Property damaged before completion of property

mattyprice4004

Personally, I'd say you've done well with the £1000 - I'd take it.
Might be worth having the place checked over first - but if you're renovating, you could start pulling up carpets etc and check it out yourself.

Daniel54

HouseBuyer77 wrote: »

Before you accept do check what the extent of the damage is. If it turns out to be significantly more than £1000 worth you may not be able to claim anything else from him as you accepted the initial compensation.

That is true.


However it is entirely possible,particularly if the vendor consulted his solicitor,that the offer of £i,000 is made "without prejudice" ie without any admission of liability.In this case ,the offer can be withdrawn if not accepted and the OP is back to the drawing board.


OP should check the terms ( if any) of the offered monies before considering a rejection

TranceNRG

G_M wrote: »

I seem to recall that cashing the cheque could be seen as accepting it 'in full and final payment', thus burning your boats if it transpires the damage is £5K

So unless I'm wrong, hang onto the cheque until you've had the damage properly evaluated and then decide what to do.

similarly, don't write back immediately thanking him - get the damage evaluated first.

If after that you're happy with the £1K, cash the cheque and write a nice letter thanking him (and enclosing a madeira).

edit: this applies also to any email reponse you give your solicitor! Beware just thanking him, which might be interpreted as acceptance, which he might pass on to the seller.

Too late! I've already accepted and confirmed that I didn't intend on taking further legal action against the seller. Perhaps I was too quick to accept the offer without properly assessing the damage.

I did have a quick chat with the builder and he seems to think there's no structural/extensive damage but I don't think he checked under the carpet.

Hoping that renovations won't reveal floor joists damaged or anything!.

Thanks for all the replies

TranceNRG

Daniel54 wrote: »

That is true.


However it is entirely possible,particularly if the vendor consulted his solicitor,that the offer of £i,000 is made "without prejudice" ie without any admission of liability.In this case ,the offer can be withdrawn if not accepted and the OP is back to the drawing board.


OP should check the terms ( if any) of the offered monies before considering a rejection

Yep this is exactly what he did.

This is the content of the letter that the seller's solilcitor sent ot my solicitor yesterday:

I refer to the above matter and your email of today’s date. We would point you to clause 3.2 of the standard conditions of the contract which stipulates that the buyer accepts the property as it is at the point of exchange. There is no evidence provided that the damage occurred between exchange and completion.

Our client does not admit any liability in relation to this matter. Not withstanding our comments above, our client will make a contribution of £1000 to the repair of the damage as a mark of goodwill. We will suggest that our client sends a cheque payable to your clients via your office.

Please note that we are not instructed by our client to accept the service of any legal proceedings.

Dan-Dan

TranceNRG wrote: »

Too late! I've already accepted and confirmed that I didn't intend on taking further legal action against the seller. Perhaps I was too quick to accept the offer without properly assessing the damage.

I did have a quick chat with the builder and he seems to think there's no structural/extensive damage but I don't think he checked under the carpet.

Hoping that renovations won't reveal floor joists damaged or anything!.

Thanks for all the replies

Cracking builder

ManofLeisure_2

As a matter of interest did you have a survey before buying and did it flag up any problems?

TranceNRG

ManofLeisure wrote: »

As a matter of interest did you have a survey before buying and did it flag up any problems?

Yep I did but no this wasn't flagged up. To be fair it was a leak in a pipe going to the toilet. And it was behind the wall. Obviously there was no leak at the time and I've been to the property lots of times and didn't see a leak. The leak only started happening recently.

ManofLeisure_2

It might sound an obvious point, but do ensure that the area has dried out thoroughly before work commences .

Hope all goes well for you.