Please help: Mis-sold house, who’s at fault?

AdrianC

bobobski wrote: »

Their surveyor advised them to check that the lawyers had all the paperwork and the lawyers confirmed that they did not have all of the paperwork.

This really is the key detail.

Rob-123

Bobobski- firstly I paid £2000 to sell and buy through the solicitor. Secondly where the surveyor wrote about the legal representative checking certificates etc, was under a title named ‘Issues for the solicitor’ which as the solicitor was pestering me for a copy of the survey, I thought was a section that they had to read and go by.

AdrianC - they actually said they didn’t have to provide the document (making it sound like there was one) because the work was a certain amount of years ago... but now I know it wasn’t completed, how could my solicitor be sure how many years ago the conversion was done if it was never signed off... for all I now know the previous owners were still working on it this year. If anything, our solicitor has taken the sellers solicitors word for it that the loft conversion was built a certain amount of years ago and not delved any further to investigate whether a completion certificate was ever issued.

Doozergirl

I agree with you, OP. I think the solicitor has made quite an error. I have bought and sold a lot of houses, and got Building Control sign off on many more. The exact wording:

“Our search has revealed a building regulation for a loft conversion, however due to the age of this, the sellers solicitors have not provided a copy.”

says two things to me.

a). Searches do reveal Building Control sign off so I would read from this that it has been obtained but that the vendor doesn’t have the certificate. The solicitor doesn’t feel a need to obtain one.
b) I would also have assumed some sort of a typo. “there is a building regulation for a loft conversion” makes no actual sense. But you aren’t to know or understand that. Given what you are telling us about the person you dealt with, I’d question if she really knew what she was looking for.

I’d go for the jugular.

First question: What exactly did that search reveal? They are saying that it revealed something to do with buiodong regulations and that is either correct or incorrect. If the council say ‘nay’ then your solicitor does have a problem.

I’m not entirely sure what people think the relevance of it being 10-12 years old is. The regulations aren’t going to be much different, regardless!

ReadingTim

Rob-123 wrote: »

‘The search has revealed building regulation for a loft conversion. Due to the age of the same the sellers solicitors have not provided us a copy of the document’.

To me they worded it as if a certificate existed but because they knew when it was built they didn’t need to see it. Also now we know it wasn’t signed off and therefore completed, surely the solicitors claim that - due to the age the sellers solicitor didn’t need to produce the document, doesn’t stand?

It does stand, but you haven't followed up on this response to get to the final answer. It is entirely valid to say that you don't need to supply a copy of the document because it's over x years old. You, via your advisers should have then asked that, notwithstanding the fact that it's over x years old, would the vendor please supply proof that the conversion is compliant with building regulations (or whatever) from a safety/construction perspective, rather than a council enforcement perspective. If they are unable to do that, you should have asked your solicitor of the likely implications of proceeding without it.

Maybe your solicitor should have been more proactive with this, maybe not. But as they admitted the vendor hadn't sent them all the paperwork, you should have dug your heels in and insisted upon it, or more fully explored the implications of not having it.

bobobski

Rob-123 wrote: »

Bobobski- firstly I paid £2000 to sell and buy through the solicitor. Secondly where the surveyor wrote about the legal representative checking certificates etc, was under a title named ‘Issues for the solicitor’ which as the solicitor was pestering me for a copy of the survey, I thought was a section that they had to read and go by.

Ok, so your previous statement that you paid them £2,000 is irrelevant then, as you paid them that sum for a lot more work on multiple matters of which this purchase was just one.


My point remains as before though. I do feel for you in this situation but I query why you didn't read what they'd written and raise questions on it at the relevant time. It sounds like that's because you made various assumptions about people's professional obligations to you, rather than because they actually told you outright mistruths. It's a nasty way to learn a lesson I know, but nothing you've said makes me think anyone's breached their obligations to you (depending on the specific terms of your contracts, of course).

Surrey_EA

bobobski wrote: »

See, but it is. It's a lesson to OP for future dealings in property. OP paid for professionals to carry out work to progress their purchase but apparently did not read any of the paperwork provided to them. Their surveyor advised them to check that the lawyers had all the paperwork and the lawyers confirmed that they did not have all of the paperwork. At what point does one take responsibility for themselves?

