To ignore house buyer complaints a month after completion

Leave it to your solicitor, surely their survey would have seen these issues before completion.

What are you talking about?

That's why you insure the house from Exchange and not from Completion. Any damage that occurred during that time is then covered.

It's their problem and needed to be mentioned before Exchange unless they can prove you concealed it at time of purchase. We found an entire wall was rotten after we moved in. It was easier and cheaper to fix than to spend chasing Surveyors or the Vendors.

Ignore, they’re just chancers.

Good grief JAT49 what on earth did you say to them?

I would ignore they are trying it on. I had the buyer of our old home knock on my door a year after to say the fence had broken. My young single daughter just completed and the shit she discovered after moving in was shameful. But she had to suck it up and sort it. Best of luck to you. Ignore

Enjoying reading people’s experiences here. When I lived in my first flat I had organised an enfranchisement to remove a dodgy freeholder. Everyone in the block wanted it to happen but no one was willing to take the lead. It was a drawn out and stressful experience but I organised everything and did all the communication between us and our solicitor. I even set up a maintenance account after we bought the freehold, for tenants to pay in £50 per month for future work. This became active about a month before I moved out. Not long after I moved the buyer of my flat sent me a narky letter pointing out I hadn’t paid into the maintenance fund before I left and gave me a deadline by which to pay in £100! I was exasperated but ignored it. A few years later I got a desperate sounding email from him demanding I explain how the enfranchisement worked as he and his solicitor didn’t understand it! Suffice to say I ignored this too - but had the first letter not been sent I might have been more forthcoming. I’ve always found it important to try to remain on as good terms as possible with the people you’re buying from.

I bought a house had a survey and a few points were mentioned, nothing major. House was empty as owner had passed away. Dealt with daughter who showed us round she made a point of showing me the annual service stickers on the boiler. Moved in & it didn’t work. Gas engineer confirmed it as unsafe. I owned house so my problem

When we have moved house in the past we have turned off all gas and electricity (water stopcock) to take a final meter reading for the purpose of accurate billing for final bills, that included taking time stamped photos several minutes apart to ensure there was no dispute in the future over meter readings.

if you leave appliances on you can find yourself in dispute over utility bills because new occupants can add on units to their first meter reading and try to bill the previous owners for it.

I have always left a note explaining how and where to switch them all on again and an explanation as to why we have done the disconnections.

It probably wouldn’t be needed if you have smart meters installed now.

Surely this would have been picked up in the survey and then they could negotiate, no survey then it’s not your problem. When we moved into our house the survey said the oil tank would need to be replaced soon, guy came out to service boiler and it and said it had to be replaced immediately… just one of those things.

Totally caveat emptor & they should be getting in to their surveyor, not you.

But that's not the point.

The pp said "I think you legally have to have a working heating/hot water system" which is not correct.

So, to answer your question, yes, I would expect a new build (or any) house to to work but, no, it is not a legal requirement that anything works.

However, it is a very different matter when it comes to getting a mortgage. Generally speaking, most mortgage providers will not lend on a property that does not have running water and a sink in the kitchen and hot and cold water in the bathroom and a toilet.

So, if you want a mortgage then there needs to be hot water in the bathroom but not elsewhere.

But that is not a legal requirement, just a requirement for getting a mortgage.

I've bought four properties in my lifetime and each of them has needed a new boiler within months of moving. I've starting to think of it as standard!!

We've not long moved into a place that is electric only so we're going to have to put a system in, and it's weirdly less stressful than worrying about an old one breaking.
I saw someone say they think people just put their house on the market when their boiler starts packing up.

I've bought four properties in my lifetime and each of them has needed a new boiler within months of moving. I've starting to think of it as standard!!

Ah ok thanks.
in such a case, yes, they’ve misrepresented at selling. Then I’d think I didn’t buy the property they sold, in which case I wouldn’t be responsible.

Caveat emptor.
I don’t understand why you are giving this a moments thought.

We also had the previous owner trying to charge us for the oil left in the tank. It was the straw that broke the camel's back for me given that we had bent over backwards and agreed to everything they wanted. I too told him to take it with him; of course he left it all.

