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

Tiglet2

The Home Buyers report (level 2?) isn't very detailed and the surveyor doesn't spend that long at the property.

A level 3 Structural Survey in hindsight would more likely have raised pertinent questions as the surveyor spends a few hours at the property and is considerably more thorough, but is obviously a more expensive outlay than the Home Buyers survey.

Is there any way you could obtain a copy of the TA6 property information form that your vendor received when they bought at auction?  Perhaps via the auction house or the solicitor who represented your vendor when they purchased?  

As others have suggested, look on local news websites or neighbourhood facebook groups to find out about any local flooding that happened during the time the vendor was in occupation.

You do need strong evidence to support your beliefs and the likelihood of a successful case, otherwise this will be an uphill battle potentially costing a lot of money, time and effort.

Section62

Cazzy1964 said:

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. 

To a large degree that is irrelevant to you son's situation.  He can't prove the person who completed the form was shown how to use the flood defences and unless the previous vendors agree to act as witnesses that may be a dead end.

The point though was if the husband of your son's vendors was the one who knew about the flooding then there are circumstances where his vulnerabilities/disabilities may need to be taken into account by the Court.  This differs from you son's claim for 'stress'.

Despite the current condition of the property, your son urgently needs to work out how to use the flood defences and assure himself that they work.  If a further flooding event happens and he doesn't use the flood defences he now knows are there, then he's unlikely to be able to claim for any further damage that happens.  He may be looing at a property which needs to be 'gutted' and thinking it couldn't get any worse, but that isn't the case.  At the very least, further flooding would mean it will take longer to dry the property out, thereby increasing the costs of things like alternative accommodation.  Even if he wins an eventual legal claim, the Court must take into account is own role in the losses he's incurred, and failing to use the flood protection a second time would almost certainly count against him.

Section62

Tiglet2 said:

You do need strong evidence to support your beliefs and the likelihood of a successful prosecution, otherwise this will be an uphill battle potentially costing a lot of money, time and effort.

Whatever happens, it is very unlikely the vendor will be prosecuted for anything.

RAS

So now you need to know the date of the floods.

Grizebeck

Section62 said:

Tiglet2 said:

You do need strong evidence to support your beliefs and the likelihood of a successful prosecution, otherwise this will be an uphill battle potentially costing a lot of money, time and effort.

Whatever happens, it is very unlikely the vendor will be prosecuted for anything.

change that to "pigs will fly first"

silvercar

You can forget about what the previous vendor told your vendor. It all hinges on what your vendor put on their forms. If they knew for a fact that the property had previously flooded then they have to fill in the forms correctly. As they themselves bought at auction, they may not have had any information to go on. 

The next question is whether your surveyor should have spotted the flood defences or not. A homebuyers report is more than a valuation, so they would have looked at the property and at least commented that the property has flood defences, suggesting that their need be investigated.

TheJP

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.

The most rationale advice you need to listen to right here. Just because an owner 2 lines down says the house flooded doesn't mean the previous owner knew it flooded. Protect the house, find the facts and then decide. 

Cazzy1964

Tiglet2 said:

The Home Buyers report (level 2?) isn't very detailed and the surveyor doesn't spend that long at the property.

A level 3 Structural Survey in hindsight would more likely have raised pertinent questions as the surveyor spends a few hours at the property and is considerably more thorough, but is obviously a more expensive outlay than the Home Buyers survey.

Is there any way you could obtain a copy of the TA6 property information form that your vendor received when they bought at auction?  Perhaps via the auction house or the solicitor who represented your vendor when they purchased?  

As others have suggested, look on local news websites or neighbourhood facebook groups to find out about any local flooding that happened during the time the vendor was in occupation.

You do need strong evidence to support your beliefs and the likelihood of a successful case, otherwise this will be an uphill battle potentially costing a lot of money, time and effort.

This is what he’s trying to do now 

Cazzy1964

Thanks everyone, he’s gathering all the information. If he can get hold of the property form and instruct a solicitor to apply for access to the documents and email connected to the sale from their solicitor then that’s what he will do. Cost will be approximately £1500 initially.If there’s any mention of the house flooding in any correspondence then the solicitor will be able to build a case. 

MultiFuelBurner

What's the end game here, do you think your son overpaid and what would the difference be for a known flooded house with defenses versus an un-flooded house?

Do you think it also affects your son's mortgage do they know it's a previously flooded house I wonder if it's mortgageable.