Silly questions from buyer's solicitor

Full_of_angst

Just wanted others thoughts on some of the queries come through from my buyer's solicitor:

1. Last week I sent through all the listed building consent, local authority consent and the authorised plans for a porch and loft conversion which were done on my house in 1997. The plans for the porch show clearly that the porch joins the main house to the garage (all on the plans).

Today I get a query about when the garage was built; ie, was it before or after the house was listed. Now maybe it's just me, but I just thought to myself 'are they really that stupid?' - bearing in mind that the conservationists had the 'last word' in how the porch was built, what it was built with etc, surely anyone with half their mind on the job would realise that they would have picked up back then on an 'unauthorised' garage, considering it is a huge feature in the plans!! (ETA that the house was listed in 1976, so it's clear to me that if the garage was an unauthorised post-listing construction it would have been noticed when the plans for the porch were submitted in late 1990's?)

2. The building survey they had done stated that there was no evidence of Japanese Knotweed (with the usually caveat of I'm not an expert blah blah).

This week the solicitor asks me to confirm there is no Japanese Knotweed. Does this mean that my word is better than that of the surveyor????

Am I just being irritable? Or does anyone else see these questions as, at best, arbitrary or, at worst, just plain stupid?

anselld

You are the person signing the conveyance contract.
You are the person who can be sued if you provide inaccurate information.
So yes your word is better than anyone else's.
And yes, the buyers solicitor will want you to state what seems to you to be the b. obvious so that your statement becomes part of the contract.

ShALLaX

I think less effort would have been expended in just answering the questions honestly and openly than bringing a rant to the forums.

Additionally, anything you say will form part of the contract and will make you personally liable if it turns out not to be true. It's most probably a way of just making you accountable.

greenbee

I have the same frustration with my buyers' solicitor asking questions for which answers have already been provided. And my vendors' solicitor not answering questions fully...

Just answer them. But on stuff like knotweed I suggest 'not to my knowledge'. I had a number of questions that I am not qualified to answer (and my buyers just had a valuation survey so all they know is that the size of the house and number of rooms are correct!) so I simply said that there were know problems I knew about but they were welcome to have a full survey.

Good luck. I'm currently planning to never move again :-)

Hermia

greenbee wrote: »

I have the same frustration with my buyers' solicitor asking questions for which answers have already been provided. And my vendors' solicitor not answering questions fully...

Just answer them. But on stuff like knotweed I suggest 'not to my knowledge'.

I sold last year and the buyers asked the same questions two or three times. I am not sure if they were trying to catch me out. My solicitor advised me to put "not to my knowledge" for anything I wasn't sure about.

I had some odd questions. The house was in a zone where you couldn't have fires etc. One of the questions they asked was, "have any of the neighbours broken this law in the time you have lived in the house?". The house was in the family since the 1970s. How would we know? We weren't sitting at home watching the neighbours the whole time!

Dan-Dan

We had similar questions , there was no way we could have known some answers , simply because it was a inherited property that we hadnt lived in for long as adults , my wife lived there as a child...

I think really it was a case of saying `as far as we know` a lot really , what more can you do ?

martinsurrey

ShALLaX wrote: »

Additionally, anything you say will form part of the contract and will make you personally liable if it turns out not to be true. It's most probably a way of just making you accountable.

Not correct.

It will make the OP liable if the buyer can PROVE that the OP knew their answer was wrong when they made it, and so was negligent.

I don’t know what Japanese knotweed looks like (I’m not a horticulturist), if the buyer takes faith from my declaration, more fool them.

I don’t know the build order of an old house, if they take faith from that, more fool them.

If the Buyers want detailed answers, to technical questions, they should find them out themselves, from professionals, who they pay for.

spacey2012

These silly letters are costing the buyer hundreds of pounds each.
Write back asking for clarification on points, play the game, the buyer wants the solicitor to ask stupid questions and waste money, help them spend it.

ShALLaX

martinsurrey wrote: »

Not correct.

It will make the OP liable if the buyer can PROVE that the OP knew their answer was wrong when they made it, and so was negligent.

I don’t know what Japanese knotweed looks like (I’m not a horticulturist), if the buyer takes faith from my declaration, more fool them.

Pretty sure that if you said "I guarantee there is no Japanese knotweed present," but then admitted you don't even know what it looks like, you'd end up in trouble because you are not qualified to make that assertion. That was my point - if you say it, you'd better be able to back it up. If you don't know, then say you don't know and face the possibility of the buyer trying to make you lower the price to cover the assessment fees. If you have a report then say "to the best of my knowledge and as asserted by this report..."

Hermoine

I was asked whether I was going to leave the kitchen sink and draining board behind, because I had confirmed I was going to leave the integral oven behind and hadn't mentioned the sink.
I was also asked to confirm I was not removing the skirting boards, and the cupboard the boiler was in. My understanding from my solicitor was that these questions were coming from the buyer who had been through all the details with a fine toothcomb.

In retrospect, given that the buyer withdrew at the last possible minute because they didn't have enough money for the deposit, I suspect it was just one of their delaying techniques - designed to give them time to come up with the deposit.

Full_of_angst

ShALLaX wrote: »

I think less effort would have been expended in just answering the questions honestly and openly than bringing a rant to the forums.

Additionally, anything you say will form part of the contract and will make you personally liable if it turns out not to be true. It's most probably a way of just making you accountable.

I had already answered the questions honestly and openly!

I wasn't ranting, I was just sharing.