I'm now being sued by the purchaser

G_M

ikcdab wrote: »

My defence is that
1. We answered the ta6 form and later questions truthfully and to the best of our ability.
2. The buyer did not undertake a survey despite the warnings to do so on the form
3. I offered a repair but this was refused by the buyer. I was unable to force this as under the key undertaking the buyer accepted all liability after exchange of contracts.

Provided the buyer cannot prove you became aware of the breakdown between the date you submitted the TA6 and the date they got the key and took responsibility, I don't see a problem.

The claim is for £3000 reduction in the value of the house (a house without a working system is worth less than one with) If you can have up your sleeve a quote for repair, that would be useful - I don't see that they can claim this arbitrary 'reduction in value' figure.
£1200 for pain and suffering for living in a cold house for 2 months No financial cost so can't be claimed
£500 for additional elecitric heating bills. offset by the savings made by not running the boiler

Without accepting liability I have offered £1000 settlement but this has been refused.
We are off to see solicitors next week but would welcome further comments.

They are trying it on. I'm surprised you made an offer. I hope you worded your offer with care. Why do this before seeing a solicitor if that's what you are now doing?

Be aware that even if you win, you'll not be able to re-claim your solicitor's costs as this will go via the Small Claims Track. Do you have legal cover via your house insurance, union, employer etc?

missile

Does the other party have a solicitor?
It may be prudent, but you don't have to incur this expense.
You can make a written submission in response and attend court in person to defend the case.
I have been to small claims court twice and won both cases.

sniggings

ikcdab wrote: »

Ok, so now I have received official court papers. The claim is for misrepresentation. The claim is that we stated on the TA6 form that the heating was working when we knew that it wasn't.
This is untrue. When we signed the form all was well. We were later asked to confirm this and we said the previous answers were still valid as we had no reason to believe anything had changed. The house was empty and we weren't living there.
My defence is that
1. We answered the ta6 form and later questions truthfully and to the best of our ability.
2. The buyer did not undertake a survey despite the warnings to do so on the form
3. I offered a repair but this was refused by the buyer. I was unable to force this as under the key undertaking the buyer accepted all liability after exchange of contracts.

The claim is for £3000 reduction in the value of the house (a house without a working system is worth less than one with)
£1200 for pain and suffering for living in a cold house for 2 months
£500 for additional elecitric heating bills.

Without accepting liability I have offered £1000 settlement but this has been refused.
We are off to see solicitors next week but would welcome further comments.

Did you write that down, that you hadn't rechecked and believed the heating was in the same state as on the earlier check?

If you just answered the heating question with a "yes it's working" but hadn't checked then that's a mistake, but your offer to repair the heating before move in, imo should get around that.

Unless you can find a cheap lawyer then I might be tempted into defending this myself at court, as worse case the judge awards them £4.5 which on the face of it has a slim chance, more likely if they win, they get awarded a lot less, so maybe not much more than the cost of a lawyer.

Think you will win tho, so £0 cost (well apart from your time and stress).

And ain't small claim court designed to work without the need for lawyers, and costs if awarded are based on very limited expenses, not enough to pay for lawyers?

HouseBuyer77

£1200 for pain and suffering for living in a cold house for 2 months

Given we're only just coming into Autumn this seems a bit rich. I haven't even had the heating on yet!

HouseBuyer77

The claim is for £3000 reduction in the value of the house (a house without a working system is worth less than one with)

As G_M says do they have a quote or better yet an invoice showing that a new boiler cost £3'000? If it was a straight swap that's pretty expensive. Plus they can't claim they thought they were buying a house with a new boiler so really they could only be claiming a portion of the new boiler cost based on the old boiler's age.

davidmcn

My comments above about mitigation of losses still apply. And in any event they would need to explain why they're claiming for loss of value rather than the cost of repair (unless repair costs more than £3000).

Hoploz

Is this Small Claims court? I thought there was a £3000 limit on this?

In the UK I believe you can only claim for financial losses, ie the actual £ amount the claimant is out of pocket. The fact they are not specifying this makes me wonder whether they even have a receipt to prove any work has been professionally done for which to claim.

They were already fiddling before completion!

steampowered

If you only represented that the TA6 was true at the date you signed the form back in May/June, then I suppose they would have to prove that the heating was not working back in May/June.

This might be difficult for them to prove, assuming the fault is something that could have legitimately have arisen during the summer.

Your defence could be that the heating was working when you signed the form and you did not become aware of any change.

Doozergirl wrote: »

I cannot believe that you can be sued for being honest. You didn't ever live at that house, you gave correct information based on your knowledge on a certain date.

It sounds like the Op stated on the disclosure form that the heating was working. The legal and moral rationale is that you can't tell people the heating is working if it is not. If you don't know whether the heating is working you have to say you don't know.

Hoploz wrote: »

Is this Small Claims court? I thought there was a £3000 limit on this?

The limit was increased awhile back. The limit is now £10,000.

The claim is for £3000 reduction in the value of the house (a house without a working system is worth less than one with)
£1200 for pain and suffering for living in a cold house for 2 months
£500 for additional elecitric heating bills.

I'd say the £1,200 is a try-on. The rest sounds reasonable to me, if they have a valid claim, although they should be required to prove those amounts.

TBagpuss

They would only be able to claim the difference in the value between and old-but-functioning system and a broken one,not between an old and a new. £3,000 sounds like the cost of a replacement boiler, to me.

Imn adition, OP offered (as I Recall) to get their own plumber to inspect and if the issue when it first arose, had the buyers accepted that they would not have incurred any extra heating losses or 'pain and suffering' so I think there wouldbe a very strong argument that they faield to mitigate their losses.

and that, of coruse, assumes that they can prove that the heating was broken when they went in, and not damaged or broken by their actions. The refusal to allwo OPs plumber in to inspect may cause them some problems there, too.

bitsandpieces

silvercar wrote: »

Either there was pain (?) and suffering for living in a cold house or they had additional electric heating bills. I fail to see how they could have had both.

Looks to me like they are trying it on, at least by claiming a high amount in the hope you will compromise on less.

If they spent £250/month more on electric heating than they would have spent on gas, it seems surprising that they were suffering from the cold - unless the property is a mansion, has a hole in the roof, or something.