Some help please re-purchase issues

[MoirasRoses]

Me again.. you’ve all been super helpful so far in our buying process, I wonder if I could pick your brains again?

Ready to exchange this week bar a couple queries, which now look set to potentially jepodize the whole thing 😭 for context, we are buying a 4 year old house so we keep falling quite foul to all the new build regs. This time, the council cannot conform if a recommended phase II land contamination survey was ever undertaken. A desktop report concluded it was fine for residential development (the houses are built on an old railway station that closed in the 1970s & left to rot essentially) but they cannot locate any further records. Therefore they cannot confirm 2 conditions have been discharged. Our solicitor has advised she’s had to tell our lender of this..

What’s the likely outcome here? Will our bank refuse the mortgage based on potentially lost or not filed records? The council don’t seem to have suggested a way of looking any further other than saying ‘until they can be found we cannot confirm. If you need any further help, let us know’ .. but found by who?! I’ve contacted the buildings company who replied very quickly to say ‘all conditions required were met & there was no contamination. NHBC & building control provided the required certificates.’ But didn’t provide any actual records re-contamination phase II investigations.. I’ve gone back & asked.

Thank you for any thoughts..

Ps. We’ve also found out our solicitor was the original conveyancer for the sale of the new builds - would this not have come to their attention back then? 🤷🏼‍♀️

I don't know much about the rules and regulations etc but would ask do you want to go ahead and buy a house that could potentially be on contaminated land? and also, your solicitor works for you so her telling your lender that there's a potential issue is in your best interest isn't it?

I'm not sure if your bank will refuse to give you mortgage based on lost records, I think they will refuse based on the fact that if anything happens and the house becomes worthless they won't get their money back they are lending you.

Obviously I don’t want to live on contaminated land but I don’t believe it is. It was a railway from 1881-1970. Demolished in 1980 & just left to become overgrown. The local & environmental searches did not show up any risk of contamination based on historical records. The building company are adamant it was done & they wouldn’t have got sign off from the council without it.. which makes sense..

We’ll see what tomorrow brings I suppose.

Does the current owner not have any details on this? Surely they needed the same sign off when they purchased the property from the builder?

Can your solicitor not look at the documents pertaining to the original house sale? There is usually a tick list of things that have been checked. It would not have been missed, one would hope.

Quick question, doe the property have the benefit of NHBC cover, and if it does, then the NHBC will likely have cover for contaminated land - check it out and get back to me if you need to. (NHBC will also have records)

Go to the council planning site and view the original planing submission. There will be a condition attached to it which you should be able to view with a statement that it was met or not.

But as earlier mention - ask the vendor and knock on some doors for the answer! Especially any that have sold recently.

I very much doubt the land is contaminated as this will have been checked out. How useless your council are. They will never try to find the records. Ring your MP to shake the council up. Ask your solicitor if there is anything else you can do

I’d be very surprised that there wasn’t a phase 2 investigation, as former railway areas would generally flag potential contamination issues (asbestos, heavy metals, PAHs etc). I’d be going at the Council again to locate the records.

I there are no exclusions on the NHBC warranty then by default, I would have said you have cover for contamination. If the NHBC don't have records and have signed it all off, then it is covered

The solicitor also acts for the lender,so cannot keep this info from them

I would normally say to my clients that this had to be done,and if they said no to tell the lender i would have to withdraw from acting,but practically thats normally the same thing in the end

See what the Lenders say,they will probably refer it to the surveyor