Negligence claim against solicitors

[rockybalboa]

I bought a house 15 years ago. The survey mentioned 4 issues which needed to be looked into prior to exchange of contracts. I obtained quotes for the first 3 and ended up negotiating the cost of the work off the purchase price. I can't remember what happened about the 4th issue but have no paperwork suggesting that I got any quotes to fix it. I am now selling the house and the purchaser's solicitor has raised a query about the same issue following the purchaser's survey. Having had some people out this week to look at it, it transpires that this is a fairly major structural issue likely to cost thousands to resolve. Either we will have to risk losing our buyer and get the work done ourselves or we will have to reduce the purchase price accordingly so that the new owners can get the work done. My solicitor saw the survey so was aware of the issue. All the paperwork at the solicitors has been destroyed because of how long ago it was. Can anyone advise whether I have grounds for a potential negligence claim? Presumably the claim wouldn't be time barred as the issue has only just come to light.

Let me get this straight. You bought a house 15 years ago. The survey revealed an issue which you chose not to fix. It is now a major structural problem. It presumably wasn't a major problem at the time or your mortgage lender would have told you to fix it. How on earth is this your solicitor's negligence?

You chose to ignore the fourth issue at the time of purchase fifteen years ago, I cannot understand why you think your solicitor at the time was/is now responsible.

In addition, the issue hasn't 'only just come to light', you were made aware of it fifteen years ago and chose to do nothing.

The problem is the same then as it was 15 years ago. If my solicitor had advised me to raise a query with the vendors solicitor at the time of purchase then it would have become apparent then that there was no building control sign off for the work and it could have been raised with the vendor (who presumably did the work and the corrective work done at their expense. Which is exactly what is happening now. I now know that it is a Huge Issue but I didn't know that then. How would I have known? I sent the survey to the solicitor. Is that not part and parcel of what a conveyancing solicitor does? I'm happy to be put straight but I genuinely don't understand why the extent of the issue wasn't addressed then. I was a first time buyer so relatively naive but I can't get my head around the fact that I would have "ignored" this issue.

I suspect that the buyer's lender has flagged it as an issue, and that is why their solicitor has raised it. Presumably your lender didn't consider it affected their security.

Your surveyor flagged it, so you knew it was an issue. A solicitor need to no more than draw this to your attention. It's for you to decide whether to proceed with the purchase in light of the survey.

Agree with the other lawyers on this thread.

You were made aware by your solicitors (although frankly you shouldn't have needed to have it pointed out by them when your surveyors had already warned you about it).

There's no negligence on your solicitors' part.