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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Is Estate Agent being unreasonable?

84 replies

FlarRoof · 14/08/2020 07:19

We have got house on market and we have accepted an offer. Buyer has had survey done, sorted mortgage and all legal searches have been done. Almost ready to exchange.

During the period of waiting for sale to go through, flat roof failed (was 12 years old so at end of lifespan) . We have now replaced flat roof and are redecorating next week.
The buyer has asked us to provide a guarantee for the new flat roof. The roofer says he will issue a guarantee but it is for us and not transferable to the purchasers.
The estate agent says we need to get roofer to make guarantee transferable to our purchasers.

What if roofer won't agree to do this? Is Estate agent being unreasonable in demanding this?

OP posts:

Pobblebonk · 14/08/2020 08:25

@Mildura

What use would an indemnity be in this scenario?

Isn't it obvious? It's to cover the costs of replacing the roof and any connected damage in the event that the roof fails.

Original poster

FlarRoof · 14/08/2020 08:28

@Jessbow

You really should have made it clear to the roofer the 'circumstances' of the job- that is was as a result of a purchasers survey and needed to be transferable.

Let your solicitor deal with it

True, but I can't change history.

OP posts:

Mildura · 14/08/2020 08:29

Isn't it obvious? It's to cover the costs of replacing the roof and any connected damage in the event that the roof fails.

Good luck finding a policy to cover that!

PlanDeRaccordement · 14/08/2020 08:31

The EA is being reasonable as it is their job to pass on requests from the buyer to you. They’d be in violation of their own regulators ethics if they rejected buyers requests without first passing them on to you as it is your decision as the seller.

Now, the buyer, I think, is making a reasonable request to see if roofer can make the guarantee transferable as the roof was literally replaced during the sale proceedings. If the roofer would normally issue say a 3 or 5yr guarantee, they can still issue their normal length guarantee for same years. If their work is good it should not matter who is in the house for those guaranteed years. The situation the roofer wants is to have done the roof a few months ago and to get off with NO guarantee of their work. So I think the roofer is being unreasonable.

TryAnotherNickname · 14/08/2020 08:31

Your agent needs to man t f up and push your sale through. These people previously had an old flat roof without a guarantee and now have a brand new one without a guard. Household insurance ffs! And their surveyor can look at it. The agent is acting for you and should be defending your ground. The buyer is being pathetic.

lovemakespeace · 14/08/2020 08:34

@flarroof your point is very valid re the price negotiated with the old roof. You should ask this solicitor to make this point very clearly when you go back to them.

Blankscreen · 14/08/2020 08:38

You can't get an indemnity policy for this.
When you get an indemnity policy for lack of building regs you're not insured for structural rproblems you're insired against the risk of the council taking enforcement action. They are very different.

If the roofer won't transfer the buyers might want to get the roof inspected by an independent roofer to verify whether it's a good job or not.

If its in the valuation report that they should get the guarantee then it will need to be reported back to the lender that it's not available.
It's the kind of thing the survey will say to cover their arse.

I'm sure it will be ok but may take some time to resolve.

GemmeFatale · 14/08/2020 08:38

@Mildura it’s a fairly common indemnity policy. We had a similar one to cover the patio doors and windows when we sold our old place. Cost about £50 Including the solicitor’s admin if I recall correctly.

Original poster

FlarRoof · 14/08/2020 08:38

@TryAnotherNickname

The buyer's surveyor has looked at the brand new flat roof. The mortgage has been approved, so it was obviously deemed to be fine.

OP posts:

SchadenfreudePersonified · 14/08/2020 08:39

@Thisbastardcomputer

I'd say a guarantee is a guarantee, shouldn't matter who lives in the house.

This is what I would have thought,

Refusing to make it transferable seems unreasonable to me. They are guaranteeing the job, not the house owner.

CopperBeeches · 14/08/2020 08:40

The agent is merely passing on a message. The buyers want the guarantee - as would most people. The agent is passing that on. That is his job. The solicitor should deal with it. Buyers' solicitor asks Sellers' solicitor. If roofer won't give it to you you can either try to persuade him or get buyers to purchase indemnity insurance or give them a discount for not having the guarantee. But the agent is just your go between so not UR. (I wd put pressure on roofer myself)

Original poster

FlarRoof · 14/08/2020 08:42

@SchadenfreudePersonified
Even if the roofer is being unreasonable, i can't make him transfer guarantee to buyers though.

OP posts:

WhoEatsPopTarts · 14/08/2020 08:42

Storm in a teacup here. The buyer has not unreasonably asked if there’s a guarantee which the EA who’s doing their job has asked you. The roofer has explained that isn’t isn’t standard practice and is unable to do this. Now the EA steps in and explains all of this to the buyer (again doing their job). The buyer should accept this, but could be unreasonable and insist at which point you and your EA hand it over to the solicitors to hash out. They’ll have a chat and it’ll be resolved. No buyer I ever worked with walked away from exchanging on a property at this stage over a small issue like this unless they intended to do so anyway and it was a smokescreen. Don’t worry.

