Bad surveryor

Gwenrose

We had a survey on our house which took all of five minutes and he never asked one question.
In his report we later found that he had assumed there had been a wall at the end of our garage and we had taken it down at some time, the garage is attached to the side of the house. When the garage was built like a lot of the others on the estate they were open ended, a 1971 look.

From the front of the garage right through to the patio at the back are drains, opposite the outside brick built wall of the garage at the far end is the gas and electric meters, so if a wall had been built it would have gone into the gas and electric meter and over the drains.

The builders who built the house did put, up and over doors and roofs to the garage to keep it in uniform with the block garages that were also built at the same time.

Our buyers solicitor asked us to rebuild a wall that had never been there on the report from the surveyor for the buyer, also to build a drop kerb that is and has always been there. The buyer later pulled out because we refused to rebuild a wall were there had never been one and it would be impossible to build one.

We want to know what action, if any we can take regarding this surveyor who I believe could have cost us our buyer. I have contacted the firm he worked for ESURV but they say that they cannot take any action as we are not the client who requested the report and they cannot give us any information.

The surveyor clearly did not do his job properly and his observation was totaly incorrect, I wonder what other details were also incorrect.:mad:

Can any one please come up with some constructive advice as to what if any thing we can do and if we have a case to bring against the surveyor. There is a possibility that if he assumed this about our property with out knowing the accurate facts and clearly not making a proper observation, then it is likely he is going to do it again on another property.

We are still on the market.

Richard_Webster

Were you there when the surveyor came round? If so, did you talk to him and explain what had happened? if you didn't then I'm not sure it is fair to blame him for raising queries about it - more that the buyers don't seem to have accepted the explanations that your solicitor presumably gave their solicitor.

I think you would have to admit that your situation is fairly unusual.

The buyers either didn't notice that the garage didn't have a back wall or did notice and thought that it could easily be rebuilt.

In this kind of case the best way forward is to make sure that future buyers are told the whole story when they first look round. It can all be easily explained as a quirky thing. If you are upfront about this kind of thing then usually people do understand. If they find out later they think there's a conspiracy to hide things...

billycasper_2

I am sure you have a case if you can prove the surveyor was negligent. You have copies of letters i presume ?? Then seek legal advice from a solicitor. if need be get a surveyor of your own to do a report and claim the money back.
.Thats unless that surveyor agrees with the 1st

littlesos

Gwenrose wrote: »

We had a survey on our house which took all of five minutes and he never asked one question.
In his report we later found that he had assumed there had been a wall at the end of our garage and we had taken it down at some time, the garage is attached to the side of the house. When the garage was built like a lot of the others on the estate they were open ended, a 1971 look.

From the front of the garage right through to the patio at the back are drains, opposite the outside brick built wall of the garage at the far end is the gas and electric meters, so if a wall had been built it would have gone into the gas and electric meter and over the drains.

The builders who built the house did put, up and over doors and roofs to the garage to keep it in uniform with the block garages that were also built at the same time.

Our buyers solicitor asked us to rebuild a wall that had never been there on the report from the surveyor for the buyer, also to build a drop kerb that is and has always been there. The buyer later pulled out because we refused to rebuild a wall were there had never been one and it would be impossible to build one.

We want to know what action, if any we can take regarding this surveyor who I believe could have cost us our buyer. I have contacted the firm he worked for ESURV but they say that they cannot take any action as we are not the client who requested the report and they cannot give us any information.

The surveyor clearly did not do his job properly and his observation was totaly incorrect, I wonder what other details were also incorrect.:mad:

Can any one please come up with some constructive advice as to what if any thing we can do and if we have a case to bring against the surveyor. There is a possibility that if he assumed this about our property with out knowing the accurate facts and clearly not making a proper observation, then it is likely he is going to do it again on another property.

We are still on the market.

Ah, e-surv, we've just complained to them about a survey they did for us! They did do a re-survey and although they will not be held liable for the mistakes (lots of fancy legal wording which means the survey isn't actually worth the paper it's written on!) they have offered a £100 goodwill gesture.

That was almost 2 months ago, and no goodwill has been seen here yet!

I would never ever use this company again or recommend them. We had no choice in the matter as our lender (Derbyshire BS) insisted we use them.

Sorry not much help to you, but trying to get them to admit liability, I wish you luck, but it'd be easier and less painful climbing Mount Everest naked!

marybishop

Just as an aside if he was only there for 5 mins it must have been a valuation survey. If the people who commissioned the survey were expecting an HB or full BS then they were clearly done! If ESURV are members of the RICS then I would phone the RICS and ask their advice on the matter.

billycasper_2

they will not be held liable for the mistakes (lots of fancy legal wording which means the survey isn't actually worth the paper it's written on!)

