Seller/agent omitted important information about the house. Should we sue them?

Davesnave

Freecall wrote: »

I think that we can safely put this post in the pile labeled 'wind-up'.

As a wind-up, it failed.

No one is wound-up.

G_M

Davesnave wrote: »

As a wind-up, it failed.

No one is wound-up.

except perhaps OP who's vanished..

ReadingTim

Sue God for failing to connect your eyeballs to your brain, or for the faulty operation of either component.

lonestar1

Did you tell the sellers you weren't deaf ?

ed110220

Makes me think of the story my grandmother used to tell of buying a house in South Africa in which the estate agent drove her there by a carefully chosen longer route which ensured that the chimneys and cooling towers of a nearby power station stayed hidden by trees and other houses.

At the end of the day the estate agent cannot be expected to list all the potential negatives of a home they're trying to sell. An airport just like a power station with 100m tall chimneys isn't exactly a secret... And yes she did know of the existence of the power station beforehand!

Ed

Majestic12

agrinnall wrote: »

Perhaps the house is next to Area 51... :cool:

There is no such thing as Area 51. You have my authority on this...

estherta

Thank you to all of you who have given me useful answers and polite opinions.

To those of you who were quite rude... why? You don't have anything better to write seriously? I came here for help, no mockery. I can take a bit of mockery and laugh along, but not the rudeness please. I see that as well in other forums, some people seem to go on threads just to "attack". I don't get that.

Yes, we knew it was an airport nearby (it's a private one, so no as bad as if it was Heathrow) but no, it didn't cross our mind the flight path would be just above our garden. We wish so hard we would have checked....We didn't see any plane any of the time we came to see the house. We asked the owners a few questions, and did the usual searches and looked at the map and drive around, but we missed the issue with the planes.
The flights are quite infrequent, sometimes one after the other, sometimes a few hours with nearly nothing flying above.

We had mixed responses, a solicitor told us it had only to be disclosed if the owners were bothered by it (go and find proof of that) and other solicitor said it definitely had to be disclosed by the owner and we have also read since 2013 by law estate agents must disclose anything that could have an impact on the buyers decision to make an offer or buy the property and I am sure that included noisy motorway and airports. We genuinely thought this should have been mentioned and wanted to have a feeling if we were right, according to this thread it seems we were wrong. For us, it is a big deal, but it looks like the general idea is we are over reacting, so it has given me food for thought. I am sure we will get used to it, and other than that we love the house and the area.

Thanks everyone for your input

(ps- Apologies for delay answering. Genuine reason)

barbiedoll

OP, if you love your house and the area, please don't let a few small planes put you off. You really will get used to the noise and sooner than you think!

My friend lives in a small village in Cornwall. When she comes to stay with me (in London), she is always astounded at the amount of planes in the sky at any one time, when her kids were small, they used to try and count them! When we stay at her place, we are always woken up in the wee small hours by tractors thundering past at 4-5am, her family never even notice them. It's surprising how noisy the "quiet" countryside can be, I can remember being scared out of my wits when suddenly hearing a cow mooing when I was walking home from the pub in the dark. But when I walk around my home town at night, I don't even notice the sirens, police helicopters, diesel bus engines, constant traffic drone etc etc.

Don't be put off by other posts, what seems idiotic to some, may seem perfectly reasonable to you. You may have visited the house at a time when no aircraft were flying, but unless you specifically asked "Do planes fly over the house?" when viewing it, I daresay the vendors never even thought about mentioning it to you.

At least a private airport is unlikely to have continuous flights throughout the night. I don't think it will impact on your enjoyment of your new home for too long.

Dan-Dan

estherta wrote: »

Thank you to all of you who have given me useful answers and polite opinions.

To those of you who were quite rude... why? You don't have anything better to write seriously? I came here for help, no mockery. I can take a bit of mockery and laugh along, but not the rudeness please. I see that as well in other forums, some people seem to go on threads just to "attack". I don't get that.

Yes, we knew it was an airport nearby (it's a private one, so no as bad as if it was Heathrow) but no, it didn't cross our mind the flight path would be just above our garden. We wish so hard we would have checked....We didn't see any plane any of the time we came to see the house. We asked the owners a few questions, and did the usual searches and looked at the map and drive around, but we missed the issue with the planes.
The flights are quite infrequent, sometimes one after the other, sometimes a few hours with nearly nothing flying above.

We had mixed responses, a solicitor told us it had only to be disclosed if the owners were bothered by it (go and find proof of that) and other solicitor said it definitely had to be disclosed by the owner and we have also read since 2013 by law estate agents must disclose anything that could have an impact on the buyers decision to make an offer or buy the property and I am sure that included noisy motorway and airports. We genuinely thought this should have been mentioned and wanted to have a feeling if we were right, according to this thread it seems we were wrong. For us, it is a big deal, but it looks like the general idea is we are over reacting, so it has given me food for thought. I am sure we will get used to it, and other than that we love the house and the area.

Thanks everyone for your input

(ps- Apologies for delay answering. Genuine reason)

I am no fan of estate agents , but you have to be on wind up with this one?

Unlikley i know but some people might LIKE living near a motorway or airport ?!

Surely you dont really believe it isnt your responsibility to check out the local infrastructure before spending thousands of pounds?!

estherta

Thanks, we hope that too... that we get used to it, and I am sure we will, but can't help to think the value of the house is not what we paid for and potentially will scare some buyers away when we come to sell it- we will of course disclose this- making harder to sell.

But you know it is done, if/when we moved again we know what to do. A hard lesson though.

Once we saw the planes we did the research on the airport- too late I know- and found out over the years they have been gaining more privileges: higher number of flights, flying at the weekends... and i am sure that is only going to increase.

But thank you,. I appreciate our best bet is probably let the issue go and enjoy all the positives that there are with the property and the area.