WIBU to tell??

[movinghomeagain]

Hi all

Posting here for traffic - sorry it's long!!

We were in the process of buying a house but had to pull out due to issues with the floor and the sellers being not responding to questions

The floor has a shale infill, this can cause no issues however the tests came back with high sulphites and basically it all need to come out, this involves digging up the whole floor and replacing it with new stuff with no issues, this will cost in excess of £30k plus a new kitchen and downstairs toilet and flooring etc

Anyway we pulled out as it didn't seem liked they would do the work and we couldn't afford to do the work, plus 7+ weeks of not being able to live there while the work was done (the house was vacant so not an issue for them to do it, they could also have paid with the proceeds of the house which they were selling for parents if they agreed this with a builder)

We have now found a new house which has no issues (already had the test done) but the old house has come back onto the market with the same agent we are buying ours with, it's now £45k cheaper than it was before.

Since it's on with a new estate agent we are wondering if they haven't disclosed the problem with the floor and have just said it's fallen through twice and they want to sell quick hence the reason for a low price!

My wibu is would it be unreasonable to ring our estate agent (who we are buying our property with) and let them know about the issue with the floor incase the sellers haven't told them?

The last thing I want is a buyer to think they are getting a bargain as they want to sell quick and end up with a huge bill in a couple of years (there is already signs of damage)

Thanks and well done if you made it to the end

Thanks everyone, I think I'll send them a quick email, if they are being honest great but if not then at least the agent will know

Stay out of it. It’s not really your business anymore. The buyers will have to get a survey done and if it’s a known local problem then it’ll be investigated.

We had a full structural survey on a house which threw up all sorts of issues - it had been rented for years then empty for a while do basically zero maintenance and also issues with electrics and heating and there was an asbestos garage but also a huge query about asbestos in the boiler room in the kitchen. We walked - the EA wanted us give our £1500 report to the vendors for free - we didn't. It didn't sell, it was rented out again and then someone I knew bought it without a full structural survey so I gave our survey to them and she never once said thank you Nothing in it had been disclosed to them, whether because there was a period of renting in between or because the vendors though the survey was bollocks I don't know.

@PoodleJ
We had a full survey and mortgage survey and both said it's a local issue but neither recommended testing for it and it didn't come across as a huge issue.

The mortgage company don't care so long as if you sell they'd get their money back

@GarthFunkel
The EA wanted us to give them our report for free too! We refused and sent a copy but with bits blocked out so they could see the important bits without being able to claim they did the report, it showed all levels of the tests etc but they ended up getting their own report done anyway!

My biggest fear would be for a family to buy it without knowing and end up in severe financial issues trying to fix it.

If it's my lot, its a local well-known area issue, just not for one house.

@expat101 it is supposed to be well known however it was only by chance someone told us to ask, estate agents etc didn't seem to care when we asked and our solicitors didn't seem to know much about it

I would tell the estate agent.

There is a house a few doors away that have some serious structural issues - the owners knocked down various supporting walls downstairs as well as knocking down the wall beside their stairs adding no barriers ( also structural). I’m surprised the floor upstairs hasn’t fallen through yet! They have also been through at least 6 or more estate agents ( the first estate agency told them about the issues when a perspective buyer raised this in their homebuyers report but they chose to ignore them and not resolve/ remedy problems.As a result, they keep changing estate agents, wasting perspective buyers time and money but still choosing to not resolve the problems or tell any new agency.

It’s back on sale again....

If it's a well known local problem then the agent will already know about it surely? If someone is buying a house they would do proper research into the are they are looking at surely? The onus is on the buyer not the seller to make sure they know what they are buying, hence having surveys.

Presumably the 45k drop is to take account of the work that needs doing and I think it's quite presumptuous of you to be effectively calling them liars. I also think it's bizarre that you are so interested when you chose not to go with it and have bought somewhere else.

My biggest fear would be for a family to buy it without knowing and end up in severe financial issues trying to fix it.

And unless you stand outside the house with a placard you will have no way of ever knowing if the eventual buyer knows or not.