Disclosing Japanese Knotweed to agent/buyer

Dan-Dan

eddddy wrote: »

It may make sense to inform prospective buyers of the knotweed fairly early on - otherwise it just wastes time and money, when it shows up on the SPIF and survey.

It seems that at least some EAs highlight it property details. For example...













.... and lots more.

Fair enough , though i have never seen any estate agent in my area , ever mention anything of the sort

Angie_B

When I was looking for my next house recently, I saw an advert for a lovely looking property in a good area. Phoned up to request a viewing and the EA told me over the phone immediately that, in the interest of not wasting everyone's time, JK had been found in the garden and was undergoing treatment at the moment. He then told me to think about it, do some research and see if my lender would accept it (which they actually would).

So, it wasn't in the particulars on the website but I was informed before I viewed so I could decide whether it was something I wanted to take on or not. In the end I decided it wasn't for me but I very much appreciated being told about the problem before I even got as far as viewing.

moneyistooshorttomention

Angie_B wrote: »

When I was looking for my next house recently, I saw an advert for a lovely looking property in a good area. Phoned up to request a viewing and the EA told me over the phone immediately that, in the interest of not wasting everyone's time, JK had been found in the garden and was undergoing treatment at the moment. He then told me to think about it, do some research and see if my lender would accept it (which they actually would).

So, it wasn't in the particulars on the website but I was informed before I viewed so I could decide whether it was something I wanted to take on or not. In the end I decided it wasn't for me but I very much appreciated being told about the problem before I even got as far as viewing.

That does make perfect sense to me.

On those "for sale" details posted earlier, I recall one of them being a house that had only got to 4 years old and was being described as "cash buyers only"! It was certainly a house that would attract a lot of potential buyers (and time-wasting all round) if they hadn't said that, as it looked good - apart from that.

isaadvice

Thanks all.

I think we will let them know the truth, you never know, we may end up purchasing another property via them and we wouldn't want them to think we are time wasters who might pull out at the last minute.

Dird

It should be law that people should disclose this crap when a person is making a bid at the very latest.

10am this morning I get a call from my mortgage company. Valuation/survey went fine and the mortgage has been approved. Happy.
5pm my solicitor says the vendor has ticked the "japanese knotweed" box...he's hoping she ticked by mistake somehow but need to wait and see...

If this is true then most likely the mortgage company will pull out and I've just wasted £1k on fees. What is the point in keeping quiet right until the last step? It's not like it's going to increase the chance of a sale when the mortgage company finds out

moneyistooshorttomention

Dird wrote: »

It should be law that people should disclose this crap when a person is making a bid at the very latest.

10am this morning I get a call from my mortgage company. Valuation/survey went fine and the mortgage has been approved. Happy.
5pm my solicitor says the vendor has ticked the "japanese knotweed" box...he's hoping she ticked by mistake somehow but need to wait and see...

If this is true then most likely the mortgage company will pull out and I've just wasted £1k on fees. What is the point in keeping quiet right until the last step? It's not like it's going to increase the chance of a sale when the mortgage company finds out

It IS the law they have to disclose it - ie on that form the vendor has to fill in.

I guess you mean it should be the law that vendors have to disclose it at the outset - rather than waiting all the way through the process until that questionnaire before they have to say about it.

At the moment - the only protection that a buyer has is to tell the vendor that this question is there in that questionnaire and hope they don't want to waste their time either by not mentioning it at the outset.

***************

In your position - I very much doubt that box got ticked by mistake unfortunately.

mapcr77

Is it really that difficult to get rid of JK? A neighbour two doors down has it... I've read that it is indeed treatable, and that it is actually edible (and apparently very tasty?). Everyone seems so panicky about it -other neighbours telling us we should keep an eye on it in case it spreads- , maybe I'm naïve, but I don't know what the fuss is if it can be treated?

Davesnave

mapcr77 wrote: »

Is it really that difficult to get rid of JK? A neighbour two doors down has it... I've read that it is indeed treatable,

Just like raising children, it's not rocket science, but beyond some people. Consistency is the problem.

If the second neighbour has it, the next door neighbour may get it too. If that happens, you have no direct control over something that will affect your property's value.

moneyistooshorttomention

mapcr77 wrote: »

Is it really that difficult to get rid of JK? A neighbour two doors down has it... I've read that it is indeed treatable, and that it is actually edible (and apparently very tasty?). Everyone seems so panicky about it -other neighbours telling us we should keep an eye on it in case it spreads- , maybe I'm naïve, but I don't know what the fuss is if it can be treated?

The concern is that:

a. Its not necessarily possible to rely on anyone having it on their property taking the responsible attitude and dealing with it appropriately.

b. If it spreads onto someone else's land - then that someone else is likely to find it rather difficult to recover the cost of treatment from the perpetrator (ie the neighbouring property that had the problem in the first place).

c. It requires chemicals to treat it and many gardeners don't use chemicals (ie they are organic) - so they would have a particularly big headache (as they'd be being told to use something they have chosen not to use). So - how do organic gardeners/farmers/etc get rid of it in a way that's in keeping with how they do things?

EDIT; I'm not exactly sure where the fine money goes if someone gets fined for helping to promulgate JK - but I guess innocent neighbours who "catch the infection" aren't the recipients of that fine money? So it would be down to taking the offending neighbour to the small claims court if they had been asked to remove it - but had refused to do so I guess - in order to recover the costs from them.

isaadvice

Dird wrote: »

It should be law that people should disclose this crap when a person is making a bid at the very latest.

10am this morning I get a call from my mortgage company. Valuation/survey went fine and the mortgage has been approved. Happy.
5pm my solicitor says the vendor has ticked the "japanese knotweed" box...he's hoping she ticked by mistake somehow but need to wait and see...

If this is true then most likely the mortgage company will pull out and I've just wasted £1k on fees. What is the point in keeping quiet right until the last step? It's not like it's going to increase the chance of a sale when the mortgage company finds out

Sorry to hear it, we ended up losing £1.5k in total.
Not all is lost, depending on your property. For us, we liked it, but only ever saw it as a short term investment as we would want to upsize within 2-3 years and the JK could potentially harm us when we wanted to sell as it would technically still be there.
If it was a bigger property we planned to stay in for years, we could have shopped around for a different lender, or pushed our vendor to get a warranty backed treatment, and/or continued to treat it if needed after we purchased. But for us, why take on that hassle when we could find somewhere else?

Anyone know if it's possible to to get the vendor to complete the form before the buyer forks out for searches, surveys, mortgage fees.
I can imagine information on that form would help with surveys, picking a lender etc.

For example, our surveyor had a trainee with him and I remember her asking about knotweed, to which the surveyor said, oh there isn't any in <my town>, so that was that. I now realise that was a stupid comment, JK is literally found all across the UK. If he had known it was in the area I'm sure he would have looked and we wouldn't have ended up forking out even more money.