon.

Bgs

Mumsof3plusdog: how it you get along with the purchase?

We have a similar issue with identified unknown potential contaminative sites within 25 meters of our property. our solicitor suggested contacting the local council first to get more information. Is this fairly common with home purchases? And how often does this result in an abort and under what conditions should one abort the purchase? Any indications would be helpful. Given that the sellers have been living for several years in that house, I personally think the risk is only with selling on several years from now. If so, is there a way to protect ourselves and find a buyer years later without encountering this issue.

Thanks.