House I am buying may have been broken into

eddddy

powerful_Rogue said:

What's the plan, as could be likely the vendor says the property was broken into and they absoutely won't be making a payment towards additional security?

I think I'd be more interested in investigating further. For example, was it a one-off break-in, in a cul-de-sac which has otherwise been crime free for years?

Or, for example, is it related to a local drug problem, with addicts constantly looking for anything they can steal to sell for £5 or £10 for their next fix?

If the OP hasn't done so already, this might be a good prompt to look at local crime maps.



(FWIW, I was viewing a house recently in what seemed like a quiet, pleasant cul-de-sac. Chatting with a neighbour, she mentioned nearby drug dealers. I checked the crime maps, and it showed a scary level of petty crime.)

Willow1976

Willow1976 said:

 i have asked the estate agent directly but they have not replied to me and now asked my solicitor to find out.  

Presumably, you mean you have asked the estate agent to ask the seller.

And is the estate agent saying

• "I'm refusing to ask the seller"
• or "I've asked the seller, and the seller is refusing to answer"
• or something else?

If the estate agent knows the answer to the question (e.g. because the seller told them), but is not telling you - arguably the estate agent is breaking Consumer Protection laws. i.e. They are withholding material information.


You can't rely legally on an answer from the estate agent -  but my first instinct would be that it's very suspicious that nobody will answer your question.

Depending on the broader circumstances, I might say to the estate agent something like "I'm very worried that the seller isn't answering this simple question. It makes me suspect that there is something significant to hide."  



Edit to add...

As others say - perhaps it isn't a serious issue if there was a break-in anyway.

And perhaps the estate agent should have just given you a straight answer at the outset, rather than 'escalating' things by refusing to answer.


 

i have heard back and the Estate Agent and they did ask the seller.  It is the house we are buying.  The seller has made good the damage and police did investigate.  there has been no issue since.  it has changed the way i feel about the house but will still proceed.  We will be taking measures to add security for our own peace of mind.  Thank you for the advice

peterhjohnson

You say the owner passed away and the family are selling. If the family don't know about the break-in, they can't tell you!
It may be reasonable when buying from an owner-occupier for questions about a property's recent history to be answerd but  in probate cases, not.

Drawingaline

If it was broken into since the owner passed away, it would suggest opportunist thieves breaking into an empty property, maybe thinking the owner was on holiday.

If you are occupying the property after purchase, get the locks changed and upgrade security. 

TheJP

Install your own security, problem solved. No the seller shouldn't pay for your security of your house if you buy it. 

Mr.Generous

I wouldn't be put off, the empty property burglary is a specific crime based on an easy target. Whoever did it either got the valuables or knows theres nothing there they want. I would however budget for a few improvements to security as others have said.

I once spoke to a scene of crimes guy after a burglary at work and his phone pinged up message after message for domestic burglary jobs for any of the SOCO team to attend. I said something about making him paranoid about his own home and he said he wasn't worried as he had an alarm. He went on to say that every single job he'd ever attended had either no alarm or a completely obviously knackered rusty alarm box. he basically said if you have a modern alarm they will just go elsewhere unless you have something like works of art or lots of jewelery that draws a targetted burglary - few and far between.

Most of these crimes are committed by kids or druggies who live within a 5 min walk of the target. If you walk down the street and look at which house you'd break into would you pick the one with security lights, alarm, door camera etc or the one with overgrown bushes, knackered windows and doors and a flimsy nightlatch lock?

MultiFuelBurner

Check the area out

https://www.adt.co.uk/crime-in-my-area

Silvertabby

Drawingaline said:

If it was broken into since the owner passed away, it would suggest opportunist thieves breaking into an empty property, maybe thinking the owner was on holiday.

If you are occupying the property after purchase, get the locks changed and upgrade security. 

Or the ratbags had seen the funeral notice in the paper, and assumed it was an empty house with possible rich pickings.

There was a spate of such break-ins at the time my dad died, so before we left for the funeral we settled a neighbour's rugby player son and a couple of his mates in front of Sky sports.  Sure enough, two dodgy looking geezers knocked on the door and feigned surprise at getting the 'wrong house'.  

Slinky

peterhjohnson said:

You say the owner passed away and the family are selling. If the family don't know about the break-in, they can't tell you!
It may be reasonable when buying from an owner-occupier for questions about a property's recent history to be answerd but  in probate cases, not.

I was so angry when I found out, after I'd been burgled a few months after my purchase, that the probate property I bought had been burgled before I bought it, and after I got done the second time a few days later (whilst waiting for a quote for an alarm), it had been done over twice. It had been in the ownership of the vendor's mother, who was in hospital at the time. The vendor discovered the break ins. There was a question on the form 'has the property been burgled during your ownership'. I realised when I looked at the form again, that all the other yes/no questions on the form had been double circled, this only had one circle round it, and the form was unsigned. I reckon they asked their solicitor who probably said it didn't happen during their ownership, as technically it didn't, and somebody else circled No on the form. I found out the details from the neighbours who hadn't wanted to upset me by telling me about the burglaries. I wish they had, I would have put an alarm in as soon as I moved in.

My conveyancer never noticed the unsigned form and neither did I so there was nothing I could do about it.  It was a deliberate act to deceive me.

I have always since then asked the solicitor to find out whether the vendor has 'knowledge of any burglary'. One of the first things we do is install an alarm.

Bonniepurple

hazyjo said:

I should imagine most properties have been broken into at one stage or another! I have been asked this question as a seller, but not for a while. Wonder if it was just a solicitor's question, or if it used to be on a form...

Anyway, no, they won't be responsible for making it safer. It might not have even been this particular house.

We had to get the police to break into our house once.  Very exciting for myself and my brother (aged about 8 and 10!).  The front (Yale) door had closed, and my Mum realised that her keys were the other side.  No problem we all thought, having read Enid Blyton and knew that we could jiggle the key out of the back door so we could unlock it using the spare key we had for that.  Sadly, the Famous Five and Secret Seven let us down and we couldn’t get the key out.  The solution was drastic- and expensive.  It involved a truncheon.