To ignore house buyer complaints a month after completion

[Sandals12]

My buyer has complained through our conveyancing solicitors about a crack in oil tank. Surely they are BU and completely deluded. They've sent a picture and quotes for new oil tank, removal of oil and old one etc amounting to £2500.

My solicitor has responded more or less saying about 'buyer beware', a decent survey would've shown this etc.

Btw The crack was definitely not there when we sold..its v noticeable!

Oh we had such CFs! I’d tried hard to make it lovely for them. I’d left fizz in the (free) fridge, a little ‘welcome home’ basket with mugs and biscuits etc, a letter telling them about fun things to do in the town, where the food shops are, where the best take aways were etc. I left a bone for their greyhound, and even left them curtain poles and blinds (not cheap!). Then, three days after moving in, we were contacted with their ‘grievances’. They complained the oven and microwave hadn’t been professionally cleaned, that the fire alarm was too sensitive (it’s a new build and nothing to do with us?!), that a LIGHTBULB was out in one of the en suites and that the skirting board in the living room was a discoloured white as that’s where our sofa had been and the sun had bleached the rest of it except that bit. Honestly it was madness, really put a damper on us moving! Our solicitor told them to get lost and we never heard from them again, but some people are such chancers.

I think you legally have to have a working heating/hot water system

Whatever you left would have went in the bin to be honest. I have issues with people leaving me stuff and waste of time to be honest.

Similar to my parents new owner tried to clean a new heating system after 2 weeks. My unsaid it was working fine and serviced a week before they left which she had evidence of. The solicitor said as she had taken all steps to keep the system running it was the new buyers problem.

We once made getting the gas boiler serviced and a valid safety certificate for it a condition of the contract before we would agree to complete. Our solicitor put the clause in for us and sent the vendors a covering letter explaining why it had to be done.

The reason we did that was because the vendors had told us that they had never had the boiler serviced at all in twenty years because "it has always worked." Not seeming to understand that gas boilers can work and still leak carbon monoxide if any seals are deteriorating or not a clean burn etc.

No you do not.

Whereas I'd of found that really lovely!

I thought you had about a week to raise these issues? If it was there, a decent surveyor would have noticed and if not then it’s not like it’s your house so quite literally it’s a them issue.

@ThatLemonViewer Aww, thanks 😊

@noctilucentcloud 😂 thank you! Me too, which is why I did it!

So disappointing isn't it. I viewed during Covid and thought the seller was nervous behind her mask because of that - sadly it was because she was worried I'd ask the right questions. I'm sorry I didn't take more note from a jealous person who'd hoped to get this bungalow. She had also offered and when she found out I had been accepted, said 'I hope you can find the source of the damp'.

Six months after moving in I found out all of the floors were completely rotten with thick black mould, wet/dry rot and woodworm. I had the seller's number because I'd offered to put her up if she came back to the area - I texted and she texted back with some fabrication about a pest control company, she 'couldn't remember' bullshit. Turns out she'd had every floor replaced in 2016 by a cowboy company that folded in 2018. 25 year timber guarantee not worth the paper it was written on. Having every floor replaced here cost me the £20K equity I had to last me the two years before retirement at 66. I do hope it's true that what goes around comes around. But the very worst thing for me was that my beloved sheltie had a fungus in his nose when he died, the day before his 14th birthday. Without either of us knowing, he'd been lying under my bed for six months on top of the underlay which was covering the thick black mould.

Caveat emptor.

That is latin for 'the empty guinea pig'.

So you would expect a new build house not to work and be ok?

Our buyer was pretty good but we did sell knowing our freeholder (who lived in part of same property) was a pain in the ass and had unreasonably prevented us doing some building work.

A few months later, buyer texted me a few times asking some stuff about freeholder and I could tell he was hitting problems so I just ignored it and hoped he'd just assume I'd changed numbers and the messages did stop. Buyer was a property developer by trade so I didn't feel too guilty as I'm sure he (and his lawyers) would be able to manage freeholder. He did eventually get his way and do a big extension to the property that the freeholder must have hated, and was much bigger than what he'd prevented us from doing, but I guess buyer was more bullish. Was good karma.

definitely ignore - or rather have your solicitor say that they should have asked you put money aside for unforeseen costs related to the house pre-sale that you might be liable for

this happened to me when I sold a flat. 6 months later they wanted a few hundred pounds to cover something concerning the freehold share that their solicitor had failed to look into at the time of the sale. I told them to sling their hooks. End of.

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.

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.

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 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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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.