Sellers failed too declare boiler had broken down...

[Greenwitchhorse]

What do people think of this one: I recently bought a house in the South East. The boiler although more than 7 year old worked at the time of the survey and sellers provided a certificate that it had been serviced/check the year before and stated in the forms sent to solicitor that it was in good order.

Right after I bough the house I brought in a plumber/engineer to do various jobs and asked him to double-check the boiler and of course it is faulty and need at best a new part at worst complete replacement...

I have just emailed my solicitor about this.

The sellers also failed to clear the house when they left leaving me with unwanted furniture and a bunch of crap in the shed I had to dismantle, clear and pay a company to remove and bring to the local tip.

There is no way they did not know their boiler had broken down between survey and exchange/completion...

Has anyone been in that situation and it is worth pursuing them to get them to contribute to the cost of the boiler repair and to invoice them for having to clear up the mess they left?

or is that a waste of time?

I am really tempted to take them to the small claims court...

I am also trying to contact the company that provided the gas certificate as I am suspicious that it is not a local one and wonder if they actually even could have faked the paperwork they provided.

@Greenwitchhorse whos to say its the plumber pulling a fast one ?

IANAL

Are fixtures and fittings listed valid as at the date of the list (which I assume is before exchange), as at exchange or as at completion?

I suspect they will argue it worked at the first or second of these dates, and it will be hard to show otherwise.

FWIW, we moved out of a house and left it empty for a bit, though regularly went back to check on it. The boiler could have failed there without us knowing.

Leaving stuff is bad.

I think you are expecting too much, unless you are buying a new build where you can go back to the builder when you buy a normal property you have to accept you are going to uncover things you weren’t aware of. Case in point a broken boiler, it’s annoying but it’s your property now, your responsibility, they have a new property probably with its own lot of stuff to sort out, they don’t care about your house anymore than their seller cares about theirs.

Leaving stuff = absolutely out of order.

Boiler = unprovable, sadly.

Post = tell them to f**k off and put it all back in letterbox marked not at this address.

Oil boilers cost around 6K.

Weve had a quote for 8K for ours

@mumda @KievLoverTwo

Even if they have lied if they said it was working when they left what could you do

we had hot water In morning came home at teatime no hot water
combi boilers gave a rubber component in the diverter valve that wears out
also has the pressure dropped
as shit as it is you are wasting your time

DS bought a house last year, level 3 survey, receipt for boiler service. Ran boiler for hot water for a couple of months, as soon as heating went on, boiler failed. Rang the plumber who serviced it who said “ I had a problem with that one, I told them they needed to replace it before next winter” They said boiler was in good order. £4K No comeback.

The estate agent rang the sellers and they got a ''we were unaware of any problems' reply which is obviously bullshit as you would notice that there is no hot water...

Can you prove they lived in the property shortly before they moved?

Hopefully Karma will eventually wreck that new place of theirs...
That's really nasty, they might well have had a fully working boiler as PPs have said and it broke after they last used it on moving day. It really comes across like you're looking for someone to blame/sue.

If your boiler had broken down in your old house would you have been this angry/looking to blame someone or would you have seen it as just one of those things and got on with sorting it? You have been unlucky that's all.

Also if the plumber said it needs a new part or worst case scenario is it needs replacing, why are you immediately jumping to the worst case scenario for costs instead of seeing how it gets fixed?

This whole thread reads like your eyes have dollar signs in them.

Currently buying a house. Contract forms came through including boiler service report which showed a fault. They had the fault fixed but didn't get it retested so we paid for our own plumber to go round and retest. All good. £60 for peace of mind. But it we find it not working after we move in that's our problem. There could be anything wrong with a house that the sellers are unaware of. The element in our built-in oven failed. Oven was only 2 years old. The week before moving. We replaced it for £40 (screwfix). No way would we have left it for the buyers.

A bloody expensive one !

This

@Rainbowsandrainclouds1 said it's an oil boiler. Have you ever seen one of those? Our last one was about the size of 1.5 washing machines, the one in our current house (which will be newer) is about the size of three washing machines! (it takes up a vast space in our garage)

Not that 8k for a new boiler should ever feel good, but I can see how they'll just be a lot pricier.

Very much feel for you OP. I had a similar thing when I completed in May- they declared all the appliances worked specifically on the forms (I asked them to confirm as an enquiry), and advertised the house as having solar panels and answered all questions on these as if they worked. Dishwasher and oven didn't work, and the solar panels also don't - they need an inverter which costs a couple of k. The survey said the front door needed adjusting. They said 'oh we hadn't noticed, we'll put dome WD40 on it'. Turns out it can't be adjusted (old style hinges) so it's a whole new door to fix. Can't lock it half the time.

