Exchanged contracts, then found out house was contaminated with asbestos

tlc678910

Hi,
Because you exchanged before your finances were in place I'm guessing you may have bought at auction?

If this was an ordinary residential sale (not at auction) you could try writing to the solicitor telling them that if you don't get your deposit back in full within 7 days the sellers will find themselves plastered all over the local media as shysters trying to pull a fast one selling a house that they had disguised serious problems. The mere thought would be mortifying to most people and their future house sale would then be a nightmare.

If as I suspect you bought at auction there is a greater expectation that you know what you are doing and investigate the property thoroughly or, if you do not, you take on a greater degree of risk.

Properties are usually sold at auction because they have problems (maybe unmortgageable) or because they have been repossessed in which case the seller might know next to nothing about the property and can answer not known for a lot of the questions.

If you can find the seller lied that will help you (although not knowing is not the same). If you bought at auction I expect you will lose your deposit if you cannot find clear evidence of lying about the property. Hopefully after that though the sellers will choose to remarket and move on. If they did try to sue you for a drop in value you would be arguing (in court?) that there was no drop in value but your offer was unrealistic due to the problems being concealed and the property was already worth less than your offer.

Good luck.

Edit: from looking back at your first post it sounds like you did not buy at auction (you mention estate agents) so go with option A. Threatening your "sad face" pictures in local media of losing your deposit and being homeless because they concealed problems with the house and your mortgage was pulled after exchange.

Doozergirl

haras_nosirrah wrote: »

It depends if he had a survey or a valuation.

Even if it's a valuation, they're supposed to be checking that the house provides proper security for a lender. If it doesn't and the mortgage company has issued an offer based on it being traditional construction, then there's a real issue.

Doozergirl

asbestosguy wrote: »

It sounds like it will get very expensive in professional fees, money i will never get back, i'm not going to sink another penny into this, they can sue me for anything they want, i will declare bankruptcy, i don't have the money my savings have virtually gone, just got enough to pay my current legal fees then i'll have to sack my solicitor, i'll be sleeping on a friends sofa at the end of the month.

Is this a wind up? I'm surprised you posted if you're not interested in helping yourself. Yes, there are fees but some work with your solicitor might find how this happened and turn it back on the vendor. Or, you might find that the house isn't so much to panic about.

Bankruptcy would affect your life heavily for the next several years and isn't to be taken lightly. It's not the end of the world, but it's not fun.

The end of your tenancy is a whole other issue that people can help with. Who gave notice to whom?

Soot2006

Do you have a mortgage offer, or not? On what basis was it issued?

Thrugelmir

haras_nosirrah wrote: »

It depends if he had a survey or a valuation.

The remit from the lenders perspective is that the property provides suitable security for the advance.

eddddy

This can't be the whole story.

You make it sound like you found this property via an EA, and went on to exchange contracts in 'the normal way', but before securing a mortgage.

Your solicitor would have almost been 'screaming in your face' about how risky that is.


So if you explain more of the circumstances of how you bought the property, you might get some better advice. (For example, was it a pre-auction offer?)

m0bov

School holidays......

CocoLouie

theartfullodger

If it's only white asbestos and if it's not interfered with, not a problem. Blue asbestos is a problem though.

haras_nosirrah

Thrugelmir wrote: »

The remit from the lenders perspective is that the property provides suitable security for the advance.

It is possible that the property does provide suitable security for the lender and the op is panicking because there is some asbestos (which a lot of properties have and isn't an issue necessarily) in which case he has no complaint and just not wanting to complete is not a get out clause.

It is possible the lenders valuer missed something which would have made the property unmortgagable in which case he has a stronger case

We don't know as we don't actually know if the op has a mortgage offer from a lender as he hasn't told us.

It could be he has heard the word asbestos and panicked when the property is actually ok and fully mortgagable and he is making a mountain out of a molehill

We don't know.