House buying - a cautionary tale.

clarecooney

Hubby and I were half way through buying a house and have just potentially been rescued from absolute disaster.
The home report (Scottish single survey) for it was near enough spotless, it looked to be in great condition.
As part of the process, we were getting a valuation for the mortgage company and the surveyor came back to us with profound concerns that there may be a fundamental structural issue with the building that hadn't been picked up on the home report. Of particular concern to him was some cosmetic features that had recently been installed which effectively concealed bits that he needed to look at to confirm his theory. It looked very much as if they had deliberately covered up things that may reveal the issue.
We were understandably horrified and tried to get a specialist report done to see if we could verify what he was saying. If we wanted confirmation we weren't going to get it from a report but we would get it from the seller's reaction - they simply refused to return calls to allow access for the report to be done.

We quickly called time on the whole thing and withdrew our offer, feeling very sick at how close we may have come to being utterly knackered.

I will never proceed in future without getting a thorough building survey done.

My suspicion is that the sellers knew perfectly well that the place is not fit for sale and simply hoped to get shot of it under a pretence of not knowing. If they let the report be done, they'll be obligated to disclose it to future buyers.

I just feel very, very lucky to have had a sharp eyed surveyor - if he'd been as lackadaisical as the one who did the home report, I may have ended up financially ruined.

Moral of the story - always get your own survey done!

SG27

Thats interesting. So being in Scotland where the home report is already carried out do you still have recourse on the surveyor for missed defects such as this?

Who actually commisions the report? The vendor themselves?

clarecooney

Yes - it's a legal obligation for the seller to get a home report done but the home report isn't a full structural survey. However it should spot blindingly obvious structural defects. It's a report on condition of everything visible - windows, roofs, damp etc. It is really useful because it the buyers loads of information which helps you weed out hellholes without a visit. :-)
However, they're obviously a bit of a sausage making production line and clearly stuff slips through because they only spend a couple of hours in the place. From a legal standpoint, I think they exclude themselves for responsibility for things they can't get access to - so your argument would be with the seller and trying to prove that they knew and misrepresented the condition.
I feel so lucky - we have dodged a bullet.

davidmcn

SG27 wrote: »

Thats interesting. So being in Scotland where the home report is already carried out do you still have recourse on the surveyor for missed defects such as this?

Who actually commisions the report? The vendor themselves?

Yes and yes. If the buyer didn't have recourse then it would be a pointless system because they'd still have to get their own surveyor in (though as in this case, sometimes the lender will need their own valuation depending on their own policy and whether the Home Report surveyors are on their panel).

Having said that, the seller's reaction in this case may be more because they didn't want the hassle of further disruptive surveys, a possibly inconclusive verdict from a structural engineer, the buyer then trying to chip money off the price etc - they may prefer simply to remarket and find another buyer.

maisie_cat

Out of interest, what sort of defect are we talking about?
We are going to be looking soon and we were discussing whether to have as structural survey or not as the one on the house we are in was a disaster diagnosis wise. We were wondering whether a structural engineers report would be better.
We can cope and have done with most things but for example the gable end wall falling down would be beyond us.

clarecooney

dry rot - he thought the frame of the house was potentially disintegrating. It had lain empty for years with a damaged roof and been recently refurbished.

clarecooney

davidmcn wrote: »

Yes and yes. If the buyer didn't have recourse then it would be a pointless system because they'd still have to get their own surveyor in (though as in this case, sometimes the lender will need their own valuation depending on their own policy and whether the Home Report surveyors are on their panel).

Having said that, the seller's reaction in this case may be more because they didn't want the hassle of further disruptive surveys, a possibly inconclusive verdict from a structural engineer, the buyer then trying to chip money off the price etc - they may prefer simply to remarket and find another buyer.

I think that's exactly right - however, I think that paints them in a slightly more forgivable light than I currently feel.:eek:

martindow

It's hypothetical now that Clare has pulled out, but would would happen in Scotland if the sale had gone ahead?



Would the surveyor's insurance have to pay out the cost of repairs or difference in value? Or could it descend into a dispute about whether a surveyor should have noticed a problem and no certainty of recompense for the buyer?

davidmcn

martindow wrote: »

whatwould happen in Scotland if the sale had gone ahead?

Would the surveyor's insurance have to pay out the cost of repairs or difference in value? Or could it descend into a dispute about whether a surveyor should have noticed a problem and no certainty of recompense for the buyer?

It would be exactly the same situation as if she had commissioned her own survey. Really depends on the evidence - if it's something which is noticeable in the (relatively cursory) inspection done for a mortgage valuation then arguable that it ought to have been picked up in the more in-depth home report.

clarecooney

I imagine it would have been a big old bunfight over who was responsible.

It very clearly looks as though the sellers had made deliberate attempts to conceal the defects in order to try and get it past the home report and the home reports do contain caveats about what has not been examined.

I really posted this as a warning to other people to not cut corners.

A friend was consoling me and said how unlucky - but I don't feel unlucky - quite the opposite. I feel incredibly lucky to have dodged this because I didn't order a full survey. I just happened to have a valuer who was on the ball and questioned what he was seeing.
I will never leave anything to chance again.

maisie_cat

Were told that there was dry rot in the house we we were buying by the surveyor. A visit by an independent expert said the opposite and when we moved in we found that there was no dry rot at all. So surveyors can be wrong