Issues with survey picked up on resale of property.

kinger101

Hi all – appreciate running this one past your for your thoughts.

I purchase a property in 2017 (in England) having a full building survey done at the time.  They confirmed that some work had been done on the loft but it was not a full conversion and would have unlikely had building regs. approval.  This I was aware of.  There text stated:

“Whilst we note the cold roof has been converted to form a warm roof with insulation between rafters, we are unable to confirm the condition of timber rafters or if ventilation exists between the insulation and roof covering layers to prevent condensation. We noted no evidence of movement in the roof either internally to purlins or externally to suggest a challenge”.

Fast forward six and a half years I end up selling the property (relocation for work). The buyers survey indicates two purlin struts had been removed.  We jointly pay for a structural engineering report which confirmed this was the case and that a truss had also been removed. We end up knocking £5K of the price. This was based on a ballpark figure for remedial works from the structural engineer.  The buyers are happy to proceed on this basis as they want the property but also to see to the defect ASAP.

At the time, I thought given six years lapsed since the original survey, I had little comeback on the original surveyor.  Reading in this a little more, it seems that I actually may have three years from time I became aware that our surveyors report didn’t flag that structural timbers had been removed from the roof.

My initial plan is to write to the original surveyor providing the SE report, that this adversely affected the price of our property, and we are aware the six year limitation does not apply.

 

Any thoughts?

 

Thanks

ChirpyChicken

Your wasting your time.

gwynlas

Surveyors give themselves so much coverage with broad sweeping statements and they would argue that you were advised loft did not meet standard that you would find it very hard to prove any mistakes in old survey.

kinger101

gwynlas said:

Surveyors give themselves so much coverage with broad sweeping statements and they would argue that you were advised loft did not meet standard that you would find it very hard to prove any mistakes in old survey.

Our buyers surveyor did pick up on it though.  So I think I have a reasonable expectation that they should have too.  The original survey focused on whether it was a useable space, and didn't mention anything had been removed.

I'll just initiate a complaint anyway and do as far as I can with writing at least.

They do have professional indemnity insurance though 

Thanks though.  Your comments were constructive.