With MiL's flat, it took ages to sell and the buyer was a complete idiot. She "didn't realise" that she would have to pay a deposit on exchange of contracts, so exchange was delayed. This was after a 4-month wait for her to find a new buyer. DH and I owned the flat jointly. He was working abroad and contacting him was really difficult. Our solicitor was great - local companies that you can nip into are not to be sneezed at - and hand-held us through all the hassle. We ended up exchanging and completing on the same day on her advice, which to be fair worked. However, the money came through really late and with many apologies she said she couldn't transfer it until the next day. Ok, we weren't going to spend it immediately, but it was just another hassle we didn't need. So when Mrs Useless Buyer's adult kid sent us a very rude letter via their solicitor, demanding several hundred pounds for keys to the windows, that was it. All the windows opened. The flat was on the 2nd floor. Only Spiderman would have any chance of getting in there. Window keys online cost around £1.50 each at the time, so £100s was just a try-on. When our solicitor sold me about the demand, I asked if she was familiar with the response in Arkell vs Pressdram. Let's just say that she learned some new legalese and took great pleasure in sending this back to their solicitor and not charging us a penny. Never heard another peep.

Our last house move was very tricky. Selling our place and MiL's flat and all moving in together.

Well selling our place was fine. Only problem after finally moving out was that the moving company packed the controls for the new boiler and so the FTB who moved in couldn't turn on the heat - during an incredibly cold February. Kept calling which we didn't mind as it was our fault and we managed to sort it after a couple of days. DH delivered the control and the FTB practically kissed him.

Selling MiL's flat was another thing all together. 2 buyers backed out after their offers had been accepted and we finally had got a 3rd who was the worst b!tch you could imagine. Everything was wrong, she wasn't going to continue unless we did this, this and this. And we were getting so worn down and wanting to move on we just did as asked. She wanted to come for another look with her builder who was going to renovate. Fine. She needed a portion of the wall repointed. Fine. The freeholder who lived downstairs complained about this because it got his windows dirty. This despite us paying for it rather than him having to pay his 2/3 share as stated in the freehold contract. And then he said he couldn't complete the freehold documents as he didn't know enough about the building (obviously hadn't got this info when he bought the place a year earlier) so eventually we forked out £600 to his solicitor to sign the forms that we had filled out for them (MiL had lived there 30 years so we knew everything). And eventually the sale was completed and we all moved. Great.

2 weeks later I had a call from the estate agent because there was a leak from the flat and the new owner was still in London and couldn't be contacted. The freeholder was freaking out as water was coming through his light fixture in his kitchen. I said but we don't own the place so there's nothing I can do. Half an hour later I had the freeholder on the phone in an absolute state and I repeated that we're not the owners. I did take pity and added that we had a key safe by the door in to the flat so maybe the key was still there and maybe the combination hadn't changed. He was weeping with gratitude when he hung up. Apparently though the new owner eventually caught up with everything and tried to have him charged with unlawful entry for going in to her flat without permission. I just thought well it serves you both right!!!

We had this too, said no thanks to paying for the oil, you can take it, and they unsurprisingly left it behind anyway.
The seller hadn't even paid for the oil himself anyway as the house had been rented out to the oil was paid for by the previous tenant

My FILs house we sold when he passed away we deliberately put on the record of what what to be left which was all white goods. A month later they wrote to DH to say we think you should pay for these to be removed . DH's sister is a solicitor and said - check your documents ( ie the ones which say what will be left in situ - any further correspondence I will charge you for - never heard another word - they were chancers

The house before we live in now the couple left it with a gas leak but I just could not be bothered so we fixed it ourselves ( well not us - a gas engineer ) but I did think given they knew we were moving in with small child it was a bit cheeky to leave it with a gas leak. So in the winter all the gas had to be turned off for two days . Hey ho - over it now.

I agree it would be madness to get no inspection done, but after seeing too many reports with caveats around "inaccessible" (a dry and lit cellar??) and just plain "not inspected" - to say nothing of the endless get-outs when they miss something - I no longer use surveyors

In any case the knowledgeable Chartered ones tend to grab the commercial work, and for private dwellings send out some kid with a clipboard who knows little and cares less

Instead I now pay a very experienced builder, gas engineer and electrician for their time to inspect and test and have had vastly better results

d - the seller lied on the property information form, or in response to a question from the purchaser's solicitor, or failed to do something that was required by the contract

I’m sure I recall that when we bought our place one of the bits of paperwork we were waiting for was a certificate to show the boiler had been serviced.

It is still up to the buyer to confirm everything is working - new builds are covered by guarantees, older houses are not.

A boiler can break the day of moving, it is not illegal for the house to be sold with a broken boiler.

Buy a property which is for major renovation, or has been sitting empty for many years, it is likely heating is not working - the house can still be sold, there is no legal responsibility for there to be working heating.