Vendor lied on property form about flooding three months after buying my house has flooded

MultiFuelBurner

I think I posted page 1 and some simple questions have not been fully answered.

Anyone that mistakes flood defenses for wheelchair ramps well let's skip on from that and what did your son's surveyor say about the "wheelchair ramps"

As said early on check for legal cover on the home insurance for any claim you want to try and make 

lika_86

Cazzy1964 said:

It says on the form, has the property ever been flooded.it doesn’t really matter who they are .. if they can prove she is lying he will take her to
 court. 
 she’s already left loads of rubbish at the property and then lied and said my son said she could! My son has three small children and he’s already been told by the solicitor the judge will merely look at the facts and is not interested in how much stress it has caused him  so I doubt the judge will take into consideration she is a pensioner with a disabled husband. 

The fact that a person against whom a claim is being pursued is a pensioner with a disabled husband won't be taken into account by a judge when deciding a case, but it does raise the question of whether they are worth pursuing financially? Do they have money to pay if judgment is awarded against them? If not then it doesn't matter how solid any case might be against them.

Section62

Cazzy1964 said:

It says on the form, has the property ever been flooded.it doesn’t really matter who they are .. if they can prove she is lying he will take her to
 court.

Proving someone is lying - to the satisfaction of a court - is harder than most people imagine.

As homersimpson246 alludes to, asking "has the property ever been flooded" is a difficult question to answer, and a court might be persuaded (in the circumstances) it was unfair to expect a full and honest answer.  How could the vendor know whether it had been flooded before they owned it? They would have to rely on the information given to them by their vendor, and for the time being your son only has heresay that anything was said to them.

she’s already left loads of rubbish at the property and then lied and said my son said she could! My son has three small children and he’s already been told by the solicitor the judge will merely look at the facts and is not interested in how much stress it has caused him  so I doubt the judge will take into consideration she is a pensioner with a disabled husband. 

These are two different issues.  Claiming for "stress" is tricky in a legal system set up to award quantified sums for financial loss.

In this situation the circumstances of the vendor(s) may be relevant.  For example, if the husband was the one who knew about the flooding but has memory issues, the wife wouldn't necessarily have known that there had been flooding when completing the form.  Vulnerabilities certainly can be taken into account by a Court if they consider it appropriate to do so.

For your son's sake, he should put a hold on this idea of going to court until he is able to come up with clearer definitive answers about what happened.  In any event there are several steps he will have to go through before starting proceedings, and he needs to understand that legal action can be very expensive with no guarantee of winning.

His first priority ought to be working out how to use the flood protection the house has, in order to mitigate further losses.

Cazzy1964

lika_86 said:

Cazzy1964 said:

It says on the form, has the property ever been flooded.it doesn’t really matter who they are .. if they can prove she is lying he will take her to
 court. 
 she’s already left loads of rubbish at the property and then lied and said my son said she could! My son has three small children and he’s already been told by the solicitor the judge will merely look at the facts and is not interested in how much stress it has caused him  so I doubt the judge will take into consideration she is a pensioner with a disabled husband. 

The fact that a person against whom a claim is being pursued is a pensioner with a disabled husband won't be taken into account by a judge when deciding a case, but it does raise the question of whether they are worth pursuing financially? Do they have money to pay if judgment is awarded against them? If not then it doesn't matter how solid any case might be against them.

Yes they do, she breeds dogs too ..their not old pensioners .. I would say early sixties .. and their a lot better off than my son.. it’s a shame they don’t accept  stress as a compensation consideration as my son and his wife and three small children have been through so much these past few days their lives have been turned upside down .. their now frantically trying to rent a house while the work is being carried out. 

Cazzy1964

Section62 said:

Cazzy1964 said:

It says on the form, has the property ever been flooded.it doesn’t really matter who they are .. if they can prove she is lying he will take her to
 court.

Proving someone is lying - to the satisfaction of a court - is harder than most people imagine.

As homersimpson246 alludes to, asking "has the property ever been flooded" is a difficult question to answer, and a court might be persuaded (in the circumstances) it was unfair to expect a full and honest answer.  How could the vendor know whether it had been flooded before they owned it? They would have to rely on the information given to them by their vendor, and for the time being your son only has heresay that anything was said to them.

she’s already left loads of rubbish at the property and then lied and said my son said she could! My son has three small children and he’s already been told by the solicitor the judge will merely look at the facts and is not interested in how much stress it has caused him  so I doubt the judge will take into consideration she is a pensioner with a disabled husband. 

These are two different issues.  Claiming for "stress" is tricky in a legal system set up to award quantified sums for financial loss.

In this situation the circumstances of the vendor(s) may be relevant.  For example, if the husband was the one who knew about the flooding but has memory issues, the wife wouldn't necessarily have known that there had been flooding when completing the form.  Vulnerabilities certainly can be taken into account by a Court if they consider it appropriate to do so.

