Being chased for seller's bill

artbaron

And don't give them your card details - pay by cheque, or bank transfer. Otherwise they'll likely add the parts cost on.

ldm84

Excellent point - will do

silvercar

Technically, the company may have a clause in its invoices that they retain ownership of all parts until payment is made. In which case, your vendor sold you stuff that they don't own. The only reason the engineer can't come and grab their parts back is because they can't trespass on your property.

We had similar, vendor had to put extra trusses in the roof before completion. They did this but never paid the company. Then they sold and went bankrupt soon afterwards. So the company never got paid. The company took legal advice and told us it couldn't retrieve materials without our consent to enter property.

ldm84

silvercar wrote: »

Technically, the company may have a clause in its invoices that they retain ownership of all parts until payment is made. In which case, your vendor sold you stuff that they don't own. The only reason the engineer can't come and grab their parts back is because they can't trespass on your property.

We had similar, vendor had to put extra trusses in the roof before completion. They did this but never paid the company. Then they sold and went bankrupt soon afterwards. So the company never got paid. The company took legal advice and told us it couldn't retrieve materials without our consent to enter property.

What was the resolution silvercar?

Dr._Shoe

It sounds like the vendor has done a bunk. Does he owe other people money? If so be ready for many other similar phone calls including those from creditors who don't believe that you and him are not the same person!

I once had a phone call from someone who asked me if I was sure that the previous owner wasn't still living in the house. I replied that I had checked the attic, the garden shed and under the floorboards and I had even looked in the cupboards and yes, I was positive that he wasn't still living there!

anselld

The firm cannot obviously break in and retrieve the parts, but if there is a contractual basis for them to claim ownership they could still pursue this via the courts.

No point talking to the estate agent, their interest is zero.

Talk to your solicitor since effectively the vendors are in breach of the sale contract by selling you a property with an unsettled debt.

moneyistooshorttomention

ldm84 wrote: »

What was the resolution silvercar?

At a guess, what Silvercar is saying is "That was that then". That is, the firm admitted to Silvercar they couldn't go into his house without his consent. The firm knew he would never give his consent. There is no legal way for that firm to force Silvercar to give his consent.

Upshot = the firm never did get into the house to retrieve this and had to write it off as "down to Silvercar's vendor and we cant get Silvercar's vendor to pay up/couldn't con Silvercar into paying his vendors bill = end of matter and have to throw that bill away as unpaid".

That's how I'm reading Silvercar's post.

moneyistooshorttomention

anselld wrote: »

The firm cannot obviously break in and retrieve the parts, but if there is a contractual basis for them to claim ownership they could still pursue this via the courts.

No point talking to the estate agent, their interest is zero.

Talk to your solicitor since effectively the vendors are in breach of the sale contract by selling you a property with an unsettled debt.

Valid points.

Personally, I would think "Why pay a solicitor for advice, when its probably only going to consist of telling me that that firm can go to court to claim payment for that bill?" as I cant imagine any court case could be brought against OP (as this was from a time before they owned the house).

I think it might only worry OP unnecessarily if they think along those lines whereas, in the very unlikely event that the firm tried pursuing him for vendors' debt, then surely all he would have to do is produce proof for the Court that the house wasn't his at the time (ie completion hadn't taken place) and the Court would dismiss it straight away.

This firm will know that and therefore be highly unlikely to even think of putting themselves through that sort of hassle to try and recover debt from someone other than the previous owner of this house (ie the person actually responsible for it).

Without checking, I would imagine there must be some sort of statement in the legal documents involved at the time the house was sold that says words to the effect of "This house comes free and unencumbered by previous owners' debts". Failing that, I would imagine that there is a legal presumption in this country that houses will come free of vendors' debts.

ldm84

Thanks for the responses everyone. Some great advice.

davidmcn

silvercar wrote: »

Technically, the company may have a clause in its invoices that they retain ownership of all parts until payment is made.

Even if their invoices do have such a clause, that only works if the parties had agreed to it in advance - otherwise ownership will already have passed (under the default principles in the Sale of Goods Act).

In any event, I don't think this can apply to items which have since become fixtures, otherwise we'd have to start asking for receipts for every other part of the house.

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I would imagine there must be some sort of statement in the legal documents involved at the time the house was sold that says words to the effect of "This house comes free and unencumbered by previous owners' debts"

The house isn't encumbered by this debt - the plumber hadn't registered a charge over the house. Any debts like this are purely the seller's problem.