Just moved in and house unlivable

arkenm

Hi,

I'm hoping somebody here has some experience with moving into a house that is unlivable and left in a terrible state. Me and my girlfriend bought and completed on a house today, after showing around our parents it becomes clear that whenever you flush the toilet the drains are blocked.

After flushing the toilet water starts leaking onto the floor, we then call out Aqua Blast to come and sort the drains. It then comes to light that this is an accumulation of months of ignoring the problem that has led to this. Seller must have been aware as an attempt to fix this was made, they found draining rods broken off in the pipe and then left. These rods as of typing this are still there and need to be removed before it could be deemed livable.

After them working on it the only way to stop the leaking is the either remove the waste pipe or unblock, in the interest of keeping our new home faeces free we decide for them to unblock as the pipe is "full of human waste". Doing this leads to faeces all over the downstairs bathroom which then goes into the kitchen and has now ruined the floor.

On top of this the upstairs bathroom has continued leaking and is now leaking toilet water and god knows what through the ceiling and on to the downstairs hallway floor. As this is contained in a poorly fitted toilet it has been leaking for months and finally hit tipping point when we go to move in.

My question is, although we have building and contents insurance (I assume this is covered but as we have only just got our cover apparently we need to wait 48 hours to claim? We are with sunlife insurance) but is there any legal recourse to the seller to cover the cost of the aqua blast call out. This charge has only solved "part" of the problem and we will need to call them out again to actually make the toilets usable.

If anybody has been though something similar or could shed some insight I'd really appreciate it.

Not the move in day we were hoping!

silvercar

What did your survey say? I would guess that it said you need to obtain a full drainage survey. I would also guess that you didn't bother, as a survey comes with so many caveats people generally assume that the previous occupants lived in the property without major hassle, so expect the same.

If you live in England or Wales, I doubt you can claim from anyone and put this down to some extra expenditure that comes with buying a property. If you are in Scotland, you have 14 days to notify problems for the seller to fix.

Robby1988

The only chance you have of any compensation is if you ordered a survey that covered drainage and they missed it, you could then claim against the surveyor. The sellers, unfortunately have no responsibility as it's your job as the buyer to get things checked out before you buy. This is why you get sellers covering up problems because once the contracts have exchanged the baton is passed onto you, so to speak.

I made this mistake when I bought my first property - never scrimp on surveys! ,

Must say though (others posters may correct me), i'm not sure a blocked drain would come up on many surveys unless you asked for it to be looked at specifically through a drains survey. Unless the property you have bought is very old, you could be forgiven for not having this done and i'd say you've been unlucky. Next time you are buying a house, flush the toilet a few times on your second viewing

Slithery

Did the surveyor that you commissioned before purchasing state that the toilet was in proper working order? If so then you may have a claim against him.

Was the toilet in proper working order when you tested it prior to exchange?

If you did neither of the above then your house, your problem I'm afraid.

Also this probably won't be covered by your insurance as it was a pre-existing problem before your policy was taken out.

davidmcn

arkenm wrote: »

we have building and contents insurance (I assume this is covered

I would doubt that any of it is covered, but you need to check your policy to make sure.

Gwendo40

I also doubt this would be covered by insurance as it's classed as a maintenance (or lack of) issue.

moneyistooshorttomention

Sympathies that the vendors pulled that one on you - and my suspicions too would be that there isn't any comeback on this.

How are you managing for a loo whilst this is being sorted out - or are you postponing moving in until it has been?

The_Palmist

Was the house vacant ?

I am surprised and shocked how they managed to live with this problem.

eddddy

arkenm wrote: »

My question is, although we have building and contents insurance (I assume this is covered but as we have only just got our cover apparently we need to wait 48 hours to claim? We are with sunlife insurance)

As others say, this is very unlikely to be covered by your insurance.

If you contact your insurers, they are likely to record this as a loss incident (even if no claim is made or paid), which is likely to increase future premiums.

Even worse, if they send out an assessor who then decides it's not covered, it will be recorded as a claim - as the insurance company will have to pay the assessor.

Unless you've read your policy are pretty sure that this is covered, it's best not to contact them.

davidmcn

Even if there was some sort of add-on cover for emergency tradespeople, it's not going to cover faults which already existed at the time the policy started.

AdrianC

A toilet that isn't flushing is IMMEDIATELY visually obvious from the water level. It won't continue to flush above the rim - by design. Unless the water level is massively raised, it won't leak.

And what sort of utterly incompetent plumber can't unblock a bog without covering several rooms in the contents of the drains...?

Sorry, but this sounds a lot like there's some... embellishment... at the very least.