Things missed by surveyor. Do I have any options?

Mishomeister

cloo wrote: »

I have to say, these things sound like small fry to me. They're nothing that is dangerous or is going to put you massively out of pocket to fix. Personally I'd just forget about these things and fix where necessary. Legal proceedings or even a complaint are not worth the trouble for this.

It does sounds Cloo that you are a wealthy person and a few hundred pounds spent on flooring and window replacement are not a great deal for you.
This unfortunately not the case for me. This is a MONRYSAVING forum so I am a bit surprised why you are a member of a forum if money is a 'small' fry to you not even worth a complaint

marksoton

Mishomeister wrote: »

It was ovious when I have moved in to the property and was able to have a detailed look. During the viewing I only had about 15 minutes.
The purpose of Homebuyers report is to spot any obvious issues. What is the point of paying for it then?
Surveyor has spent in the property over an hour

So you only viewed a property once for 15 minutes? Not even on the day you exchanged?

You see where i'm going right....

SplanK

A homebuyers survey will only advise of major defects in the property. It is not usefull to spot cosmetic issues, or 'the window in the bathroom is different to that of the rest of the house'


Is the window faulty in some sort of way? Does not sound like it from your wording, just sounds either lower quality and of different construction. This report would not have advised an issue with this. Unless there is a significant fault, then I am afraid you have no come back on this.


Floorboard - what sort of damage are you talking about here? Is it marked in some sort of way, or damaged, noisy?


Could it be that the damage occurred AFTER the survey but before completion? If it was easy to spot, how did you not pick it up at the viewings?


It was your choice if you should spend 15 minutes at the house, we made 3 viewings of our place and drove past it at every available opportunity before exchanging... and even we are finding little things here and there that need sorting, but that's the chance you take.


People fling around the word 'compensation' to easily these days. You are not entitled to compensation, at most the contract you will have will offer to pay to resolve the issues not identified by the surveyor as long as they were present at the time and are not covered by furniture or weather dependant (IE a leak wont show on a sunny day).


And why speak with a no-win-no-fee solicitor first, why not read the documentation that came with the report for their grievance procedure and follow that first? At the very best they will pay to fix the problem with the floor if its a fault and it can be proven it existed during the inspection. You might be best just sucking it up as life experience and just sorting it yourself though

missprice

Mishomeister wrote: »

It does sounds Cloo that you are a wealthy person and a few hundred pounds spent on flooring and window replacement are not a great deal for you.
This unfortunately not the case for me. This is a MONRYSAVING forum so I am a bit surprised why you are a member of a forum if money is a 'small' fry to you not even worth a complaint

Maybe the window will cost a few hundred to replace, but you don't say it needs replacing, just that it's different to all the other windows. Assuming it works as a window it does not yet need replacing. So no money spent there.
Floorboards are maybe £30 for the area you are describing ( storage room) fit them yourself. Find YouTube videos, they are really easy to replace so long as you buy the right size. Done it myself, so I know they are easy. And I am a clutz. So from a few hundred to £30.

Plus why did you spend all of 15 minutes looking at a huge expensive house. Probably the most expensive thing you will buy in your life and it was worth 15 minutes of your time?

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

Mishomeister wrote: »

It was ovious when I have moved in to the property and was able to have a detailed look. During the viewing I only had about 15 minutes.
The purpose of Homebuyers report is to spot any obvious issues. What is the point of paying for it then?
Surveyor has spent in the property over an hour

It's to spot any obvious STRUCTURAL issues. You pay for it to find out if the house is about to fall down. That's more or less it. They were not looking at the minor things you think they should have been looking at.

G_M

Mishomeister wrote: »

...... During the viewing I only had about 15 minutes.

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl::rotfl:


I spend longer than that trying on a suit worth £50 before I buy it. And I know women who'll spend an hour tryng on a dress.

If you decided to spend £X00,000 after a 15 minute visit, you have only yourself to blame........

Get 5 quotes for a new window to be installed.

Go down to Jewsons and buy a couple of floorboards and spend Sunday replacing the dodgy ones.

Yes - this is a moneysaving forum. The advice is: look before you pay and don't buy something that is not what you want.

walwyn1978

The short version is no - the surveying company will argue that the Homebuyers report is not as comprehensive as the full survey and thus if you wanted more detail you should have paid for that.

The longer version is that even if you could somehow persuade a solicitor to take this on for you and challenge the surveying company I suspect the total costs to put it right from what you've said would be less than the fees incurred by you to instruct a solicitor. As you've already said, the no-win-no-fee brigade won't touch this because the numbers aren't high enough for them.

Davesnave

Mishomeister wrote: »

This is a MONRYSAVING forum .....

It is indeed, which is why most of us would advise those intending to buy something as costly as a house, to spend as much time as they need to satisfy themselves about its general condition and decoration, before instructing a surveyor.

This is called exercising due diligence.

Clearly, if the things you are now grumbling about were easily observable, the surveyor might reasonably have assumed that they were of little concern to you and focused on matters of greater importance.

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

walwyn1978 wrote: »

The short version is no - the surveying company will argue that the Homebuyers report is not as comprehensive as the full survey and thus if you wanted more detail you should have paid for that.

The longer version is that even if you could somehow persuade a solicitor to take this on for you and challenge the surveying company I suspect the total costs to put it right from what you've said would be less than the fees incurred by you to instruct a solicitor. As you've already said, the no-win-no-fee brigade won't touch this because the numbers aren't high enough for them.

No, the longer version is if he tried to sue them, he would be suing them for failing to provide a service that he had not paid for and they hadn't made any undertaking to provide. Any solicitor would laugh at him.

His only option if he was desperate to go to court and lose would be to take it on himself.

He might as well sue me for not telling him about the window. The legal case is equally strong; that is, non-existent.

Haylescom

I was present when the surveyor comepeted a homebuyer's report on my house for the builders we part exchanged to. He was at the house for 45 minutes; 5 minutes looking at the house (inside and outside), 20 minutes dictating his findings to tape for his secretary to write up and 20 minutes telling me about his son. He barely looked at anything, including window frames, just asking me to confirm it was all double glazed and when it was put in. No furniture gets moved so if there was anything covering the issues you now see it won't have been picked up.