Compensation from estate agent for mismeasuring 25 October 2022 at 11:56PM in House buying, renting & selling 52 replies 6K views

taking_time

Hi
We bought a house in lockdown. Had to move due to work. Were issues seeing it more than once.

Moved in, couldn't fit in our furniture as estate agents had got measurement wrong of a room. It's had big impact on us. Can't afford all new furniture. 

Another estate agent told us the room measurements on the ad we bought it from were out by more than the allowed amount and we could get compensation. This was when we were getting it valued to resell due to the issue with it being too small. 

Anyone claimed for compensation and got it?  How much could we get?

Reason not done it so far is because the sellers estate agent sell a lot of houses in the area and we don't want it to cause us issues if we want to stay in the area when we buy another house 

Apologies for awful phrasing.

Thank you 

user1977

taking_time said:

We bought a house in lockdown. Had to move due to work. Were issues seeing it more than once.

Moved in, couldn't fit in our furniture as estate agents had got measurement wrong of a room. It's had big impact on us. Can't afford all new furniture. 

Another estate agent told us the room measurements on the ad we bought it from were out by more than the allowed amount and we could get compensation. This was when we were getting it valued to resell due to the issue with it being too small. 

Anyone claimed for compensation and got it?  How much could we get?

Reason not done it so far is because the sellers estate agent sell a lot of houses in the area and we don't want it to cause us issues if we want to stay in the area when we buy another house 

Not sure whether it makes a difference to the answer, but it might help if you told us how much the discrepancy was.

Are you saying you can't afford different furniture for one room, but you can afford to move house again purely because of this issue?

NameUnavailable

Every set of details I've seen from EA's state something along the lines that all measurements are approximate and for guidance only and purchasers should make their own checks etc.

elsien

Google highlights a case where it was quite a large discrepancy and the compensation was £1000. I suspect you were hoping for more than that.
https://www.theprs.co.uk/Resource/ViewFile/122

Yours must have been one heck of a discrepancy if it means you having to move, although I’d expect if it was that big a difference you’d have noticed when you went to look around?
Do they not always say that if you have specific furniture you want to take you need to measure yourself to check it’s going to fit? 

Utterlyconfused81

Do they not always say that if you have specific furniture you want to take you need to measure yourself to check it’s going to fit? 

That has certainly been the case for us sadly on a few occasions, we've looked at the listing, seen the room dimensions listed by the agent thinking maybe it'll be okay and then once been and measured up thought nope this will not work.

aoleks

No, forget about it. Who buys furniture based on a floorplan, haha?

you won’t get compensation.

Flugelhorn

remember visiting a property about 30 years ago  and the  master bedroom was supposed to be 26 ft by 12 ... or something like that  - obviously wasn't, I think the estate agents new fangled measuring device must have reflected off the mirror fronted wardrobes  - it was about 12x 11 but so obvious it wasn't a problem. Maybe they had noticed but not so easy to change all the printed details in those days.

Not a hope complaining about floor sizes as you had seen the property, it wasn't something delivered as mail-order and you relied only on written instructions

PS surely more expensive to sell and buy again rather  than just buying new furniture?

lookstraightahead

Which room was it? 

You're reselling because the dimensions in a room were wrong? How much was the furniture and what is the difference in the room size? Is this furniture you bought after you completed on the sale or furniture you took with you?

I can't imagine anyone buying new furniture before completion, so theoretically it's not for the new house, and after completion you would measure the space yourself, surely?

Flugelhorn

lookstraightahead said:

I can't imagine anyone buying new furniture before completion, so theoretically it's not for the new house, and after completion you would measure the space yourself, surely?

perhaps they were talking about furniture that they were moving from the old house - we all have that "will the sofa fit in here?" moments 

trakky14

Flugelhorn said:

lookstraightahead said:

I can't imagine anyone buying new furniture before completion, so theoretically it's not for the new house, and after completion you would measure the space yourself, surely?

perhaps they were talking about furniture that they were moving from the old house - we all have that "will the sofa fit in here?" moments 

That was my assumption....but it costs thousands to move house (never mind the emotional stress!!) I would imagine its cheaper to buy a new sofa? 

Or OP wants to move anyway and is looking to get money back from the agent. It won't happen.

dannim12345

I’ve never heard of this but noticed that when I was looking estate agents would measure say into the bay window and onto the recess of they chimney so the m2 of the room would not really be accurate.