Completed on property - burst water pipe days before

DAE

G_M wrote: »

If you (your solicitor) used the Standard Conditions of Sale edition 5, then insurance was the responsibility of the buyer from the pint of Exchange. So look at your insurance policy.

However it is likely that it is a condition of the insurance that if the property is unoccupied for more than 30 (45? 60?) days, then the water must be drained down and/or the heating kept on etc.

So it is likely that any claim will be rejected.

And even if not, the insurer may well say that you (sorry, the seller) has caused further problems by re-plastering/decorating etc without first drying the property out - the insurer should have been advised first.

There is also a contractual obligation on the seller to hand over the property at Completion in the same condition as it was at Exchange.

A possible option is to

* get builders quotes to make good (remove damp plaster, wait, the redecorate when dry
* send claim to seller
* sue seller if they don't pay
but your soliitor should advise.

Do you think I should get a builder quote (worried they'll quote me for work whether necessary or not), or get a surveyor specialising in water damage in?

I'll consult the solicitor about legal standpoint. At very least I want a full honest breakdown of what actually happened with dates in terms of when discovered, how long left to dry, when plastered, when painted.

Additionally, should I rent dehumidifiers or just bite the bullet and buy one?

Alias_Omega

We had a wall plastered, took 2-3 days to dry. The possibly another 5 days before it stopped giving off condensation. It was mad...

Everything cold was wet.... you could hire a dehumidifier for a few days.

flora48

I wonder how long the leak had been going. We had a leak in my husband's house in a pipe embedded in concrete and was running for quite a while before detection.

This took over 6 months to dry out, the insurance company installed big industrial fans and a dehumidifier yet it still took that long. It sounds as though the your remedial work was carried out too soon and is could be the reason for condensation.

Lazarus_Blackstar

Well they were extremely fast at doing all the work.......:eek:
Within around 48 hours the place was dried out, plastered & redecorated?
Very unlikely.
Sounds like they've bodged the job which could make it worse for you in the long run.

hazyjo

I had a leak once and a ceiling collapsed. I needed a couple of industrial style dehumidifiers - you'd be surprised at the amount of water that comes out of them! But every summer afterwards, my walls and skirting boards would crack like gunshots. It had obviously never been dried out properly, even after a week or two of dehumidifiers.

Rent the most powerful you can get and have one upstairs and down, as near to the leak as possible.

Never believe a vendor or EA when it comes to things like this. Not sure what your solicitor was doing! Surprised he didn't advise getting a specialist round.

Jx

DAE

Alright, think I'll give my home insurance a call tomorrow.

May also call these guys - https://www.tapcohomedry.com/water-damage-survey-london/

My insurance policy says minimum £350 excess for any water ingress work.

One of the main things is I need to get the facts! I barely even know where the leak started and spread to. Am I best going through my solicitor to obtain them? Perhaps via vendor's solicitor.

I completely agree with the above that I can't trust vendor or estate agent.

Thrugelmir

DAE wrote: »

So I completed on a property on Friday.

When did you exchange?

Gigervamp

Thrugelmir wrote: »

When did you exchange?

OP said it was mid January.

DAE wrote: »

There was a clause in the agreement which said floors etc should be in the condition of the date of exchange which was mid-Jan.

DAE

Thrugelmir wrote: »

When did you exchange?

Just checked to make sure - January 16th.

Everything they've said to us suggests this leak and repair was much more recent.

How would that affect things?

DAE

UPDATE.

I'm more and more worried about this.

I'm a first time buyer and I had absolutely no idea that it was the buyer's responsibility to insure the property between exchange and completion. Foolish on my part, so annoyed with myself, but also feel let down by my solicitors who never advised me of this.

If I have no legal redress on the vendor (and I'm assuming I do not) would an insurance company still cover us for the work?

In their initial online questions when I got a quote they didn't ask if there had been a leak, they asked if there'd been damage due to an external flood but it explicitly stated this did not include internal water leakage such as a burst pipe.

So I did not provide any false information by answering no. Nevertheless, the initial issue occurred before the policy was activated. However, we were told it was all repaired and taken care off. So would an insurance company accept liability of an issue arising due to a poor repair from the previous owner prior to our insurance taking efffect?

After all, there's no visible leak or damage now. Just a sense that something is wrong due to the condensation and feeling of dampness on some walls/rooms. I'm sure this must happen a lot where a substandard repair known to a buyer only reveals itself in the days/weeks/months after moving in.

Seems like a grey area. If I have no legal redress, if my insurance won't cover it, and if a repair is going to cost me 10s of thousands, I'm worried I may have ruined my life.