Home Report Questionnaire

maz289

I have recently purchase a house and discovered there is asbestos in the roof of the garage. The home report says the surveyor didn’t check the inside of the garage and the seller ticked ‘no’ on the questionnaire asking if he was aware of asbestos. It has now come to light that he did know (we have been in the property for 3 weeks now) and he got a new external roof on the garage 3 years ago as well as a quote to remove the asbestos. I called our lawyer and they claim that as it’s by the 5 days, there is nothing they can do. My issue is that he knowingly lied re the asbestos as the home report questionnaire specifically asks. We would not offered as much on the house as we did as it’s costing over £2000 to remove. 

Does anyone have any experience with this/do I have any rights to compensation? 

Alter_ego

Scotland? 

davilown

Why remove the asbestos? Is it damaged? 

user1977

5 days doesn't have anything to do with it, that's only the time limit for things such as plumbing not being in working order. But as above, what's the need to remove the asbestos? 

maz289

We went to convert the garage. My main issue is the seller lied on the home report questionnaire about the asbestos - that’s why I’m wondering if I have anywhere to go with this. 

user1977

maz289 said:

We went to convert the garage. My main issue is the seller lied on the home report questionnaire about the asbestos - that’s why I’m wondering if I have anywhere to go with this. 

In theory you may have a claim against the seller, but I'm not sure whether your loss is significant enough to make a claim worthwhile - asbestos is pretty commonplace, and there's unlikely to be much difference in market value between a property where the presence of asbestos is unknown, and one where it's known, especially if the removal is only because you want to carry out conversion work rather than because the asbestos is currently a health risk.

SpiderLegs

user1977 said:

maz289 said:

We went to convert the garage. My main issue is the seller lied on the home report questionnaire about the asbestos - that’s why I’m wondering if I have anywhere to go with this. 

In theory you may have a claim against the seller, but I'm not sure whether your loss is significant enough to make a claim worthwhile - asbestos is pretty commonplace, and there's unlikely to be much difference in market value between a property where the presence of asbestos is unknown, and one where it's known, especially if the removal is only because you want to carry out conversion work rather than because the asbestos is currently a health risk.

The loss is the additional cost of removing the asbestos.
Whilst point about it not being an issue unless it gets disturbed Is true, the point is that it is going to be disturbed and that will then realise an extra cost to the OP that they were not informed about, despite a direct question to the seller.

OP should send the seller a LBA and if necessary go to court, requesting that they pay the additional costs. 

dimbo61

£2,000 to remove the roof WOW.
We had several quotes to remove a garage roof with possible asbestos in the material from £500/600 with registered asbestos experts fully licensed and insured.
Are you trying to get the former owners to pay for your extension ?
Good luck on suing them 

Irishpearce26

Im pretty sure if they did tick the box you would have still bought the house.

You will have to pay costs to go after them for compensation and if and a big if, you win the amount will not be any where near what you're looking for.