Legal advice [House purchase]

ThisIsWeird

I get it, User and Eddy - they are different 'consumer' situations, and have different protections and rights.

It surprises me, that's all. A full structural survey would likely not have exposed the incorrect construction of the roofs - or the inadequacy of the hidden foundations as in my more extreme, made up example. Neither might have been 'detectable' - until they failed. Once they failed, then what? No-one is liable?

I'm astonished.

eddddy

ThisIsWeird said:

Once they failed, then what? No-one is liable?

I doubt it's much consolation, but here's somebody who owns a flat in a 5 year old block of flats. Their roof has failed due to bad design and bad workmanship. It's excluded from their 10 year warranty. The repair cost is £145k.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6300622/new-build-flats-only-4-years-old-owners-charged-with-425-000-repairs-no-insurance/p1


This is easy to say with hindsight - but in your case, did you investigate whether your house built by a reputable builder with a good track record?

And it sounds like your house might have had a cheaper, lower quality warranty - which doesn't impose such strict rules on the builder.

Even if a surveyor couldn't have seen the flat roof construction, maybe they might have made a comment like "there is general evidence of poor construction and workmanship" - which might have rung alarm bells.

sourfn2

It's been a busy week, so apologies for the slow response! I appreciate the debate happening over consumer rights, this is a huge learning opportunity for me.

As for some of the questions around warranty documents. My solicitors forwarded them from the seller's, so I had sight of them before exchange. They didn't highlight the limitations, although looking back through them, the warranty cover note made this obvious. 


And these snippets from the Report on Title makes me think the solicitors have covered themselves:

Especially the last paragraph, as when my roof started leaking, the neighbor mentioned she spotted the previous owner up on the flat roof a few months before applying aquapol and doing self-repairs.

I feel stupid reading back on these documents, but I guess I had first time buyer optimism.. lessons learned for future I guess! Never trust anyone 😅