Vendor claiming work was done prior to their purchase (photos suggest it wasn't)

KatieDee

D_M_E wrote: »

Go on Rightmove, select house prices and input the postcode for the property and press enter.
Next, select sort by address.

They bought it 14 years ago so if it was on Rightmove then then there could still be photos available to the right of the address, if there is a picture will show, click on it and have a look through the page that comes up.

Great idea - the property next door is on there and sold in 2001. The garage is definitely there then!

SG27 wrote: »

My thoughts would be if they did do the work why lie about it? What are they hiding?

My thoughts exactly - unless they assumed it was just too much hassle to get the documents. She mentioned the conversion several times during the viewing but I honestly can't remember if she said they'd done it, or if she said it was done when they moved in. They don't strike me as being particularly dishonest (although I guess very few people do) and the house itself is in such a good condition in general, I cannot see it being a botch job. The surveyor didn't have any negative to say, at least.

Davesnave

If your surveyor thinks the conversion was done around 25 years ago, why would you challenge this?


It's possible that when the interior conversion was done, the garage door was retained for a time to avoid drawing unwelcome attention to it.

Thrugelmir

KatieDee wrote: »

or perhaps they didn't need permission to make interior amendments (which I believe is the case for garage conversions).

What's the quality of the insulation like. Garages were never built to retain warmth.

When I converted one back in 2005. I recall one aspect was to have the concrete floor dug up and insulated fully.

KatieDee

Thrugelmir wrote: »

What's the quality of the insulation like. Garages were never built to retain warmth.

When I converted one back in 2005. I recall one aspect was to have the concrete floor dug up and insulated fully.

It seemed fine when we were in there (viewed in February, so it was quite cold outside). I cannot comment on the insulation but it didn't appear to be lacking. The overall standard seemed very high and this was confirmed by the surveyor.

Davesnave wrote: »

If your surveyor thinks the conversion was done around 25 years ago, why would you challenge this?


It's possible that when the interior conversion was done, the garage door was retained for a time to avoid drawing unwelcome attention to it.

That's a really good suggestion, I hadn't thought of that. Windows were installed again in 2013, so perhaps she had the door removed then?

I have no reason to doubt the surveyor but I assume he's going on the word of the vendor and Googlemaps clearly shows that in 2009, it still had a garage door.

Yellow_mango

When we bought our house the vendor was clearly not remotely interested in answering questions or providing documentation. They ticked “no” on the PIF where it asked whether any building work had ever been carried out on the property. This was patently false (there is a very obvious “extension”). They also claimed no knowledge of gas or electrical installation when this had clearly taken place fairly recently and within the period of their ownership.

We ended up just getting indemnity insurance (which the lawyers insisted on and the vendors paid for).

I reached the conclusion that provided we were comfortable it was structurally sound, it was a risk we were happy with.

After we moved in we found the boiler installation certificate in the instruction manual left underneath the boiler for example. I reckon it wasn’t so much dishonesty, as that they had just checked out of the process and couldn’t be bothered to try and find documents.

KatieDee

Yellow_mango wrote: »

When we bought our house the vendor was clearly not remotely interested in answering questions or providing documentation. They ticked “no” on the PIF where it asked whether any building work had ever been carried out on the property. This was patently false (there is a very obvious “extension”). They also claimed no knowledge of gas or electrical installation when this had clearly taken place fairly recently and within the period of their ownership.

We ended up just getting indemnity insurance (which the lawyers insisted on and the vendors paid for).

I reached the conclusion that provided we were comfortable it was structurally sound, it was a risk we were happy with.

After we moved in we found the boiler installation certificate in the instruction manual left underneath the boiler for example. I reckon it wasn’t so much dishonesty, as that they had just checked out of the process and couldn’t be bothered to try and find documents.

Thank you for taking the time to reply

I'm quite confident that the conversion is structurally sound and has been done properly, I'm just not sure why they wouldn't admit to the work if they'd done it.

I'm thinking of asking for another viewing under the guise or measuring up, then asking the vendor. There are a few other things we need to ask about anyway, so it would help me feel slightly more at ease if I could just confirm a few things.

I just want to know we're not getting massively ripped off, or are buying something that we might struggle with if we come to sell. We didn't get any 3's on our survey, mostly 1's, and I thought things were going a bit too well

Will wait to hear back from the surveyor and our solicitor (I've emailed them both for some guidance) and consider our options from there. I would be so sad if we couldn't proceed with this purchase, so I hope it's just a mix up.

Thrugelmir

KatieDee wrote: »

It seemed fine when we were in there (viewed in February, so it was quite cold outside). I cannot comment on the insulation but it didn't appear to be lacking. The overall standard seemed very high and this was confirmed by the surveyor.

You'll only know for sure when you struggle to keep the room warm in winter.

Albala

Just as an aside, if anyone is concerned about a seller not having a boiler's installation certificate, if it's recent, and was properly registered (as it should have been when installed) a note of it should be on the gassafe website, if you put in the address.

https://www.gassaferegister.co.uk/notifications/search-for-a-notification/

markin

Yellow_mango wrote: »

When we bought our house the vendor was clearly not remotely interested in answering questions or providing documentation. They ticked “no” on the PIF where it asked whether any building work had ever been carried out on the property. This was patently false (there is a very obvious “extension”). They also claimed no knowledge of gas or electrical installation when this had clearly taken place fairly recently and within the period of their ownership.

We ended up just getting indemnity insurance (which the lawyers insisted on and the vendors paid for).

I reached the conclusion that provided we were comfortable it was structurally sound, it was a risk we were happy with.

After we moved in we found the boiler installation certificate in the instruction manual left underneath the boiler for example. I reckon it wasn’t so much dishonesty, as that they had just checked out of the process and couldn’t be bothered to try and find documents.

The cert should have been found in the searches, you didn't just buy blind did you?

Davesnave

Thrugelmir wrote: »

You'll only know for sure when you struggle to keep the room warm in winter.

The insulation and re-screeding of the floor and digging new foundations where the door was are among the big turn-offs for those wanting to convert garages and meet the regs.

To be fair, a modern garage conversion, done correctly, will probably result in a structure better insulated than the house it's attached to.

How warm it is will also depend on other factors, like aspect. Our garage conversion has 3 exterior walls and only receives direct sunshine in winter in the early morning, so for us insulation was top of the agenda.