Property misrepresentation

BungalowBel

We bought a bungalow built in 1930.  We assumed it needed rewiring (looking at the old sockets) and therefore just did it.  Same with the roof, we got someone to see what needed doing - we assumed something did!  

We only had a drive-by survey as we assumed the place would have faults, due to its age.  The main one was we had to replace all the floors in two rooms and repair them in the others.

Buy an old house, prepare to have maintenance issues.

Gavin83

lucas20042004 said:

Thanks. They haven't lied as such but they didn't disclose issues and tried to hide them. For example, fitting insulation to hide the roof issue.

The vendors were under no obligation to disclose anything. It's down to you to discover any issues before buying. The only way you may have some comeback is if you can prove they lied which is not an easy thing to do and will be dependent on you having asked relevant questions.

lucas20042004 said:

GDB2222 said:

You have no rights against the vendors. It is possible that your surveyor was at fault. 

I think your expectations are also a bit overoptimistic. The house is 70 years old. I'd expect the felt to be in poor condition at that age. I don't know what the survey said about this?

In hindsight the survey was pointless. They absolve themselves of any issues in basically every statement they make in the report.

My findings having bought a house was that the survey was completely pointless. I'll never bother with a survey when buying a house again.