Any success pursuing seller for compensation for lying on property info form

bunsgalore

Hi Everyone,

We have just purchased our first house and discovered that we have a surface water flooding problem in the garden (not in the house yet).

On the property information inform the sellers clearly lied and said no + the surveyors didn't pick up on the problem.

My question is, has anyone had any success in pursuing the sellers for compensation for lying on the property information form? If yes, do you have any advice?

Also has anyone had any success in pursuing the surveyor for missing information in their survey report? Any advice on this side either?

many thanks,

bunsgalore

societys_child

On the property information inform the sellers clearly lied and said no

What was the actual question that the sellers answered untruthfully?

phill99

How do you know they have lied?

TeamLowe

Did you have a flood risk assessment done as part of your searches? What did that say?

bunsgalore

The question the sellers lied about was this one:

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."

So far our patio and our garden has been flooded out four times in three weeks (with up to 5 inches of water, and water literally cascading over an 8 foot garden border wall (which is about a foot and a half high). The school field next to our garden drains onto our garden (it appears to be an old dew pond). Unfortunately everytime it does this it means we cannot get out our back door and to the back of the garden (which is higher) and where my rabbits live.

The garden border wall is cracked in several places (which was mentioned as small cracks in the surveyors report - but is actually top to bottom cracks in five places) now we have looked at this ourselves this is clearly due to the pressure of the water coming against the wall and then eroding through the mortar.

This is clearly not a new problem as the metal shed in one area of the garden has been built up to be on a higher stone level so that it doesn't get flooded where that part of the garden goes.

In the surveyor report the surveyor mentioned that the garage would be suceptible to flooding in heavy rain due to the gulley at the front of that not being big enough. However, in the heavy rain this was absolutely fine, but the garden most definitely wasn't - if the surveyor commented on drainage from surface water in one place they should have noticed and commented on the big issue.

bunsgalore

TeamLowe which one would be the flood assessment search? We did have something done where they told us distance to local streams and rivers etc. (and we aren't near any).

roger196

You can do a flood search on
http://maps.environment-agency.gov.uk/wiyby/wiybyController?x=357683.0&y=355134.0&scale=1&layerGroups=default&ep=map&textonly=off&lang=_e&topic=floodmap

Thrugelmir

bunsgalore wrote: »

We did have something done where they told us distance to local streams and rivers etc. (and we aren't near any).

Heavy rainfall in any localised area may cause problems. As depending on your soil conditions the water may be unable to drain away fast enough.

sandsni

Have you any evidence that the property has "flooded" in this way before? Maybe the sellers answered truthfully and had never experienced flooding in the time they lived there.

bunsgalore

Thank you for the link, we are outside any flood risk area according to their map.

Now we know what to look for on surface water run off issues it's clear from:
a) the build up of land on the school field that it's an old dew pond (and therefore an area designed to capture water) from when the land was an old farm.
b) the erosion to the mortar in the way and on the patio shows that water run off has been a problem
c) the sellers must have experienced flooding as it happened to us before the first bout of the recent heavy rain hit and therefore clearly something which will be a problem for us on a regular basis.
d) the shed in the garden has been specifically built on a platform to ensure it's above the flood issues.

I'm not worried about whether we have a strong claim against the seller as I'm confident we do, my query is about how to go about the claim process as I think it would be the same regardless of the circumstances.

Guest101

bunsgalore wrote: »

Thank you for the link, we are outside any flood risk area according to their map.

Now we know what to look for on surface water run off issues it's clear from:
a) the build up of land on the school field that it's an old dew pond (and therefore an area designed to capture water) from when the land was an old farm.
b) the erosion to the mortar in the way and on the patio shows that water run off has been a problem
c) the sellers must have experienced flooding as it happened to us before the first bout of the recent heavy rain hit and therefore clearly something which will be a problem for us on a regular basis.
d) the shed in the garden has been specifically built on a platform to ensure it's above the flood issues.

I'm not worried about whether we have a strong claim against the seller as I'm confident we do, my query is about how to go about the claim process as I think it would be the same regardless of the circumstances.

Contact a solicitor, but do u have any proof this has happened to them? If not your wasting ur money