to think someone must be accountable for this?

[stripeyjimjams]

Long story short, we bought a flat in August, and problems are starting to show.

We chose to buy a newish build (renovated in the 90s), as we'd just come from renting a series of tenement flats, which always had problems with draught, leaks etc, and wanted to be more confident of living somewhere which wouldn't be full of Derek Acorah-style cold spots come the winter.

We viewed this flat twice before buying, and were assured that all plumbing, glazing etc were done to a high spec. It's been lovely and warm, very cosy over winter and we've had no issues until now.

We noticed that water appeared to be leaking from our bathroom into the communal hallway below in December. We did our best to fill any gaps in sealant and called a plumber in in January. He found out that, behind the wall tiles, a pipe had been left uncapped by the renovators and, since the renovation, bath, shower and toilet water - hence, I'm sorry, faeces - had been flowing into the space under the bath unfettered. He capped the pipe, and the leaking stopped, but since the bath panel was removed, we've still got lots of little flies in the bathroom.

Today, the tilers came out to pull up the tiles, which had come loose with the damp caused by the leak. They're going to lay new tiles and find out that the floor underneath has been constructed from shutter-ply (the stuff they patch up broken windows with, NOT for floors) and huge gaps have been left between the bits of shutter-ply.

So, the floors need pulling up wholesale and re-laying, plus the under-bath area needs sanitised (we're going through a lot of fly spray). The flat was originally part of a group of corporate lets, for business clients staying in the city, and the company who owned them went bust. So we can't complain to them. The estate agents say it's not their fault, BUT I can't help but think a surveyor, who they should have got to look at the flat before selling, would have spotted problems like this.

We were first time buyers, not a clue about surveyors or what to look for from viewing a flat to buy (aside from obvious things). My DH feels so depressed, like he's let us down (which he hasn't at all). I hate seeing him like this. I'm angry that nobody highlighted these massive problems before the flat went on the market. DH thinks we don't have a leg to stand on in terms of complaints / compensation. Could any legal-minded MNers advise? We absolutely saved our asses off to buy a place. I lived with my mum and dad for years so I could put money by. I'm furious that there's been sewage pumping into our living space, and glad, at least, that we've had no health issues as a result.
(Sorry this is so long )

Look at your household buildings policy- you should be covered for the sanitising of the bathroom, the replacement decoration and possibly trace and access (ie, exploratory works to find the problem in the first place).

The thing with surveys as others have pointed out is there's so many different types. Even if you went for the most extensive and "in depth" report surveyors tend to insert a lot of caveats to prevent someone claiming x years down the line that they didn't pick up on a subsiding garage or whatever. The fact that you've been living in the flat since August and problems are only arising fairly recently would suggest that even a full structural survey wouldn't have shown these problems without taking tiling etc off, perhaps a CCTV report. This wouldn't be done unless there was cause for concern. It's tempting to try and blame someone else when something like this happens, but sometimes thems the breaks unfortunately.

do not want to add to your woes BUT, i would certainly ensure i found out how shit managed to get FROM a pan/waste pipe >cludgys are so legally regimented re installation due to the very high chance of illness if incorrectlly fitted>and, its a reasonably straightfordward fit i.e. pan 2 waste pipe/stack, can only assume conn.between pan and pipe was faulty ?one more reason why boxed in systems with no access suck.it will no doubt say in any report you may have had done "we will not remove/lift fixings......"