Vendors removed chimney breast without permission. What should we do?

[matildawormwood]

We're in the process of buying a house. Just found out that the vendors removed the chimney breast from the upstairs bedroom a year ago but left it intact downstairs and left chimney stack intact in the loft. It sort of tapers diagonally into the wall from about a foot below ceiling height in the bedroom. We just heard that they didn't get building regs approval to do this and the surveyor wasn't able to ascertain how the chimney stack is being supported as it's all been plastered over. What should I do now? The solicitor has suggested getting them to pay for indemnity insurance but this only covers us in the event of the council enforcing changes. It doesn't cover us if the ceiling falls down or we need to do remedial work. I want reassurance that the remaining chimney stack is being adequately supported and I don't want to encounter problems when we sell on the house in future. Has anyone been in this situation? What should I be asking for?

We looked at a house some years ago, there were some veey faint cracks in the brickwork on the outside in one corner. We considered what we knew about the area (not likely to be subsidence) and decided we'd get a structural survey done. Cost around £200 ish.

Came back that the roof joists had not been seated correctly on one side of the house and that effectively the house had twisted very slightly (was a late 70s build) however remedial work would not be costly without it through the integrity of that corner couldn't be guaranteed. We reduced our offer of the asking price by the sum of money we knew it would cost.

The vendors pulled out. They accepted an asking price offer from another couple and AFAIK never mentioned our findings. Recently we drove past to visit friends and noticed that there was scaffolding up, its always worth getting a good surveyor in before spenidng thousands on a house and being at risk of big bills afterwards