They are very much, "here today, gone tomorrow" companies. Mostly their guarantees are worthless because they disappear so quickly. e.g. Relative bought a property that had had damp proofing injected twice in the previous 10 years. Neither company was still trading; under their old names anyway..and a proper survey showed the damp was due to rainwater penetrating the render.
Mm, my last acquisition came with a 25-year guarantee which was ceremoniously handed over at purchase; somewhere in the small print it said that liability was limited to the cost of the chemicals used if they are proven to have failed (and that's just chemical failure, not the technique used); it doesn't cover the labour cost involved. The company who actually did the work, and who "guaranteed" the labour, is needless to say, long gone. All part of the Great Damp Scam IMO.
David
Update... my estate agency phoned yesterday and said that the last surveyor is writing his report and has warned the buyers that in it he's going to say something along the lines of
"The house shows no visual or physical signs of damp and our meter readings of the skirting boards are inconclusive, so we recommend core samples are taken of all walls and floors to find out where the severe damp is."
Obviously this will cost a huge amount, totally ruin the decoration, and take ages to come up with results, so I've told the buyers it's not going to happen and that they've got one day to come to a decision about buying the house.
I also had a good search around for the marks on the walls where the first surveyor put his damp meter, and can find only one place in the kitchen. Interestingly, this was the room where my wife was while he was doing his survey. What's the bet that he didn't do any tests anywhere else in the house and made up his results?!
Chalk this one up to another demonstration of how lousey the English property business is (although to be fair, the estate agent is trying hard to convince the buyers they should go buy).
Ken
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