Go back to the surveyor?

Rambosmum

Ok, so we bought a house 5 years ago (Nov 2009). The homebuyers survey suggested the roof needed looking at in the short to mid term (2 - 5years), 2 weeks after moving in we had a bowing ceiling and a big fat drip, 2 months later (in Feb) the roof was replaced.

6 months after that, in the summer we discovered Japanese Knotweed, it had been there a long time, the sellers had just cut it down and it hadn't regrown due to winter. We got it treated and have a certificate to say it's all gone.

Around this time we also noticed that the rear French door handles were on back to front - i.e. the screws were facing out, giving someone easy access to the back door. Again we had this fixed.

I know it has been a long time but do we have any recourse to go back to the surveyor, I feel he was negligent in his survey as these things weren't spotted. I only consider this now as I saw it mentioned in another post!

nomoneytoday

IMHO:

Roof - no, as the surveyor advised of an issue.
JK - possibly, if they could have reasonably seen it
Locks - no chance, you could fix it simply when you changed the locks after moving in.

cloo

I suspect this is too long. The biggest deal here seems to be the roof, but there may be an argument that you should have gone to them at the time.

If the previous owner hid the knotweed by cutting it down there would have been no signs for the surveyor to see it, so I don't think there's anything you can do there. I have heard something about maybe being able to go to previous owners for recourse as they presumably lied about it being there, but again it may be too long now.

Rambosmum

cloo wrote: »

If the previous owner hid the knotweed by cutting it down there would have been no signs for the surveyor to see it, so I don't think there's anything you can do there. I have heard something about maybe being able to go to previous owners for recourse as they presumably lied about it being there, but again it may be too long now.

The surveyor could have seen it - it was only cut to ground level, we saw it, but had no idea what it was at the time.

camptownraces

A surveyor doing a homebuyer's survey is doing the most basic of surveys.

Look back at your papers: what does the spec for a homebuyer's survey consist of?

The surveyor only has to do what's in the contract.

Doozergirl

The surveyor told you that the roof would need attention in the short to medium term. This seems to me like pretty warning that you had a problem.

I'm not sure what you mean by knotweed being visible and cut to ground level. The ground is the ground. If you cut something to it, it's not exactly visible.

I really don't think surveys, even full buildings survey (that you didn't have) go into as much detail as which way a screw faces on a door handle. They're looking mainly at structure and have about an hour. It took you six months to notice it! They're not going to take responsibility for fittings.

I think you're flogging a dead horse with this one.

bris

Did you really expect him to advise you on screws from a door handle?

cloo

Rambosmum wrote: »

The surveyor could have seen it - it was only cut to ground level, we saw it, but had no idea what it was at the time.

Oh, well then maybe he should have spotted it. Some people just rip it up entirely (and doing that or cutting it down are likely to lead to spreading about).

jonathanrolande

You can always try but I doubt you’ll get very far as all apart from the JK were either raised or are minor.