Holiday cottage not as described

outtatune

Estate agents seem to be missing a trick.

According to some posters here they can happily describe any house for sale as 'detached' and keep quiet about the fact that you may only be able to occupy half of it.

sheramber

outtatune said:

Estate agents seem to be missing a trick.

According to some posters here they can happily describe any house for sale as 'detached' and keep quiet about the fact that you may only be able to occupy half of it.

It has been done with ‘detached’ being joined by garages with rooms above them. 

Murphybear

I’ve been to many holiday cottages in the U.K. and Ireland.  I’ve only had one problem.  

We booked a small house in Ireland and were horrified to find it was dirty, it obviously hadn’t been cleaned.  There was food everywhere including the floor, a big jug of cold coffee and the fridge had some rather unsavoury food in it.  I won’t say what the bathroom was like  We contacted the agency immediately, fortunately it was based in Ireland and someone arrived very quickly.  He was horrified as well.  He fortunately had an unbooked house, much bigger than the one we booked and in a glorious part of Connemara.  We settled in and the agent came back later with some groceries, a bottle of Champagne (Champagne style I should say) and a big bunch of flowers.  

We were extremely pleased with the way the problem had been handled. 

I can understand the OP wasn’t happy but she should have contacted the booking agent as soon as she felt there was a problem 

Alderbank

Money_Grabber13579 said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Grumpy_chap said:

So, the minimum deduction is for a "more than minor" breach, not a "minor" breach.

Yes apologies, it's more than minor, less than serious, I've not seen anything crop up on this board that would IMO warrant a 50% discount as serious and I would disregard anything trivial so would class something that warrants a 25% discount as minor in my opinion, but to the (unhelpful) wording of the regs it is "more than minor" 

Grumpy_chap said:

I am not certain that the OP has established that the impact is "more than minor".

This is the part I would disagree with, it relates specifically to the main characteristics of the product (a product being either goods, service or digital content), looking at that photo I would expect the whole house, not part of it to be housing another family and I think the average person would assume the same. 

My view is that, fundamentally, converting the garage to a self contained apartment means that it is no longer a single dwelling and so cannot be described as detached. Perhaps I’m naive but as far as I can see, that building now contains two independently occupiable properties and I don’t see how that is any different to a semi-detached house, other than a semi detached house will typically be split along a vertical line, whereas this is split along a horizontal line.

'Detached' is a structural descriptor. It refers to the building, not the occupants.
If you turn a detached house into two flats it is still a detached house. If you turn a large detached house into a HMO (house of multiple occupation) it is still a detached house even though several unrelated households live there. Many, perhaps most, hotels are detached. Architects and estate agents use descriptors like 'detached block of four apartments' without any confusion.
Where I live, quite a few larger detached houses have granny flats either as extensions or converted double garages. If the flat is self contained (has its own kitchen and bathroom) the council ratings officer classifies them as 'detached with annexe attached'.

A pair of semi-detached houses is two properties joined and separated by a single party wall. Party wall has a special meaning both in law and in building construction.

littleboo

Used to describe a house in a holiday home listing, the word detached is presumably being used to convey a desirable feature of the property to attract booking, otherwise, why mention it. Its not unreasonable to interpret this to mean a property that doesn't have adjoining walls or floors with another dwelling.
If you were describing a flat in a detached house, you would call it a flat, not a detached house.
Failing to mention that the property has been split to have a self contained dwelling which would be occupied is either lazy or deliberate. 

Jumblebumble

Alderbank said:

We have stayed, with our dogs, at quite a few different AirBnB houses around the UK.

Without exception the garage was locked and contained the owner's personal stuff (although never, so far as we knew, the owner's children!)

You say the parts of the property which were available to you were correctly listed. I don't think you have a strong case.

How much noise did the owners personal stuff make?
As the OP said they would never have booked the house had they known but I doubt that they would be very interested in how many inanimate objects were in a garage.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Alderbank said:

If you turn a detached house into two flats it is still a detached house

Well by that standard every building is still detached as not all buildings in the world are linked into one  

But it doesn't really matter what detached may or may not mean, this kind of ambiguity is why misleading actions, even where factually correct, are prohibited and measured against the average consumer. 

Myci85

I have to say if that house was described as 'detached' in a sales listing, I would absolutely not expect to find that it in fact had half of the ground floor owned by someone else. Similarly, described as detached in a holiday cottage listing, especially one advertised on a holiday cottages website and not air bnb where it is arguably more normal for an owner to rent out part of their home, I would be surprised to find there was someone inhabiting part of the detached house. 

Grumpy_chap

Myci85 said:

not air bnb 

It can be an airbnb if you wish:
https://www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/603678243460674950

born_again

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

born_again said:

TBH, there is no mention in add about the area where the family were staying. So it would be realistic to think that it was a private area the family may use.

Are you on the sauce first thing in the morning I would expect the family to live somewhere else! Yeah maybe if this was AirB&B but if booking a holiday cottage though that kind of site I would expect the owner to greet me with the keys (or leave them in a lock box) and then not be seen again.

I'm surprised the booking site is happy to keep the listing with that kind of set up. Reviews are interesting, also surprised no one else has mentioned it but maybe the family hasn't been in the garage that long? 

Only sauce involved was tomato on my bacon buttie. 👍👍

The lower part of the Detached property is not mentioned at all within the description.
So to be fair, it is something that should have been a questioned asked at time of booking, will anyone be using that area, if OP wanted the building to themselves for the week.
Did Op raise this as a concern while they were there? If not, why not, as it then seems it can not have been that much of a issue in reality.