RSJs, Fensa etc - lack of paperwork

[AnthonyL]

Sorry I don't follow this last sentence.

[AnthonyL]

But it is a statement that gives no guidance or help to me with no clarification even as to why it is poor legal advice. I'm seeking input to a genuine problem so whilst there may be issues in HJ's response it would be helpful to have a bit of clarification.

[AnthonyL]

"We" being? And "letter of comfort" being?

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

I could do about eight letters of comfort a day ?1600 ........nice little earner .....

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

well I inspected unauthorized works and issued letters of comfort if the work complied .....I found people who were having trouble selling due to unauthorized works usually had a bad attitude...like yours

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

"It's my house and I will do what I want with it"...."and I have no plans to ever sell it" .....twenty years ago a builder chap built his own fancy house.....he wouldn't to a few small trivial things that would have gained him a certificate of completion and stormed off in the huff.....twenty years later he applied for a letter of comfort costing ?200 because he was selling and was embarrassed to find me doing the inspection...tee hee..revenge is a dish best served cold....

[The Natural Philosopher]

a completely different system that is not as foul sewer.

And ends up in a river usually.

What if there aren't

Ther always are. Nature is funny that way.

Soakaways or holding ranks or storm water runoffs

The point is there are two separate waste water systems, one foul, for sewage, and one for storm water.

And in the majorioty of cases and in fact in all new builds they must be kept sepratate.

[tim...]

.

After three weeks of my sister trying to find out how she got the paperwork as requested, the buyer (or rather their solicitor, I believe that the buyer was equally pissed about the unnecessary delay) gave up asking for it.

I wouldn't have spent the three weeks doing anything except nagging my EA to ask the buyer why an indemnity wasn't sufficient, but she isn't so confrontational (and in any case didn't know what an indemnity was until I told her)

The issue was (apparent lack of) planning permission for the communal solar panels in the garden, for which her responsibility, should they be deemed "illegal" was no more than 500 quid. But for some reason the buyer's sol decided that there was a risk she was fully responsible for this.

tim

[tim...]

There is a 12 month limit on enforcement of Building regs

But to say that the passing of this deadline makes the lack of lack of paper work irrelevant, is wrong.

It is a fact that some modifications without the paperwork may actually be unsafe

and it will always be unsafe - no passage of time changes.

and whilst it is clear that whether it is safe can be addressed by a full survey, it is not at all clear that the costs of this alternative form of proof should sit with the buyer.

If I were buying a property where an authorised change had been made that was potentially unsafe, I would be expecting the seller to provide the proof it was safe and not accept the line "the buyer can pay for a survey to check".

tim

[tim...]

it's common sense.

If you have a house with a deficiency that makes it unattractive to potential purchasers.

telling the buyer that they should sort out this deficiency for themselves during/after they have bought, is going to see the result

buyers walk away

or

buyers make you low offers

You have to have something really very special for that not to happen

tim

[The Natural Philosopher]

Like a decent house at an affordable price.

Buyers of my mums house wittered on about all this stuff and we said 'like it or lump it' The problem was they wittered after we had taken te house off the market and screwed anither 10 grand off te price.

I mean complainingabouut FENSA and the CH boiler when the first thing they did was rip out all the windows and the CH and the kitchen anyway...

[Handsome Jack]

tim... posted

Nonsense.

Anyway that doesn't apply to a chimney-breast support installed 30 years ago, or a small fixed-pane window installed 3 years ago.

There's no "should" about it. It's a matter for negotiation.

Buyers generally do pay for their own surveys, because the surveyor is then professionally liable to the buyer.

[Yellow]

Ah, OK - it was the other option - a usenet now-it-all who gets upset when they are disagreed with. :-)

No one said anything about unauthorised works. Authorised works? And no one said anything about having trouble selling.

I simply stated that I am unlikely, at this stage, to agree to an expensive and/or unreasonable request from a buyer's solicitor. That is not a "bad attitude" but sensible behaviour.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Its pure cost benefit anaylysis. When I biught my house, I looked at te hwork needing doing, teh valuye of te site and made an offer based on that.

I managed to live there nearly 7 years befier I had to pull it down and start again.

The bulding plot alone with planning was worth what I paid for it.

[Yellow]

Interesting - thanks.

[Yellow]

I agree, that is generally the case if there is a "deficiency" but we were discussing a specific case where a particular solicitor has asked for proof that the property has soakaways,

The previous poster seemed to think that if I cannot or choose not to prove the house has soakaways and just say "you will have to take my word for it but here is a water bill showing we do not pay for surface water removal" then it will make the house unsellable not just to these buyers but to anyone else - so I asked "why not".

And I haven't had that question answered yet.

Meanwhile, back in real life, I am still waiting for the buyer's solicitor's response to my statement that it has soakaways, together with a copy of the water bill - so we will see what happens next.

[Yellow]

If there was a genuine problem, it would be a different conversation, but I tend to agree with your Mum on the issue we have with our sale - like it or lump it. But we will see how it develops.

[Yellow]

I completely agree. We are selling an empty house so are prepared to pay a little to get the sale moving, as we are having to pay council tax every month, but as parent has already moved and is happy in their new flat, we do not have that emotional pull that people in a chain have.

Th people who are buying our house have already fallen in love with it, and are in a chain themselves, so I am expecting everything to get resolved, one way or another.

[Chris J Dixon]

My solicitor was suggesting, a very long time ago, that I should have a full survey done for a place I was buying. I responded that the report would be so full of caveats that there would be great difficulty in taking action in the event of trouble, and selecting a surveyor based on the adequacy of their insurance seemed to be rather missing the point. "Not necessarily" he replied "We have a number of such cases on our hands at the moment." At which juncture I felt that he had made my point for me.

Chris

[Terry Casey]

Tilbury Riverside station was a terminal connected to a triangular junction.

There was a small row of houses in the centre of the triangle and the only means of access was via a footbridge over the tracks from the adjacent road.