WhereamI88 · 14/08/2020 08:45

The solicitor is the only one who can advise you, you really should be reaching out to them. From the roofer's point of view, he has a contract with you and only owes you a duty of care, he doesn't want some random person he's never dealth with suing him.

TimelyManor · 14/08/2020 08:45

Surely the guarantee is for the work on the roof and that alone?

PlanDeRaccordement · 14/08/2020 08:47

[quote FlarRoof]**@SchadenfreudePersonified
Even if the roofer is being unreasonable, i can't make him transfer guarantee to buyers though.[/quote]
True. But you ask, get the answer and pass that back to buyer via your EA. This is very minor as @WhoEatsPopTarts says. No one is really being unreasonable in this.

Personally, if I had paid for a flat roof plus say 5yr guarantee and the roofer refused to make it transferable, I’d demand a refund of some of the roofing cost because part of the price you paid included a markup for the guarantee. If it can’t be used at all, then you should have been charged a lower price for the roof.

Pobblebonk · 14/08/2020 08:47

@Mildura

Isn't it obvious? It's to cover the costs of replacing the roof and any connected damage in the event that the roof fails.

Good luck finding a policy to cover that!

This sort of policy is very common and therefore easy to find.

ifoundafoxcaughtbydogs · 14/08/2020 08:54

The roofer is agreeing to a guarantee but not really if it's only valid for a few weeks.

If he's not done the work yet try and find a new roofer. If he has then it's irrelevant if it's the solicitors issue to deal with. The solicitor can't make him any more than you can.

Your easiest remedy is the indemnity insurance. Simple to get and usually cheap. I've never sold / bought a house without having to get an indemnity over something . They must make a fortune from all those £40s that hardly ever get claimed on.

Mildura · 14/08/2020 09:02

[quote GemmeFatale]@Mildura it’s a fairly common indemnity policy. We had a similar one to cover the patio doors and windows when we sold our old place. Cost about £50 Including the solicitor’s admin if I recall correctly.[/quote]
I bet it wasn’t a policy covering the possibility of poor workmanship.

It would have been a policy to cover the possibility of enforcement action from the local authority as the correct Fensa/building regs permissions were not in place.

ChuffinPuffins · 14/08/2020 09:03

Conveyancing solicitor.

How would the mortgage company even know?

Because the buyers solicitor is obligated to act for their clients lender as well as the client. They will not proceed without reporting things to the lender that they feel they need to know and without the lenders approval.

We had a similar one to cover the patio doors and windows when we sold our old place. Cost about £50 Including the solicitor’s admin if I recall correctly

This is not the same. This will have been for building regulations and/or FENSA for the windows.

If you could find an indemnity provider to cover for the roof, they usually require the work to be at least 12 months old so yes I think you'd struggle finding a suitable policy for this and the onus is usually on the sellers to pay for it too. I also don't know of a policy that covers for 'roof damage'. They are usually broader than that too so for example they will cover for lack of planning permission or building regulations which covers the entire house, they won't get into specifics. They do not usually cover for lack of guarantees on things like boilers/roofs etc... If you have had a policy for a boiler before it will be for building regulations which many people don't realise they need to get when having a new boiler installed.

Your roofer is being really unreasonable here. They should be offering a standard guarantee for the house/works. Not the individual owner. Any guarantee I've ever come across which refers to individual owners has always been transferable.

ChuffinPuffins · 14/08/2020 09:08

The buyer is being pathetic

Oh and it really isn't always about this. We have had people 'demanding' to do X Y or Z because they don't care that this or that is missing. Well unfortunately, as I say, if you have a mortgage lender it doesn't always matter what you as the buyer want or don't care about. We are obligated to let them know about things and they won't release money until they are satisfied.

ErinBrockovich · 14/08/2020 09:16

Surely it’s the work that’s guaranteed, the person holding the guarantee should be irrelevant? I’d push harder with the builder. Either they stand by the work or they don’t.

Sanch1 · 14/08/2020 09:24

Has the buyers solicitor asked for the warranty or is it just the EA poking his nose in? If not then don't worry about, it's the solicitors that deal with it now, nothing to do with the agent.

Collaborate · 14/08/2020 09:27

@eurochick

The estate agent works for you. He/she should have your back here and be telling the buyers to do one.

This is the only appropriate response.

Lurkingforawhile · 14/08/2020 09:32

Would the roofer be willing to allow transfer for a small fee? See a hundred pounds? Might be worth it just to get the sale through. We had this with the conservatory when we bought our house. The transfer took four weeks to sort out. A real pain.

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