Unfortunately even with the declarations house buying is a 'buyer beware' thing. We had no movement on the sale for weeks then exchanged and completed all of a sudden within a week - I'd fully intended to ask for a second viewing close to exchange but it all happened so fast I couldn't arrange it (it coincided with a massive work deadline). So, it was on me. A real bugger.

I'm taking it as an expensive lesson for next time.

Would be really interested to hear if you have any luck with financial compensation- I didn't bother, I was just so fucked off with it all and realised they were liars but I didn't have anything to stand on. Just discovered they hadn't taken themselves off the electoral roll this week. Buggers!!

You say you’d notice, but my friend didn’t notice that her boiler had broken for about a week. They had an electric shower and dishwasher. The only time they really used the hot water was washing hand after using the toilet etc. and you don’t tend to run the tap long enough for it to heat up.

We had this. Seller left a loft full of shite for us to get rid of, and the boiler broke two days after we moved in. We contacted our solicitor who wrote to the sellers solicitor but no joy.

Maybe I exaggerated a teeny bit. But they're not small!

Waste of time, sorry. The burden of proof would be on you- meaning you would need concrete evidence they knew the boiler was faulty and chose to mislead you. Which would be very hard to prove.

With the items they left behind, the only thing really would be to ask for a bill to be forwarded to them, but I wouldn't expect them to pay up. You could possibly go through small claims for this if you have proof it was left that way, but the court would decide what is reasonable compensation, and they may also decide you could have disposed of the items easily for free at the council tip (even of you weren't able to for various reasons). You're unlikely to get much back, and you'd risk having to cover the legal fees if you weren't successful. Personally I wouldn't risk it and it could get stressful/unpleasant.

It's no fair and this happens a lot but unfortunately there's not much on the way of protection for you put there.

We had a similar issue - they left the kitchen in a filthy state, and the garden full of junk and building materials.

The property solicitor who had represented during the sale threatened them with legal action, but they ignored him. He told us we could actually go ahead with legal action, but we had to ask ourselves if it was worth the stress and cost - the courts would almost certainly rule in our favour, but that wouldn't necessarily translate to us getting all of our costs covered.

The boiler could have broken down at any time - they won't have had the heating on for months so it could have been working fine in March. Is the hot water working or is it on N immersion heater? If they had an electric shower and cold fill appliances they may not even be aware the boiler wasn't heating water if it isn't. It's just one of those things. A 7 year old boiler isn't old but it also isn't brand new so I'd have anticipated needing to replace it within a few years anyway.

For the rubbish and stuff left, did you inform your solicitor as soon as you found it? This happened to us - elderly vendor had got overwhelmed and just walked out leaving loads of stuff behind. Our solicitor then contacted vendor's solicitor, came back within a day with an apology and offer of £500 for house clearance which we accepted and the money was transferred to us within a couple of days of completion. We then arranged for a house clearance company to come.

As for the post - we didn't have a forwarding address so returned to sender any letters that arrived. Parcels we notified the estate agent who tried to get us to drop them off with them (we refused as v inconvenient!) so those were returned to sender too.

This happened to a friend a few years ago. Lots of crap left in the house and garage. They engaged a house clearance service who provided a receipt and went the small claims court route. Of course their costs were then quantifiable. Send a "letter before action" and that should get their attention.

I thought the same.

OP needs to watch Karma doesn't come after her with such a nasty attitude.

There is ZERO way of knowing the previous owners lied, it might have just broken.

I agree that I would be irratated to have to get rid of stuff but just look on the other threads at how many people where delight to have stuff left behind and others where furious. It six and two threes.

OP is mad and looking for a war path to go on even though this stuff is purely standard house buying issues.

Thank you everyone for the sensible feedback.

To the couple of people who felt the need to go on a rant. As fas I am concerned no decent sellers would:

• have left a pile of unusable stuff in the shed (that should have been thrown away)
• have left random furniture in the house (it had been clearly agreed what was to stay in situ in the paperwork drafted by the solicitors) simply because they could not be bothered to dispose of it. We are not even talking about a couple of small bits and pieces, we are talking several chairs, 2 wardrobes, several chest of drawers all in poor condition...it was ridiculous
• pretended they had no knowledge of the boiler being faulty.

I am sure I will discover many other botched jobs and hidden horrors.

My point stands that if you don't treat other people with decency then you deserve every bit of bad karma that's coming to you. I sold two houses myself and would never have dreamed to mess around my buyers in that way. I guess we all have different standards...

I’m in the process of moving and I’m worried my massive couch won’t fit through the outside door as we’ve changed doors since we bought it. In that case I won’t have time to dispose of it. Would it be ok to offer to pay for the buyers to get it dismantled if I run out of time??

My point stands that if you don't treat other people with decency then you deserve every bit of bad karma that's coming to you. I sold two houses myself and would never have dreamed to mess around my buyers in that way. I guess we all have different standards...

My standard is not wishing ill on people because of an inconvenience. But hey, karmas a bitch.