EA affilliated damp "surveyor" ruined future sales? Turned up without warning from EA

GDB2222

BronzedCab said:

I was in the middle of working at the office, had no warning, no time to think and had a sudden phone call, the "surveyor" was wanting to enter the house. With absolutely no warning, and being somewhat trusting, the scam did not occur to me. A good EA should have warned be about this horrific repurcussions! I am not used to such underhandedness.

It is hard to see how the EA has benefited here, so I can’t see any deliberate intent to do you down. But, maybe they were naive. 

EssexHebridean

If anything, one could say that the EA has actually lost out, if the price ended up being reduced. 

Bigphil1474

OP, we lost a sale on our house last year after the buyer had received their survey report, the buyer saying the house was full of damp. We got our own damp survey done by a CPA company that didn't do much remedial work themselves. Report provided us with a few jobs which we got done , but it wasn't riddled with damp (too few people can actually understand what a damp meter tells them it seems). Anyway, we spent around £2k getting some works done, and showed all that paperwork to the second buyer who was happy with it and the sale completed.

silvercar

EssexHebridean said:

If anything, one could say that the EA has actually lost out, if the price ended up being reduced. 

Depends how much cash was passed across the table.

GDB2222

silvercar said:

EssexHebridean said:

If anything, one could say that the EA has actually lost out, if the price ended up being reduced. 

Depends how much cash was passed across the table.

I hope the buyer has not spent money on bribes, as well as their abortive legal fees, mortgage fees, etc. 

I am sure the buyer was advised to get a damp valuation, and did so. The seller is wishing he'd refused, but the sale would probably still have fallen through on that account. 

ReadySteadyPop

Chief_of_Staffy said:

BronzedCab said:

I was in the middle of working at the office, had no warning, no time to think and had a sudden phone call, the "surveyor" was wanting to enter the house. With absolutely no warning, and being somewhat trusting, the scam did not occur to me. A good EA should have warned be about this horrific repurcussions! I am not used to such underhandedness.

Unfortunately these people exist. I'm dealing with one right now, who pulled the identical stunt, except in my case with a 'best-mate' roofer who oddly seemed to know exactly what he'd find before he'd even opened the loft hatch, and claimed I needed a new roof. After researching what he said I suspected it was all nonsense, and once I got the opinion of two other roofers (one couldn't understand why I'd asked him to assess a "perfectly serviceable" roof, the other said there was nothing needed doing and when I asked, "Not even treatment of the timbers?" he replied, "No, there's nothing wrong with your timbers or anything else") that was confirmed. And that's just the start of this buyer's BS. Next week I'll probably tell them to FO.

Best move probably.

jonnydeppiwish!

woody7777 said:

Was the damp rising damp? A friend of mine had that in a house he bought and it was really expensive for the remedial work.

Very unlikely to be rising damp

woody7777

jonnydeppiwish! said:

woody7777 said:

Was the damp rising damp? A friend of mine had that in a house he bought and it was really expensive for the remedial work.

Very unlikely to be rising damp

Why is that? I thought it was a serious issue.

jonnydeppiwish!

woody7777 said:

jonnydeppiwish! said:

woody7777 said:

Was the damp rising damp? A friend of mine had that in a house he bought and it was really expensive for the remedial work.

Very unlikely to be rising damp

Why is that? I thought it was a serious issue.

Damp is, but rising damp is actually quite rare. More often than not, it’s caused by leaking pipes (drains and water), defective guttering or outside levels breaching the DPC.