For your son's sake, he should put a hold on this idea of going to court until he is able to come up with clearer definitive answers about what happened.  In any event there are several steps he will have to go through before starting proceedings, and he needs to understand that legal action can be very expensive with no guarantee of winning.

His first priority ought to be working out how to use the flood protection the house has, in order to mitigate further losses.

Section62 said:

Cazzy1964 said:

It says on the form, has the property ever been flooded.it doesn’t really matter who they are .. if they can prove she is lying he will take her to
 court.

Proving someone is lying - to the satisfaction of a court - is harder than most people imagine.

As homersimpson246 alludes to, asking "has the property ever been flooded" is a difficult question to answer, and a court might be persuaded (in the circumstances) it was unfair to expect a full and honest answer.  How could the vendor know whether it had been flooded before they owned it? They would have to rely on the information given to them by their vendor, and for the time being your son only has heresay that anything was said to them.

she’s already left loads of rubbish at the property and then lied and said my son said she could! My son has three small children and he’s already been told by the solicitor the judge will merely look at the facts and is not interested in how much stress it has caused him  so I doubt the judge will take into consideration she is a pensioner with a disabled husband. 

These are two different issues.  Claiming for "stress" is tricky in a legal system set up to award quantified sums for financial loss.

In this situation the circumstances of the vendor(s) may be relevant.  For example, if the husband was the one who knew about the flooding but has memory issues, the wife wouldn't necessarily have known that there had been flooding when completing the form.  Vulnerabilities certainly can be taken into account by a Court if they consider it appropriate to do so.

For your son's sake, he should put a hold on this idea of going to court until he is able to come up with clearer definitive answers about what happened.  In any event there are several steps he will have to go through before starting proceedings, and he needs to understand that legal action can be very expensive with no guarantee of winning.

His first priority ought to be working out how to use the flood protection the house has, in order to mitigate further losses.

Section62 said:

Cazzy1964 said:

It says on the form, has the property ever been flooded.it doesn’t really matter who they are .. if they can prove she is lying he will take her to
 court.

Proving someone is lying - to the satisfaction of a court - is harder than most people imagine.

As homersimpson246 alludes to, asking "has the property ever been flooded" is a difficult question to answer, and a court might be persuaded (in the circumstances) it was unfair to expect a full and honest answer.  How could the vendor know whether it had been flooded before they owned it? They would have to rely on the information given to them by their vendor, and for the time being your son only has heresay that anything was said to them.

she’s already left loads of rubbish at the property and then lied and said my son said she could! My son has three small children and he’s already been told by the solicitor the judge will merely look at the facts and is not interested in how much stress it has caused him  so I doubt the judge will take into consideration she is a pensioner with a disabled husband. 

These are two different issues.  Claiming for "stress" is tricky in a legal system set up to award quantified sums for financial loss.

In this situation the circumstances of the vendor(s) may be relevant.  For example, if the husband was the one who knew about the flooding but has memory issues, the wife wouldn't necessarily have known that there had been flooding when completing the form.  Vulnerabilities certainly can be taken into account by a Court if they consider it appropriate to do so.

For your son's sake, he should put a hold on this idea of going to court until he is able to come up with clearer definitive answers about what happened.  In any event there are several steps he will have to go through before starting proceedings, and he needs to understand that legal action can be very expensive with no guarantee of winning.

His first priority ought to be working out how to use the flood protection the house has, in order to mitigate further losses.

Section62 said:

Cazzy1964 said:

It says on the form, has the property ever been flooded.it doesn’t really matter who they are .. if they can prove she is lying he will take her to
 court.

Proving someone is lying - to the satisfaction of a court - is harder than most people imagine.

As homersimpson246 alludes to, asking "has the property ever been flooded" is a difficult question to answer, and a court might be persuaded (in the circumstances) it was unfair to expect a full and honest answer.  How could the vendor know whether it had been flooded before they owned it? They would have to rely on the information given to them by their vendor, and for the time being your son only has heresay that anything was said to them.

she’s already left loads of rubbish at the property and then lied and said my son said she could! My son has three small children and he’s already been told by the solicitor the judge will merely look at the facts and is not interested in how much stress it has caused him  so I doubt the judge will take into consideration she is a pensioner with a disabled husband. 

These are two different issues.  Claiming for "stress" is tricky in a legal system set up to award quantified sums for financial loss.

In this situation the circumstances of the vendor(s) may be relevant.  For example, if the husband was the one who knew about the flooding but has memory issues, the wife wouldn't necessarily have known that there had been flooding when completing the form.  Vulnerabilities certainly can be taken into account by a Court if they consider it appropriate to do so.

For your son's sake, he should put a hold on this idea of going to court until he is able to come up with clearer definitive answers about what happened.  In any event there are several steps he will have to go through before starting proceedings, and he needs to understand that legal action can be very expensive with no guarantee of winning.

