argh!

[bigbadbarry]

Bloody bloody bloody bloody.
Just needed some soothing, please. Make me a cup of tea or something. We thought we were going to exchange this week but no! Our buyer has sent another surveyor round and wants to know what I am going to do about the fact that the company guaranteeing the damp proofing, 20 years ago, is no longer in business.
I've reached the point in the whole rotten process where I want to chuck it all in and just stay put.

Blimey, they sound like a real pain in the backside. How long does damp proofing get guaranteed for anyway? I would say that I would be doing nothing and it is sold as seen and (multiply, by the sounds of it) inspected

I'm not absolutely sure but I think they are very cautious first-time buyers, who have been spooked by the survey report (if you've never seen one before they do make it sound like the house is falling down!)
There are also mutterings that we will be expected to pay an indemnity for the extension, which we didn't put up.
(Damp proofing = 30 years, although it doesseem to have broken down a bit. Would cost about 200 quid to fix if the guarantee can't be used, and needs to be done in the next 3 or 4 years: to me that seems neither here nor there in the buying of a house).
Thanks for the tea and sympathy :)

I'd just let your solicitor deal with it - they've probably dealt with this sort of nonsense before! We had to supply indemnity insurance on our house because we didn't have a boiler installation certificate, and it cost £55. Our vendor has had to supply indemnity insurance on the place we're buying for some work or other that they've done. It seems like a bit of a scam tbh and I'd be surprised if most houses don't end up with indemnity insurance for some random reason or other!

My solicitor is the one recommended by the estate agent - which I went along with, thinking it would make things easier. I so wish I had stuck with the one who has handled our previous moves! Current one does. not. communicate. She has never telephoned me (and is in when I call her maybe 50% of the time) and seems like a complete wet weekend.
Quotes for indemnities that they want add up to nearly £1000! Which seems a bit steep for work we did not do - surely the chap we bought from should have taken it out to cover all future purchasers? I have no idea because he left us absolutely no paperwork.
Sigh

I feel your pain - we should have exchanged last week and found out 2 days before that the solicitor at the end of the chain had only applied for searches the week before and has only just sent queries today!! Has taken most of this week for our solicitor to manage to speak to all the other solicitors in the chain to clarify what is happening!!!

Surveyors err on the side of caution with damp and damp meters can be overly sensitive. The survey of our house queried some damp so a company came out to look at it and said it was fine - nothing unexpected.

Good luck - you will get there!!

Hang in there, it will get done eventually. Good luck, it's so slow and worrying.

I agree about the suveryors' reports. They never seem to state anything firmly, it's all 'seems' and 'I believe' and caveats about everything. You do wonder why you pay them so much to state the bleeding obvious and then to cover themselves up for any eventuality.

Rachel oh no! Why don't solicitors do telephones, it all has to be very slow letters? I am sure if they just spoke to each other it could all be fixed in 15 minutes.