Seller Lied on Property Information Form and to Solicitor Enquiries - PLEASE HELP!!

ruggedtoast

Why do people not get proper surveys? Why?

Every single one of these posts starts with "I just got a valuation survey because I wanted to save money..."

£300 to get a professional to provide a full report on the most expensive thing youll ever buy and they don't bother.

I have no idea about this apart to concur with the other poster. The OP needs to go and see, and pay for, an actual professional solicitor. Free advice on the Internet is not going to help a great deal.

martin1959

I bought 1kg of Maris Piper potatoes to make some chips...


They looked like Maris Piper, they tasted like Maris Piper, and the chips they made were actually very nice...


However, someone has now told me they were not Maris Piper.....who can I sue?

silvercar

Some developers do offer 2 and 3 bedroom properties that are identical apart from the internal layout. Could this be one?

Thrugelmir

Matt25 wrote: »

Hence he sold it to us at a higher price (£60k more than equivalent 2-bed house sold at the same time in the street).

You bought the property. The property wasn't sold to you. In making the offer you presumably considered the property to be fairly priced. Likewise your mortgage lenders surveyor considered likewise.

missprice

Maybe neighbour lied about any work ever having been done?
Just because they say so don't make it true.
Also doesn't mean that seller did the work, possibly previous owner did the work and seller bought as is.

Get hold of original plans from council or whoever, although as my house was added as an after thought even that may not help you.

boundy

silvercar wrote: »

Some developers do offer 2 and 3 bedroom properties that are identical apart from the internal layout. Could this be one?

My house is a 2 bed 1 bathroom, the same as my 3 neighbors on my small terrace but on the other side of the road the 4 houses there are 3 bed 1 bathroom + en-suite. All 8 houses have the same external dimensions. I will be splitting the bedroom in a few years to make it a 3 bed, a simple stud wall, extra door and a new ceiling light is all it will need. The room already has 2 windows.

DiamondLil

Matt25 wrote: »

Hi,
law does not protect us and we cannot do anything against it ?

Regards
Matt.

It does protect you; that's why it's always a good idea, when buying property, to have a proper survey carried out.

eddddy

davidmcn wrote: »

Firstly, I'm not sure how easily a surveyor could come up with a market value for stubbornly selling the house without building regulations, because there'll be nothing similar to compare it with - any seller would just get the indemnity policy. Or their purchaser would.

But even if they could assess such a value, the OP can't claim that's their loss - because they can sort it out much more cheaply.

Surveyors will normally just give a value which assumes that all the consents are available, it's left to you to figure out how much it costs to get the consents or indemnities.

(Sorry OP for going off topic.)

You seem to think that RICS accredited surveyors are idiots.

They are recognised by Courts in the UK as the most competent people to resolve property disputes.

In fact, for certain types of cases, courts refer cases to the RICS for arbitration - because the courts recognise that the RICS is more competent at resolving these cases than the courts themselves.

So if you thought you might end up in court with a property dispute, who would you instruct as an expert witness, if it wasn't an RICS surveyor?

Hoploz

Until you obtain some sort of plans for the property before it was modified I fail to see how any comparisons could be made. Even by a surveyor. At present nobody knows whether the house was built differently to its neighbours or not. It could be that the original purchaser asked the developer to put the walls in different positions to their plans. And if that was the case it would have been signed off by the building inspector at that time as ok.

As for the market value ... You decided it was worth what you offered to pay. The mortgage company agrees with this valuation.

If work has been carried out (either by your seller or someone who owned it previously) it may or may not have regs. If it was by the person before your seller even an indemnity would be pointless as no-one gets prosecuted for work over 10 years old. So the actual financial loss is virtually nil. I would assume when you come to sell, you will be asked whether you have carried out any works and you will answer 'no' as any work would not have been done by you. Therefore they will not ask for certificates, just as your solicitor didn't. It may not have been done by your seller. It may not have been done at all.

There really is no problem here.

davidmcn

eddddy wrote: »

So if you thought you might end up in court with a property dispute, who would you instruct as an expert witness, if it wasn't an RICS surveyor?

I'm aware of their role, given that I'm a solicitor who frequently sees their evidence! All I was saying was that I don't think the concept of a market valuation of the property without building regulations really exists, because in practice such transactions would have retrospective sign-off (or an indemnity which amounts to much the same thing). The OP's loss is whatever it costs to get the paperwork.