His first priority ought to be working out how to use the flood protection the house has, in order to mitigate further losses.

Section62 said:

Cazzy1964 said:

It says on the form, has the property ever been flooded.it doesn’t really matter who they are .. if they can prove she is lying he will take her to
 court.

Proving someone is lying - to the satisfaction of a court - is harder than most people imagine.

As homersimpson246 alludes to, asking "has the property ever been flooded" is a difficult question to answer, and a court might be persuaded (in the circumstances) it was unfair to expect a full and honest answer.  How could the vendor know whether it had been flooded before they owned it? They would have to rely on the information given to them by their vendor, and for the time being your son only has heresay that anything was said to them.

she’s already left loads of rubbish at the property and then lied and said my son said she could! My son has three small children and he’s already been told by the solicitor the judge will merely look at the facts and is not interested in how much stress it has caused him  so I doubt the judge will take into consideration she is a pensioner with a disabled husband. 

These are two different issues.  Claiming for "stress" is tricky in a legal system set up to award quantified sums for financial loss.

In this situation the circumstances of the vendor(s) may be relevant.  For example, if the husband was the one who knew about the flooding but has memory issues, the wife wouldn't necessarily have known that there had been flooding when completing the form.  Vulnerabilities certainly can be taken into account by a Court if they consider it appropriate to do so.

For your son's sake, he should put a hold on this idea of going to court until he is able to come up with clearer definitive answers about what happened.  In any event there are several steps he will have to go through before starting proceedings, and he needs to understand that legal action can be very expensive with no guarantee of winning.

His first priority ought to be working out how to use the flood protection the house has, in order to mitigate further losses.

It’s the husband of the previous vendor who explained to the lady how to use the flood defences. 

He has contacted the auction house who sold it to her and they assure my son a property information will have been filled out by the previous owners so he is going to start from there, 
once he has gathered as much information he will put it to a solicitor. Solicitors legally have to retain all documents and correspondence for 6 years 
He won’t need the flood defences for a while, his house and garden is ruined and the house will have to be gutted .. how someone can lie about something so serious is beyond me. 

Cazzy1964

Jaybee_16 said:

Apologies in advance if I have misunderstood the OP, but if I understand correctly the couple referred to were two owners ago, who put the property up for sale at auction.
Your vendors bought at auction and later sold it to your son. If they bought at an auction are you certain they knew about the flood risk?

Yes we contacted the auction place that sold it, they assured us that a legal  pack including a property information form is always issued and the previous vendors confirmed they filled it out .. they said they put that it had been flooded on the form 

Cazzy1964

Keep_pedalling said:

Cazzy1964 said:

I’m not even sure whether the surveyor should have picked up the flood defences , my son and his wife thought they were drop down  wheelchair ramps for her husband as he had to go in a home 

Earlier you said your son was shown how to use the flood defence, did he actually put them in place after all of the high profile weather warnings? 

The flood defences were shown to the vendor by the previous owner not my son 

Cazzy1964

MultiFuelBurner said:

I think I posted page 1 and some simple questions have not been fully answered.

Anyone that mistakes flood defenses for wheelchair ramps well let's skip on from that and what did your son's surveyor say about the "wheelchair ramps"

As said early on check for legal cover on the home insurance for any claim you want to try and make 

They are two oblong boxes either side of each door so if you have never seen flood defences how would you know what they look like ? 

The surveyor didn’t even mention Them, he just put no evidence of flooding so it may be an option to question his report .. he has got legal cover but he’s not sure whether it’s covered under that because he swapped insurances to get the flood cover, after he found out it had flooded, but he is gonna ask the question. 

pinkshoes

What level of survey was it?

I am surprised a surveyor doesn't know what a flood gate looks like! Were they just looking for tide marks on the walls??

Properties that have previously flooded often have all the sockets at a higher level.

The surveyor might be another avenue to pursue but the first port of call is gathering evidence to prove that the vendor lied.

How long did the previous owner own it? Did it flood whilst they owned it?

I imagine it was sold at auction due to the flood issue putting people off. The people who bought at auction probably didn't do their homework and read the information pack!

Cazzy1964

pinkshoes said:

What level of survey was it?

I am surprised a surveyor doesn't know what a flood gate looks like! Were they just looking for tide marks on the walls??

Properties that have previously flooded often have all the sockets at a higher level.

The surveyor might be another avenue to pursue but the first port of call is gathering evidence to prove that the vendor lied.

How long did the previous owner own it? Did it flood whilst they owned it?

I imagine it was sold at auction due to the flood issue putting people off. The people who bought at auction probably didn't do their homework and read the information pack!

It was the home buyers report .. they were in it from Nov 2021 to July 2023 she only moved to be near her son