House repairs & guarantees

Sambashoes

Hello all

I'm buying a house which has had some repair work carried out by the vendor as a condition of purchase. The seller's contractor carried out simple chimney repairs to strengthen it, and repointing on the internal and external brickwork. However, there is no guarantee.

Does anyone know whether there should always be a guarantee regardless of what kind of repair is work carried out?

Thanks,

mrginge

This is why you don!!!8217;t get a vendor to do repair work.

davidmcn

No "should" about it in general (particularly for minor works), and in any event a guarantee isn't necessarily transferable to subsequent owners.

Sambashoes

mrginge wrote: »

This is why you don!!!8217;t get a vendor to do repair work.

Yes, I know. It's a bit too late for such advice And I took advice from experienced people whose own sellers did good jobs.

I now need to figure my way around this situation!

G_M

Sambashoes wrote: »

.... some repair work carried out by the vendor as a condition of purchase. The seller's contractor carried out simple chimney repairs to strengthen it, and repointing on the internal and external brickwork. However, there is no guarantee.

Does anyone know whether there should always be a guarantee regardless of what kind of repair is work carried out?

There are two aspects to this.

1) practical advice for others in this situation:
Never get repairs done by a seller (who has no incentive to get it done properly). Either just wait till you own and get the job done properly yourself, or negotiate a discount on the purchase price to reflect the work needed, and then......wait till you own and get the job done properly yourself!

2) your legal situation.
a) no there is no requirement for any contractor to offer a warranty or guarantee
b) but yes there is leglislation that any work done is 'fit for purpose'. However this is dependant on a contract, which in this case is between the seller and the contractor, so.....sorry, no, you cannot enforce it.


Your only hope would be to pursuade the seller to complain to the contractor about the quality of the work.

Cakeguts

Withdraw your offer and find a different house. The next purchasers of that one will hopefully have a survey done that will pick up any shoddy work.

eddddy

If you want, you could instruct a surveyor to inspect the repairs, to see if they have been done well.

Obviously, you would have to pay the surveyor's fee for this (unless you can persuade the seller to pay - which seems unlikely).