I'm now being sued by the purchaser

ikcdab

Davidmcn: no i dont know. A survey was done, but I have no idea what it said. Its the final purchaser who is suggesting it may have commented on the heating. I am trying to get hold of a copy at the moment.

G_M

ikcdab wrote: »

Ok, so an update. The purchaser of the property is now suggesting that he has access to a surveyors report that noted the heating as being defective. I have never seen this report. So the scenario now might be as follows:
I am selling an empty house that belonged to my mother-in-law. It is old and in run down condition.
1. February 2015: The property is put on sale. The heating is left on.
2. March 2015: We sign the TA6 form and say that the heating works (which is true) irrelevant. This was for a previous aborted sale
3. May/June 2015: the heating is turned off for the summer
4. August 2015: an offer is accepted. The purchasers have a survey done which notes the heating is defective. We (the sellers) are NOT made aware of this. The purchasers pull out with no reason given. irrelevant. This was for a previous aborted sale
5. October 2015: a second offer is accepted from new purchasers.
6. In response to queries, we say that the original TA6 form information is correct. We did not actually test the heating at this stage to make sure this was true, but relied on the fact that it had been working in June and we had no reason to suspect it was faulty. This is the relevant TA6.
If the buyers can show that the heating was defective at this point they will have a case, since you misled them.
7. October – November 2015: the new purchaser visits the property on several occasions (at least 6) to look around. Apparently he does not test the heating. The purchaser does NOT have a survey done. relevant to your defence
8. November 2015: contracts exchanged and the purchaser is given a key agreement to enable him to have work done before completion. Among other things, this involved a complete rewire and moving radiators. The key agreement states that the purchaser is responsible for all breakdowns or damage after exchange. Relevant to your defence
9. December 24 2015: purchaser informs us that heating is defective.
10. 4 January, I attend with a plumber who states he can ‘probably’ fix it for £300. I offer to pay this but the purchaser refuses the offer. Relevant to your defence
11. Next day, the purchaser demands £2000 off the asking price. I refuse. Relevant to your defence
12. Completion then takes place at the original price. Relevant to your defence.
13. July/August 2016: the purchaser is now intending to sue us for misrepresentation, claiming we knowingly claimed the heating was working when we knew it wasn’t.
Clearly, if the survey does exist and if it says the heating is defective then it puts a different light on matters. So, where do we stand? I am consulting a solicitor, but would be grateful for this forums useful comments. Does the purchaser have a case?

The only risk is, as you say, whether a survey exists indicating that the TA6 (point 6 above) was misleading.

However it appears the survey was done for the previous buyers who pulled out. I don't see how the next buyers ( the claimants) can rely on it.

Additionally your defence would be points 7,8,10,11,12.

fairy_lights

ikcdab wrote: »

Its the final purchaser who is suggesting it may have commented on the heating.

So they're not saying that they've actually got a copy of this survey, and that it definitely shows that the heating was already defective, just that it may have commented on the heating.
Sounds like they're bluffing - if they could prove that the there were known issues with the heating why would they be beating round the bush like that?

mrginge

This seems fairly straightforward to me.

Date of exchange or completion is not really relevant.

What is important is the date on the TA6 form.

Doozergirl

Surveyors don't test heating. They will look at the boiler and make a judgement on its age, but every single home buyer's survey will recommend testing the heating, precisely because surveyors are not qualified to test them.

Ultimately, they have to prove that you knew it was broken when you signed that form. Even a full check from a gas engineer counter signed by you on the day of exchange saying it was working doesn't mean that the boiler won't break down the day after exchange!

Stuff happens. The fact that they replaced the whole thing is telling that it was probably due a replacement. Had they carried out proper checks, they'd have known.

You don't get to avoid having any surveys and then sue sellers because you made the wrong decision. That isn't how our system works.

Are there actual court papers? Is this coming through their conveyancing solicitor? I think they are really chancing it and suspect if this has been going on for months that it will come to nothing.

You are being bullied.

Ithaca

Doozergirl wrote: »

Surveyors don't test heating. They will look at the boiler and make a judgement on its age, but every single home buyer's survey will recommend testing the heating, precisely because surveyors are not qualified to test them.

Not sure that's true? I was home when our buyers' surveyor came round... he asked me to turn on the heating and then checked that the radiators were warm. I think he still puts some caveats in the report saying that it's still worth getting it checked. He may not have done so if I'd not been in though.

davidmcn

Ithaca wrote: »

Not sure that's true? I was home when our buyers' surveyor came round... he asked me to turn on the heating and then checked that the radiators were warm. I think he still puts some caveats in the report saying that it's still worth getting it checked. He may not have done so if I'd not been in though.

I doubt any non-specialist would be keen to switch on heating which has obviously been off for a while - they may be suspicious that it's been turned off for a reason (and don't want to hang around mopping up any resulting leaks etc!).

stator

If the heating was turned off completely then it's something the surveyor probably commented on. They would not have said it was defective. They would not have turned on a boiler that was turned off incase it was unsafe.

Miss_Samantha

Whether the heating was tested or not, if OP wrote that it was working then that's then part of the conditions of sale.

Kynthia

Miss_Samantha wrote: »

Whether the heating was tested or not, if OP wrote that it was working then that's then part of the conditions of sale.

The problem is no one knows if it was broken at exchange or broke after due to the works the purchaser did. The purchasers will argue the former and the OP will argue the latter.

So the judge will need to decide on probabilities and if anyone didn't meet their obligations. The judge could decide the OP should have checked before resigning the PIF or that they did know there was a possibility of a fault due to the previous purchaser's survey. Or they could decide tge buyers should have had a survey/inspection or that they took the risk by doing work on the system.