Vendor unable to provide SPIF or FFC forms

mariza_dim

Hello,

Wonder if anyone has been in a similar situation and what was the outcome?

We're in the process of buying a house which is owned by company. They rented it out to their employees until recently.

Our solicitor have just informed us that theThe Seller’s Solicitors have advised them of the following:

“I would like to highlight that it is not my client’s practice to answer CPSE or any other enquiries in these circumstances. My client does not have a central pool of information about the property and has no detailed knowledge of the property. There are no individuals within my client’s business who have had sole responsibility for the property. It is therefore not feasible for my client to make extensive enquiries internally given the size and nature of their business, to compile such information, which is what would be needed for any information to be regarded as reasonably complete and accurate.

No SPIF or FFC forms will be provided.”

Our solicitor said they now need to inform our Lender that they cannot fully investigate the property and wait until the Lender confirms that they are happy to proceed on this basis.

Are the missing forms likely to cause problems with our mortgage??

Thrugelmir

Your solicitor appears to have answered your question. As is totally at the discretion of the mortgage lender.

mariza_dim

Thank you. I was interested in hearing from people who have been in a similar situation and see what the outcome was for them.

stator

I doubt you will find many people in this position.

It wouldn't particularly bother me, but I would probably spend more money on having full surveys and inspections done on all the services in the house.

davidmcn

Pretty normal and similar to, say, repossessions or executry sales. I doubt the lenders care (they can't rely on the answers given by vendors anyway). You'll be advised to carry out your own due diligence rather than rely too much on the word of the sellers anyway.

mariza_dim

Thank you both. We've gone for a Home Buyers' Report (level 2 survey) which is scheduled for this Friday. Is there anything else we need to check?

eddddy

mariza_dim wrote: »

Thank you both. We've gone for a Home Buyers' Report (level 2 survey) which is scheduled for this Friday. Is there anything else we need to check?

Maybe look at a SPIF and see the information that would normally be provided - but you will not get.

For example, you will get no information about neighbour disputes, potential building regs / planning issues, flooding history, insurance problems/claims history etc.

Here's a blank specimen SPIF: https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/support-services/documents/TA6-form-specimen/

stator

mariza_dim wrote: »

Thank you both. We've gone for a Home Buyers' Report (level 2 survey) which is scheduled for this Friday. Is there anything else we need to check?

You might want to upgrade the home buyer survey to a full building survey.

Gas, Electric, Roof, Look for new additions / conversions or other changes to the fabric of the building. If there is anything added on you can check online if they had planning permission. You could ask the council if they had building control sign off for any extensions etc. If it has new windows you can buy a copy of the FENSA certificate.

Look for any trees near the house. Look at the flood maps.

Slinky

We bought a probate house and had a full survey. The surveyor found out from speaking with the neighbours that the extention had been underpinned. There is nothing obvious which shows the underpinning. The vendors could have pleaded ignorance of this seeing they had never lived in the property; I don't know if they would have done, we'd already discovered this and started asking questions prior to them filling out the TA6. They claimed not to know what caused it, there's no records, although you'd have thought it would have come up in conversation with their parents.



In your circumstances, the more people you can find who will know something about the property the better. Check out the planning portal/building control portal for the local council and see what that throws up. The building control signoff on the underpinning showed up there when we looked, however it could have been very offputting if we'd have discovered the underpinning very late on in the process.


A full survey could be money very well spent rather than the Home Buyers.


ETA Fensa certificates are all very well, but if it's not the whole house that's been done at the same time, the chances are you may find a certificate for a few windows and you can't work out which ones they are!