home buying nightmare! repairs estimated at £60000!!!

davidmcn

xylophone wrote: »

Are you sure that your insurance company will not pay if all else fails?

Under what risk? Buildings insurance policies don't (generally) provide cover against deterioration of the property. At most it might have legal cover for the costs of suing someone else.

DTDfanBoy

homebuyer1 wrote: »

Can we give the house back and get our money back?

antrobus wrote: »

No.

Actually rescission is one of the remedies available to the OP, a Judge could order the seller to buy back the property and also pay the OP damages and costs

xylophone

Under what risk? Buildings insurance policies don't (generally) provide cover against deterioration of the property. At most it might have legal cover

Worth checking the exact terms of the policy for what is included/excluded?

katejo

artbaron wrote: »

As above, contact your solicitor. A homebuyer's report doesn't normally deal with damp although if it was blatantly obvious then you may have a case. Also, if it can be proved the previous owners had work done on the damp problem and didn't mention it then you can sue them. Simple as that, but you'd need to show they knew about it.

My homebuyer reort on my current house reported on damp issues and so did the valuation report.

ANGLICANPAT

No advice for you Im afraid, but I really feel for you going through such a horrible trauma , and right before Christmas. What a nightmare. Hope you get all the help you need , and that things turn out ok in the end.

homebuyer1

Thanks everyone - some good advice here I think. We have a solicitor, but I'm not sure they specialise in property disputes so we will definitely speak to one that does. We have also contacted our insurance company to see if they will cover legal proceedings or the repairs. We will also look for a surveyor who can act as an expert witness. I had never heard of rescission before, but I will definitely do some research and ask our solicitor about it.

DTDfanBoy

Raise the issue with your conveyancing solicitor, they'll be able to advise you if you have a case and get you in touch with someone to take the case on.

Simply disguising dry rot with a lick of paint has been deemed to constitute fraudulent misrepresentation in the past, see Gordon v Selico Ltd [1986], so providing your solicitor asked the right questions of the vendor you should have a case

Lord_Baltimore

What would happen if the vendor claimed that he had some loose floorboards so he got a friend (not a Company or builder) to do some repair work? The friend fixed the floorboards and some other timbers for free but didn't say anything to the owner about rot, not least because the friend didn't know anything about its potential seriousness and besides he'd just "fixed" things.

When the vendor filled out the sale form he didn't mention rot because all he knows about is a few loose floorboards that were fixed by his friend. The kind of everyday house repair job that you wouldn't declare in a questionnaire perhaps.

Convoluted maybe but I'm just wondering how it would play out in the court case and who would the costs fall to if the story were true?

[Deleted User]

If it comes down to it you would end up in Magistrates court and have to show, on a balance of probabilities, that the vendor knew about the problem. You would most likely have to pay experts to examine the work done and give evidence in court, stating that in their opinion the vendor must have known.

Lord_Baltimore

DELETED USER wrote:

If it comes down to it you would end up in Magistrates court and have to show, on a balance of probabilities, that the vendor knew about the problem. You would most likely have to pay experts to examine the work done and give evidence in court, stating that in their opinion the vendor must have known.

That sounds fraught with uncertainty and could prove very expensive in terms of costs for experts. How could you prove the vendor was aware? Perhaps his friend did the work when he was out or away.

Sorry, not being deliberately awkward, I'm just interested in how something like this might pan out. The OP could end up with a huge legal bill and no result.