Surely everybody IS liable for their mistakes,you would be, i would be, a doctor would be..especially professional bodies with codes of practise. I sometimes wonder if this is all to scare off any potential litigation.
where's there a litigation lawyer when you want one..

Richard_Webster

Sorry but to me it looks like this.

Surveyor goes and looks at property. He is doing basic valuation for lender.

He finds something which on the face of it is odd, i.e apparent "garage" without a rear wall. He raises it in his report.

Buyers want to know what all this is about. Their solicitors ask about it. OP's solicitors presumably explain the background. Buyers not satisfied.

Really their lack of satisfaction is because they must have thought they were going to get a garage with a back wall. Goodness why they thought that, but evidently they did. Sensible buyer would have asked why there was no back wall - presumably they didn't ask, but merely assumed. If they had asked and OP had explained, they would have ignored the surveyor's comment as irrelevant.

Don't understand why surveyor is to blame or how he has any liability to OP.

If OP knew the property was odd in that it didn't have a rear wall to the garage because of the presence of the sewer, why didn't he tell the surveyor without him asking?

Gwenrose

Richard_Webster wrote: »

Sorry but to me it looks like this.

Surveyor goes and looks at property. He is doing basic valuation for lender.

He finds something which on the face of it is odd, i.e apparent "garage" without a rear wall. He raises it in his report.

Buyers want to know what all this is about. Their solicitors ask about it. OP's solicitors presumably explain the background. Buyers not satisfied.

Really their lack of satisfaction is because they must have thought they were going to get a garage with a back wall. Goodness why they thought that, but evidently they did. Sensible buyer would have asked why there was no back wall - presumably they didn't ask, but merely assumed. If they had asked and OP had explained, they would have ignored the surveyor's comment as irrelevant.

Don't understand why surveyor is to blame or how he has any liability to OP.

If OP knew the property was odd in that it didn't have a rear wall to the garage because of the presence of the sewer, why didn't he tell the surveyor without him asking?

The surveyor was 25 minutes late and when I tried to talk to him he said that he prefered to assess the property on his own and he was in a rush as he had to do a survey on another property.
The buyers came to see our property twice. The first time it was raining and he did not go outside, but the second time he had a much better look as it was a nice sunny day, we discussed the garage and the fact that it was built with an open back and had always been open.

The surveyors report stated that there would have been a wall at the back of the garage and we had taken it down, any body with half an ounce of sence would have seen an electric and gas meter on the wall, a drain running through the garage and known that a wall could never have been there. But the buyers solicitor decided the surveyors report must be accurate and convinced the buyer that was the case.

The estate agent we are with now has said it is not a garage, it's a car port, it has a brick built outer wall, doors at the front and a very solid wooden roof which is felted, but we are now told it's a car port because it has no end brick wall, yet the surveyor for our ex buyer stated it was a garage, when we bought the house it was sold as a three bedroom semi detached house with garage.

No wonder I'm stressed.

silvercar

I've also had problems with Esurv. Very stroppy person who refused to answer my questions when I had paid for a homebuyers report (not just valuation). I had particularly asked him to look at something and he didn't mention it in his report. When I phoned to discuss it with him, he told me that he could choose what he looked at and what he didn't, so he had no comment to make. I asked him to clarify something in his report and he told me that, if I didn't understand what he had written, that was not his problem!

That purchase fell through. On the next property, Esurv were instructed by the lender again, so I left him do the valuation and privately arranged a full structural survey with a private surveyor. His stroppy attitude had lost him £1,000 business. The valuation he had written was factually incorrect in places! He (IMHO deliberately) made scathing comments about certain features and concluded that we should be having a full survey. With great satisfaction I sent him a fax to tell him that we had already had a full survey, that would have come his way, had he not been so unhelpful on the homebuyer's report on property 1!

Gwenrose

marybishop wrote: »

Just as an aside if he was only there for 5 mins it must have been a valuation survey. If the people who commissioned the survey were expecting an HB or full BS then they were clearly done! If ESURV are members of the RICS then I would phone the RICS and ask their advice on the matter.

Thanks for your advice, I've just phoned the RICS but was told as we were not the client who employed the surveyor, there was nothing we could do.

Conrad

Of course you can't hold someone liable when thier duty is merely to discharge a service for a lender.