Should solicitor check for asbestos?

Legacy_user

Hello. I bought a flat in Edinburgh, it was built back in the 60s by council for the purpose of council flats. I had no idea about asbestos still being present in flats. While getting quotes for central heating, I found out from Scottish Gas that it's most likely present. I then requested this information from the council based on the FOI act and found out it is indeed present. I want to to know whether my solicitor should have checked for that? In the home report it did say the asbestos check was outside the scope of the survey but in the seller survey they said "no". I want to sell this flat in the future and I'm concerned the value of the flat has just dropped since I now know there's asbestos and will have to to say about that in the survey when selling. What do I do?

davidmcn

What checks do you think your solicitor ought to have done? An FOI request is only going to be relevant if it was built by a public authority, and even then I wouldn't expect them to have definitive records of what their predecessors' contractors may or may not have used.

The possibility of there being asbestos is normally at least alluded to in surveys - so what did yours say? How did the sellers answer the question about asbestos in the home report questionnaire? And where do Scottish Gas think your asbestos is?

Robin9

1960's and asbestos is guaranteed - it was still being used until the 1990's.

Kitchen sink, floor tiles, boiler pipes .............. But not an issue on a day to day basis.

Browntoa

Most 1960's properties have asbestos in them , flues from fires and boiler's for example

1970's buildings in artex and flues

It's not unusual

G_M

foch wrote: »

......I want to to know whether my solicitor should have checked for that? In the home report it did say the asbestos check was outside the scope of the survey but in the seller survey they said "no".

Clearly your solicitor should have visited the property and personally checked for asbestos, taking samples as required and sending them off for analysis.

System

Thanks for your reply. I'm new with these things, but I'd assume I pay big money to solicitors to do all possible checks for me. He knew the property is in an old council flats building. If I could go and get this information from the council why have they not done it?

System

G_M wrote: »

Clearly your solicitor should have visited the property and personally checked for asbestos, taking samples as required and sending them off for analysis.

I sense sarcasm in your reply which there's no need for. What I mean is, if they knew this is a building built by council, I'd think they would check the building plans in some archives or something (I'm not an expert and this is why I pay solicitors for, to be experts for me)

Slithery

As already noted above there was no reason for them to check. All properties of that age are expected to contain asbestos.


As long as you don't disturb it it poses no risk.

System

Slithery wrote: »

As already noted above there was no reason for them to check. All properties of that age are expected to contain asbestos. As long as you don't disturb it it poses no risk.

Thanks for your reply. The flat is a maisonette and I want to run central heating as everything's running on electricity. So I guess will need to get it removed.

System

davidmcn wrote: »

How did the sellers answer the question about asbestos in the home report questionnaire? And where do Scottish Gas think your asbestos is?

The survey said no asbestos. Scottish Gas believed there's some used in the boiler which is ancient. I've had asbestos check few days ago and it's present in all ceilings.

da_rule

foch wrote: »

The survey said no asbestos. Scottish Gas believed there's some used in the boiler which is ancient. I've had asbestos check few days ago and it's present in all ceilings.

Sounds like your gripe should be with the person who did the survey.

The solicitor is there to ensure that the legal title is good and marketable.