Solicitor failed to inform me about mining subsidence claim

Oil_Watcher

Hi all,

I bought my house in July 2006 following a stressful split with my expartner.

The homebuyer's report revealed that the house was in an area of miningsubsidence which at the time I wasn't too worried about as the whole village isin such an area and the house (although in quite poor decorative order)appeared to have no structural problems according to the report.

So I completed on the purchase after having inspected the information thatmy solicitor had sent regarding the title and sellers property information.Upon receiving my deeds and conveyance documents in August 2006 ( aftercompletion) I was very concerned to see that my solicitor had investigated aprevious mining subsidence claim dating back to 1997 undertaken by the vendorsvendor. She had never informed me about this at all to my during the saleprocess and I was not sent a copy of the report. The claim was also notmentioned on the seller's property information form (probably because it didn'task specifically about subsidence).

I received a letter back from my solicitor (after I had written a stronglyworded complaint) stating the fact that she had investigated the matter and itwas apparent that it was of a minor repair and decorative nature. She also said"this would not normally cause you a problem in obtaining buildingsinsurance". In the meantime I had to contact my insurers urgently to askif I was still covered and luckily they agreed to cover me on normal terms eventhough it was not normally policy for them to do so. This was due to the factthe claim was of a decorative nature and the Coal Board would cover any futureclaims.

I think i was so relieved at this point to obtain some insurance that I putthe matter to the back of my mind.

Fast forward 8 years however and my insurance is up for renewal. There was anew form to complete this year specifically asking me if the details they heldwere correct. First of the questions is; "Has the home been affected bysubsidence or structural movement?" and the second; “Is the home in anarea subject to subsidence?". Both of these have been prefilled as"no" which means they haven't got my correct details eventhough I provided information when I originally bought the policy and thesubsidence claim came to light. The premium is already 3 times more expensivethan when I was first quoted (without the matter subsidence and has beencreeping up steeply every year).

If I had been in receipt of the results of the mining search I would havepulled out of the sale for sure and so I feel my solicitor has been negligentin telling me the facts. I know it is 8 years ago now but can I go to the legalombudsman as it is obviously starting to cause me problems now and herreply that it wouldn't is obviously now incorrect. I am also worried that willdefinitely be harder to sell my house which I was planning on doing in the nextcouple of years after having looked through other cases on MSN. I feel asthough this will decrease the value and so I will have lost out through no faultof my own but the solicitor's inability to provide me with the full facts.

Sorry for the long post.

System

At what point was the solicitor responsible for the answers that you provided to your insurers? You knew the answers to both of these questions in 2006 but took no action. Why do you think that your solicitor is now responsible, 8 years later, for your failing to provide your insurers with the correct information

Oil_Watcher

Hi !!!!!!,

Thanks for the reply. Yes I did inform my insurers as mentioned - in fact I sent off all the information about the mining search and received a written reply saying to keep their letter with my documents for the future. It's only this year's claim that they want me to verify the information so it would seem their records have been deleted at some point. I am not trying to keep anything from them - far from it. I didn't need to update them as far as i was converned they already had the claim on their system.
I feel my solicitor should have informed me about the claim and sent me the copy of the mining search before I completed so I could make my own informed choice. It was only after I'd bought the house and recived all teh correspondence that I noticed that there had been a previous claim. There was nothing I could do regarding this at the time.
I subsequently had to accept her legal advice that everything would be fine with the insurance. Except now I realise that her advice was incorrect and that it would cause problems in the future.

lincroft1710

You knew the property was in a possible subsidence area and a "report" (survey?) said it was structurally OK. So you proceeded with the purchase. If the 1997 subsidence claim was significant, surely the "report" would have noted repairs etc.

If you wanted to complain about your solicitor, you should have done this in 2006.

Oil_Watcher

What I didn't realise at the time in 2006 was that the claim would have huge implications on my insurance subsequently. I took my solicitor's advice in 2006 at face value and didn't put in a complaint as she would obviously know more about such claims and insurance than me. That's why I paid her - to inform me legally!
All I'm asking is if I can still complain to the legal ombudsman due to the recently discovered problem with my insurance?

davidmcn

Oil_Watcher wrote: »

All I'm asking is if I can still complain to the legal ombudsman

From the Legal Ombudsman's website:

Come to us as soon as you can after trying to sort things out with your lawyer. If you aren’t happy with their final response, you have up to six months to bring your complaint to us.

And I expect you're also too late to start a claim for negligence.

jbainbridge

Have you obtained quotes from other insurers?

KILL_BILL

the statute of limitation has expired for you to pursue the matter