Threatened with small claims court 5 months after selling house?

[lmw850]

We completed in our house at the end of May. It was a difficult process as after our buyers survey results were released, they asked for a £20k discount.

I pushed back on a lot of points as ultimately the survey was a farce. It said that we needed a whole new roof beyond other things.

Buyer sent a roofer round & he confirmed it needed some repairs but not a re-roof. We paid for this, along with various other bits that the buyer asked for. We ended up paying around £1000 for the repairs that they requested.

One of the many points raised in the survey was there was a bit of damp on the ceiling kitchen. I advised the buyer that we had recently noticed a small stain as the silicon from the shower had completely come away, however we repaired this and noticed no further issues.

Today I have received an email from my solicitor to state that the leak was bigger than we knew and that the kitchen ceiling has fallen through. A plumber stated that it was from a pipe under the shower and had been leaking for a long time. The buyer is now wanting to take us to a small claims court.

Where do I stand if A - I didn’t know that the leak was as bad as it was and B - buyer has lived there for almost 5 months?

Surely it is the buyers responsibility to follow up on issues raised in the survey, like they did with the roof report?

Who’s to say that the ceiling wouldn’t have collapsed when we were still living there if the leak had been happening for a while?

I’m sorry that this has happened to them and I hope they have insurance to fix it, but what would they be trying to claim against me?

"The leak was bigger than we knew". I wouldn't give it another thought.

AI will have told the buyer that they could claim, and given them a whole bunch of reasons why. Once your solicitor contacted them to tell them why it was wrong they hopefully realised that they can spend money going through small claims or they can just use that money to put towards fixing.

If anything their claim should be against the person who did the survey and failed to identify a long-term issue. They have insurance for this stuff

You say you advised them of all of this and they never took it any further. Well there we are then. An issue was spotted, you rectified what you thought the problem was, and by the time you moved out the problem had not returned.

When you say you advised them, was any of that in writing?

All of it was in writing thankfully, I believe that helped.

They're obviously trying it on but I think you're being naive to think your roofer knows more than a surveyor. My husband is a surveyor and spends his life arguing with tradesmen, including the supposedly good ones, about why they need to do x, y and z. He's had several people come back to him after they ignored his advice based on tradesmen downplaying the problem and then low and behold a few years down the line there are major issues.

Glad to hear this, Op!