Just completed house has main supply leak help please

Lauraje

Hi, I completed on the purchase of a property yesterday, arrived turned on utilities, water was turned off at main stopcock at boundary, within minutes we had water rising from the front corner of the house and pouring down the driveway.
Turn water off call water company for advice ( already aware would be down to us). They inform us that they were made aware of a major leak at the beginning of June and turned the water off at the main. This leak was never made aware during searches we had a home buyers that threw up no issues, advised to contact our insurance company, our insurance company state that its not down to us or you as the leak was there pre inception, they send me a email to forward to the solicitor to state what they have told me. Solicitor calls and states that the vendor has no knowledge of the leak so how can he be responsible tell solicitor to read email and come back to me again. Will not hear until Tuesday.
Now we have been informed by both neighbours that the vendor was well aware as his previous tenant had to leave because no water supply. And apparently sent in cowboys to attempt to fix that failed he then got more quotes and no more was ever seen apart from the for sale board a few weeks later.
Does anyone know where we stand for fact I'm beyond angry luckily we have another 2 weeks in our current property due to us being in a rental whilst in between house moves. Thank you in advance

csgohan4

Did you get a plumbing survey? Buyer beware? did you turn on the water when you viewed?

Lauraje

No plumbing report, a homebuyers survey. When we viewed house was empty with ea who stated all utilities were off due to now being completely vacant and vendor had given all keys over, as was ex rental no need to ever return. No did not turn water on at main but I have never tried taps when viewing a property neither have viewers that have viewed property that I have sold. Surely with a supply pipe leak that the water company was well aware of also should have shown in water searches as on water company screen shall I say states never checked or completed status.

macman

Unfortunately there is nothing on the owners' property questionaire that would require the vendor to reveal the existence of a supply pipe leak. So I cannot see that you have any claim against him, or against the conveyancer.
Do I gather that he sold the property to avoid the cost of a leak repair? Many water utilities will do a one-off leak repair at no charge though.
If your insurers think that the vendor is still legally responsible for any previous faults now found, then they are clueless.

Davesnave

The CON29DW search ought to contain info about the current connection status to the public water supply, so if the utility company had turned it off due to a major unrepaired leak this should surely have shown up?

I would question the utility company's record keeping and hope that their apparent inefficiency gave me enough leverage to get a speedy and free repair.

silvercar

Get the water board in to fix it.

You can argue about who pays at a later point. The team the water board have will give you a guarantee on the repair, not be cowboys and their charges will be reasonable. It is going to have to be fixed before you can move in, so you may as well do it at the earliest opportunity.

moneyistooshorttomention

Davesnave wrote: »

The CON29DW search ought to contain info about the current connection status to the public water supply, so if the utility company had turned it off due to a major unrepaired leak this should surely have shown up?

I would question the utility company's record keeping and hope that their apparent inefficiency gave me enough leverage to get a speedy and free repair.

Agreed. Probably your best way forward.

teddysmum

Is there no case as the vendor deliberately withheld information about a major fault, as the water company have a record of the leak being reported before sale ?

HouseBuyer77

The CON29DW search ought to contain info about the current connection status to the public water supply, so if the utility company had turned it off due to a major unrepaired leak this should surely have shown up?

I suspect this is the key point that will allow you to get this sorted without having to pay for it yourself, unless the vendor assured you in writing that the services were all fine or at least there were no known issues (which perhaps he did, certainly if I was buying a property that had the utilities turned off and I couldn't switch them back on to check I'd ask, via my solicitor, if the vendor was aware of any supply issues, maybe yours did this without you having to ask for it?).

However looking at a CON29DW search sample (http://www.geodesys.com/media/95486/CON29DW-Sample-January-2017.pdf) it seems you could fill this in correctly without mentioning the supply had a known leak? I think it really depends on where the leak is. If I understand the OP correctly it's past the main stop-c*ck for the house (the external one, not the internal one). As such the company can correctly state it's connected to the mains with no further notes. It may be they just have a note in their system indicating there's a leak after the main stop-c*ck. Sadly I don't see a question on the CON29DW that would definitely require them to mention this.

PhilE

A report to the water company that there was a problem, is evidence that there has been a problem with the services to the property and that the vendor was obviously aware of it as he/she reported the problem. As far as Im aware it was there duty to submit details of the problem, in the Property Information Form.

Your main concern is to ascertain whether this leak has caused any damage to your house. You might want to pay a surveyor to do an inspection, costs around £300 but it could be money well spent.