Do I have a case against previous solicitors?

trippy

We are currently selling our house which we bought 3 years ago. It's a Victorian terrace with a loft conversion and single storey extension at the rear. We got a Homebuyer's Survey done when we bought it and both bits of work are mentioned in the Homebuyer's bit and under the Mortgage Valuation bit. In fact it specifically says in the valuation that the conveyancer should ascertain the situation with regard to planning permission and building regs.

These have never been obtained as they weren't needed when the work was done. We know it was carried out over 14 years ago as we know the people we bought from and it had already been done when they bought the house. We also have their survey dated 1993 which mentions the extension and conversion and shows they were already in place at that time.

Now we are selling the house and our buyers solicitor is asking for proof of when the conversion and extension were done. He's asking for us to buy indemnity insurance for £150 as we can't prove it wasn't done in the last 5 years. He will only accept a Statutory Declaration from the previous owners as proof - which obviously costs money & their time (which I don't feel I can ask from them).

We feel this should have been covered by our solicitor when we bought the house. It's not the one acting for us now so he doesn't know this problem has cropped up. Do we have a case to do something about it and what do we do?

kamaran

Why dont you ask your current solicitor to contact your previous one? Are you sure you didnt recieve copies of the permission and certificates when you were buying the property?

trippy

I am positive. I have checked all the correspondence from when we bought this house and there's no mention of any planning or building regs issue. I do know for a fact that neither have been obtained as nothing has come up in any searches.

zzzLazyDaisy

trippy wrote:

We also have their survey dated 1993 which mentions the extension and conversion and shows they were already in place at that time.

Does your soliitor know you have a copy of this survey? Surely it is proof that they were built more than 5 years ago?

Also, it is worth checking if the receipts for the extension ad conservatory are lodged with the deeds. If you have a mortgage, they may be with the building society.

Bossyboots

zzzLazyDaisy wrote:

Does your soliitor know you have a copy of this survey? Surely it is proof that they were built more than 5 years ago?

Also, it is worth checking if the receipts for the extension ad conservatory are lodged with the deeds. If you have a mortgage, they may be with the building society.

I would have thought that the survey from 1993 was sufficient. As your solicitor to send a copy to the buyer's solicitors pointing out to them the date.

A statutory declaration is simple to draw up. It simply needs to state the current names and address of the owners before you, a line stating the dates on which they lived at the address and a line stating that the conversion and extension were already in place when they bought the property and the year in which they bought it. This then needs to be signed in front of a solicitor and will cost £5 per person to be witnessed. This should be sufficient for the buyer's purposes. If you want to keep costs down you could do it yourselves or give it to your solicitor as a draft to do for you. By doing this you are causing your past vendors the minimum inconvenience, provided they can get to a solicitor to get it witnessed.

jazzyjustlaw

Even if you have a case you are talking about £150.00 and that is cheaper than funding litigation.

Bossyboots

jazzyjustlaw wrote:

Even if you have a case you are talking about £150.00 and that is cheaper than funding litigation.

Thats a good point. It is pretty galling though if the original solicitors have missed this. If that really is the case the OP could write to them asking them to refund the £150.

Having had a re-read of the original post, I am a bit surprised at the statement that planning permission wasn't needed. Our loft conversion is 25 years old and we have copies of the pp for that.

trippy

Hi, the loft conversion just has a velux window so didn't need pp. A copy of the 1993 survey is on its way to our solicitors but they've yet to ascertain whether this is sufficient. Thanks for the advice re drawing up our own Statutory Declaration - that may yet be necessary.

It's not so much the money but the delay in processing the whole thing. We were supposed be moved 2 weeks ago! It's annoying when it's the solicitor's fault in not checking everything was ok when we bought. We pay them money for their expertise. They don't do themselves any favours.