Claiming on the sellers insurance for subsidence, is this legal?

becco

Hello,

We put an offer in on a house in Walthamstow, we had it accepted and have since carried out a full survey. Subsidence was found on the front bay windows and in the back where the bathroom was added in the 80's. The estate agent maintains they had no knowledge of this and will not reduce the sale price even though we have been quoted upwards of £40,000 to fix. The agent has said that we can take on the sellers insurance and claim for the work to be done and only pay the excess, this sounds like rubbish to me and possibly fraudulent. Can anyone here let me know what the actual facts are?

The front bay subsidence is visible on google street view from 2008 so we think the seller knew and possibly bought the house with knowledge of the issue, he has not claimed for any work on his insurance which I also think is odd (he has owned it since 2004). Our solicitors didn't receive the contract pack so I guess we will never know what the seller really knew about the issue.

We aren't going to proceed with the sale, its way over the valuation we also paid for and they aren't willing to budge at all on the price but I'd like to know on what basis the estate agent thought this was sound advice.

So is this normal practice or is it fraudulent and a load of old nonsense?

Tom99

If the seller has a valid claim they could start the claim before they exchange contracts with you since then they will still have an insurable interest in the property.
If you bought then tried a claim on insurance you had arranged it would fail on 1st inspection by the insurance co since it would be obvious the subsidence was not recent.
Even if a valid claim was started by the seller it will probably be years before the claim is finally settled and maybe very disrupted work complete so unless you bought at a very discounted price it would be one to avoid.

becco

Thanks Tom99, so as suspected the agent is taking the mick and there is no way we could claim for this afterwards. I think I will raise a complaint with the agents, it doesn't feel like something they should be advocating.

macman

You can't 'take on' someone else's insurance. You start your own policy, and your claim would be rejected as it was pre-existing. And, if undeclared, fraudulent.
Agent was just talking nonsense in the hope of salvaging the sale.

G_M

becco wrote: »

..... I'd like to know on what basis the estate agent thought this was sound advice.

On the basis that if you pull out they will not get paid their commission.

becco

Ha, yeah I guess so. If they had reduced the price by the cost of the work we would have been interested but the blatant lies are just too much.

KBNewby

Hiya, it is possible for the vendor to claim on their insurance and then transfer over to you on exchange as an ongoing concern. There is a technical term for it but I can't remember what it is!!

Zorillo

If it's been ongoing since 2008 (or earlier) it's unlikely an insurance company will pay. If there was a valid policy in place at the time the damage originated, surely they'd have claimed earlier.