I would expect a solicitor to be highlighting which elements within the property did not have the required paperwork, and pointing out what the implications were.

Most buyers go through the house buying process so infrequently that most don't know what they're looking for in the paperwork sent by their solicitor.

bobobski

Just to add to my previous points, I don't think people are placing enough weight on the following from the original post:

Rob-123 wrote: »

On the fixtures/fittings paperwork completed by the vendors, they have written loft conversion in 2005, and then It says do you have copies of building reg certificates, to which they have ticked ‘enclosed’ but the only certificate we ever recieved was for the electrical installation to the loft which is dated May 2016. (This is surely misleading as at the time I thought they had enclosed a copy to their solicitor?)

...


I bought the house thinking the solicitor knew something I didn’t about the age of the work, and therefore the sellers solicitor didn’t need to supply a copy of the certificate. But there is no way the solicitor could have know when it was complete. Anyone know where I stand?

The buyer and their solicitor are not a team of people buying a property together. Ultimately the buyer should have all relevant knowledge provided by their various professional advisers. If they don't, it's for the buyer to follow that up and ask why information hasn't been provided and what are the implications of not having various documents. It's not enough to say "I thought xyz LLP knew something I didn't".

bobobski

Surrey_EA wrote: »

I would expect a solicitor to be highlighting which elements within the property did not have the required paperwork, and pointing out what the implications were.

Most buyers go through the house buying process so infrequently that most don't know what they're looking for in the paperwork sent by their solicitor.

And how does the solicitor know how much you know? Surely, at the fees they're charging, it's reasonable for them to assume that you're reading everything they send you and you're asking questions where you don't understand. It's not their job to hold your hand and teach you the ins and outs of residential property ownership.

Surrey_EA

bobobski wrote: »

It's not their job to hold your hand and teach you the ins and outs of residential property ownership.

I would say that's a pretty much exactly what a conveyancing solicitor should be doing.

Otherwise what are you paying a solicitor for, may as well do the conveyancing yourself.

AdrianC

Rob-123 wrote: »

AdrianC - they actually said they didn’t have to provide the document (making it sound like there was one) because the work was a certain amount of years ago...

And they were right in that - the certificate doesn't carry any functional weight at all after this long, because the LA can't take any enforcement action against a lack of sign-off.

Lack of sign-off does not necessarily mean the work was done badly. In this case, it may have been - or you may simply be expecting too much.

If you want to get retrospective sign-off for it, which seems to be what you're asking the council for, then that will involve bringing it to 2017 standard instead of 2005 standard - which is what it would(/should) have originally been built to. There will have been several changes and upgrades in that period, and it's massively unlikely that something built to 2005 standard would pass 2017 standard without changes, even if it would have met the applicable standard at the time. Part L is the section of Building Regs concerned with conservation of energy. The 2002 standard that was applicable in 2005 (with some interim changes that year) was then completely changed in 2006 ("the biggest change to energy-conservation requirements in buildings in over 20 years"), before BR themselves were completely overhauled in 2010, and Part L was updated again in 2014. If you want a complete history of the changes, then... https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/200135/approved_documents/74/part_l_-_conservation_of_fuel_and_power/7

There really are three issues you're conflating here.

1. Should your solicitor have made you aware of the lack of sign-off paperwork? It sounds as if they could have made it more explicit that there was no paperwork proving sign-off had happened, sure, but even that's different to a lack of the sign-off ever happening - documentation goes missing over the years. All the clues you needed were in place - you knew the BR doc had not been supplied to your solicitor (whether it had been supplied to their solicitor is irrelevant), and you knew the surveyor told you to ensure it was available. You - wittingly or unwittingly - accepted that omission.

2. Is lack of BR sign-off going to lead to any enforcement action? This is the question your solicitor answered in saying it "didn't have to be provided". Simply - no, there is no comeback that can happen now.

3. Was the conversion work completed to a standard that's currently acceptable to you? You're the only one who can answer that... But even that is totally separate from any sign-off or not a dozen years ago. Lack of sign-off does not mean it was not built to standard. You're going to have to start dismantling to find that out... But even if it wasn't, there's still no come-back available to you.