Two weeks to completion - garden flooded!

AndyTails

alhenderson wrote: »

I thought it would be the buyer's responsibility, but I asked our solicitors and they said it was probably ours! Might all be a moot point anyway, just talked to the Anglia Water man, and it looks like the problem is with the water main on the path outside our garden. Which would be good news! Flow has abated somewhat, too, so not looking too bad.

If it's the mains pipe, do we have any recourse if the drive needs repairing? Or is that down to our insurance?

Al

The contract you exchanged with your buyer probably has words along the lines of you providing the property on completion in the same state as it was at exchange. Therefore, if it wasn't Anglian's responsibility, it would be yours.

My understanding is that the reason the buyer has buildings insurance from exchange, is the buyer's mortgage company worrying that if damage occurs you might declare bankruptcy to get out of fixing it. In reality this is very unlikely, as it would require the damage to be greater than the equity in your house, and you to be desperate enough to prefer bankruptcy. But the buyer's mortgage company has no idea of your financial state, so they require insurance to cover their behinds.

alhenderson

AndyTails wrote: »

The contract you exchanged with your buyer probably has words along the lines of you providing the property on completion in the same state as it was at exchange. Therefore, if it wasn't Anglian's responsibility, it would be yours.

My understanding is that the reason the buyer has buildings insurance from exchange, is the buyer's mortgage company worrying that if damage occurs you might declare bankruptcy to get out of fixing it. In reality this is very unlikely, as it would require the damage to be greater than the equity in your house, and you to be desperate enough to prefer bankruptcy. But the buyer's mortgage company has no idea of your financial state, so they require insurance to cover their behinds.

Thanks for that. I did wonder why I needed to keep my buildings insurance if the buyer also had it.

Anglian Water are digging up the path outside the house as we speak, so hopefully everything can dry out and I can get back to packing boxes

Al.

eddddy

AndyTails wrote: »

The contract you exchanged with your buyer probably has words along the lines of you providing the property on completion in the same state as it was at exchange. Therefore, if it wasn't Anglian's responsibility, it would be yours.

<snip>

Your info is out of date - it changed with the 5th Edition of the Standard Conditions of Sale (which have been around since about 2011).

As this solicitor explains, risk passes to the buyer on exchange of contracts. So the water damage is the buyer's responsibility.

Even if if property is burnt to the ground between exchange and completion, the buyer still has to buy it:

CHANGES MADE BY THE FIFTH EDITION OF THE STANDARD CONDITIONS OF SALE

Probably the most important change made by the fifth edition is the amendment of SCS 5.1 to provide for the risk to pass to the buyer on exchange, as it would under the general law. That contrasts with the position in each of the previous editions of the SCS, under which SCS 5.1 provided that the seller retained the risk until completion (though without being under any obligation to insure) and the buyer was given the right to rescind if at any time before completion the physical state of the property made it unusable for its purpose at the date of the contract.

...

The contract does not oblige the buyer to insure the property, but the buyer will normally be well-advised to do so, since, in contrast to the position under the earlier editions, he will now be obliged to complete even if the property is reduced to a smoking ruin between exchange and the completion date.

Link: http://www.radcliffechambers.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Handout_merged_Handout.pdf