Solicitors at fault? - failure to forward / read documents

thewrongtrousers

ReadingTim wrote: »

Even if the solicitor had made you aware of the asbestos pipe, it would then have been up to you to negotiate with the vendor as to its removal. Which they may, or may not have agreed to. Are you seriously trying to claim you wouldn't have purchased the property if you'd have known about it? I doubt it.

Furthermore, the removal of the asbestos seems to have instigated by you in replacing the boiler - why do you think someone else should foot the bill for improvements instigated by yourself?

If you think the solicitors are liable for the £500 removal cost, you're going to be sorely disappointed. At best you'll probably get a hundred quid or so as a goodwill payment recognising some administrative oversight in omitting to forward a document to you, but basically, you're being paid to shut up and go away. Which is probably the most efficient use of your time and energy.

Actually we were very close to dropping out of the sale as it was because of other issues with it, had we known that there was asbestos in the flat, if the seller had not reduced the price accordingly we would have dropped out - we did infact inform our solicitor we were close to dropping out because of all the issues.

Not really, the boiler needed replacing anyway, as we were told it didn't work and it had condemed stickers all over it. So we didn't instigate the need for it to be replaced. We didn't know the pipes were asbestos.

I probably will be disappointed, but I still can't see how the solicitors failing to provide us with information within the documents they had in their possession is not their fault?

thewrongtrousers

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone that posted (even if we didn't agree).

Taken a further turn, just received an email from the director of the company who was looking into it. Turns out he was the solicitor acting for the sellers so would have had to investigate himself if he hadn't dismissed the complaint, without even mentioning they failed to give us vital information.
Seems a conflict of interests to me and I have now asked how to escalate the complaint.

MyOnlyPost

I would have thought that the same firm of solicitors acting for both buyer and seller was already a conflict of interest anyway. It seems obvious that a situation could arise where acting in the best interest of one party would be detrimental to the other. That said I feel there is some misplaced anger in the OP

Personally I don't think you can rely on a survey that you didn't commission. If you were buying a car you wouldn't assume it was ok based solely on the fact it had an MOT issued some time in the last 12 months. You would do your own investigation which may include being looked at by a qualified professional at your cost. Whilst the solicitor may have made a mistake it is not fair to say they are wholly liable for the position you are now in.

If you had arranged you own survey and the surveyor had missed this then 100% you would have a case against them.

AnnieO1234

The solicitors will have done what's called a Chinese Wall. There's not illegal or anything about it.

The fact that you thought there may have been asbestos but didn't bother to commission a report yourselves is going to be your downfall. You may get a small rebate from the solicitors as a gesture of goodwill to get you to go away but that is all.

thewrongtrousers

AnnieO1234 wrote: »

The solicitors will have done what's called a Chinese Wall. There's not illegal or anything about it.

The fact that you thought there may have been asbestos but didn't bother to commission a report yourselves is going to be your downfall. You may get a small rebate from the solicitors as a gesture of goodwill to get you to go away but that is all.

We didn't know there was asbestos in the flat though, where have I said we did?

The only reason we were worried about it was because the solicitor said there may be some in the flat as the report wasn't clear. We then asked for clarification and were categorically told that the report said there wasn't any in the flat, only on the outside of the building. The solicitors should have told us they didn't know or directed and forwarded us the correct form that clearly points out that the asbestos report did not cover the flat - they did neither of those. Surely this is the sort of thing that a conveyancer is paid for?

And why would we have even commissioned a report when we were lead to believe the current report was up to date an included the flat?

thewrongtrousers

MyOnlyPost wrote: »

I would have thought that the same firm of solicitors acting for both buyer and seller was already a conflict of interest anyway. It seems obvious that a situation could arise where acting in the best interest of one party would be detrimental to the other. That said I feel there is some misplaced anger in the OP

Personally I don't think you can rely on a survey that you didn't commission. If you were buying a car you wouldn't assume it was ok based solely on the fact it had an MOT issued some time in the last 12 months. You would do your own investigation which may include being looked at by a qualified professional at your cost. Whilst the solicitor may have made a mistake it is not fair to say they are wholly liable for the position you are now in.

If you had arranged you own survey and the surveyor had missed this then 100% you would have a case against them.

You may have a point, however when you buy a car you don't use a third party to help with the sale, one who is supposed to inform you of the contents of documents as part of their job. We would have got our own report had we know the information the solicitors didn't tell us.

Also your analogy doesn't really work the other way. If you buy a car, even from a private seller, it needs to be accurately described and not misrepresented in any way. So for example if they fail to tell you or give you the documents relating to an accident the car has been in previously then you would have a case against them.

sparky130a

thewrongtrousers wrote: »

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone that posted (even if we didn't agree).

Taken a further turn, just received an email from the director of the company who was looking into it. Turns out he was the solicitor acting for the sellers so would have had to investigate himself if he hadn't dismissed the complaint, without even mentioning they failed to give us vital information.
Seems a conflict of interests to me and I have now asked how to escalate the complaint.

So you used the same solicitors firm as your vendor?

Never a good start...

thewrongtrousers

sparky130a wrote: »

So you used the same solicitors firm as your vendor?

Never a good start...

Ha, ha, I know. Saying that it's not the first time - there's not much choice in this area. Nor is it the first time we have used these solicitors (3 times now, never again). Last time they completed the sale in an amazing 3 weeks, albeit a different conveyancer - I told everyone I could how good they were .

Just as a comparison one of the other local companies once took 5 months to complete a sale for us with no chains, and a cash purchase. Every time we called no matter what time of day, the solicitor was at lunch.