Should I get a survey done on brand-new house?

Could be.

I am not sure that they have been set yet.

.andy

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Reply to
Andy Hall
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Some major problems/design flaws won't be picked up by a survey. eg will your car fit in the garage with room to open the doors, and will your furniture fit up the stairs, or has any disabled access been designed to run water towards and into your front door?

Reply to
Conrad Edwards

Certainly the surveyor may know some detail of "standard" local covenants, where properties are part of old estates, but I wouldn't expect them to know much about covenants etc. over an individual property.

In your case, I take it that your conveyancing solicitor paid for all the costs involved in the subsequent legal work? It doesn't matter whether he "missed the covenant at the time of purchase or hadn't considered it worth his time to explain it to (you)" because his actions resulted in a material loss on your part. If he didn't pay for the costs then you should certainly pursue him for them (unless it was too long ago or you don't want the stress).

Unusually for this group, I don't have anything against solicitors (I am related to one), but bad solicitors like this give good solicitors a bad name.

Al

Reply to
Al Reynolds

This is a big problem with new builds. Because the house will be being registered for the first time, the purchaser will often be a long way down the line before they get to see any restrictive covenants in the deeds. They will already have paid reservation fees etc. and will be far less likely to pull out. The *only* advantage is that if the land has not yet been registered, then there can be some discussion/ negotiation with the builder/vendor about what goes in the covenants. If I was buying another new house (which I probably won't), I would ask to see a copy of the proposed deeds including restrictive covenants at the same time as paying the reservation fee.

Al

Reply to
Al Reynolds

My solicitor charged me a nominal fee (£100-00 + VAT) for the necessary remedial legal work. I assume that this was some kind of face-saving device because he didn't want to admit that he was in the wrong. I could have argued with him but it wasn't worth the trouble because he was also handling the subsequent sale and it gave him a very compelling reason to get things done properly and to ensure that the purchaser was fully satisfied with the situation with regard to the covenant. I wanted to make sure that there could be no come-back from the purchaser claiming that he had been deceived on the subject of the covenant or the dispute with the neighbours. The neighbours were in the wrong and complied with the conditions of the covenant very reluctantly. They were very hostile towards me for simply defending my right to protect my property from illegal parking.

I certainly wouldn't use this solicitor again or recommend him to anyone else. It's my belief that he was acting beyond his competance by grabbing part of the property action in the boom years before the price crash of the early 90s.

Cic.

Reply to
Cicero

Sounds like you looked at the whole thing pragmatically, which almost always makes the most sense. Good idea getting him to do the conveyancing as well as he would have been only too aware of the issues.

Al

Reply to
Al Reynolds

======================= I didn't have any real choice in the matter. If I'd made an official complaint I could have become embroiled in months or possibly years of investigations with no real satisfaction at the end of the process. As you say, I took the quick way out for a quick sale and a quiet life. It's not always the best way but it worked for me and the solicitor involved might have learned a lesson as well. I wonder if solicitors learn from their mistakes or do they somehow bury them like doctors?

Cic.

Reply to
Cicero

I think you answered that one, Cic.

The same applies to any of the so-called traditional professions. They obfuscate information from their clients and if need be close ranks to cover themselves.

It's obvious that your £100 arrangement to fix a problem was an admission of guilt without an admission of guilt.

I've had similar issues with various of these paid advisors and have ended up going for solutions such as you have described in order to close the issue and move on in the most convenient way. The principle annoys me intensely though.

Nowadays I tend to read up a bit on a subject first before giving the job and have a conversation along the lines that I will be looking closely, so if they are charging for solicitor time, they had better not be using the office junior.

I do the same with doctors, bank managers and all the rest and don't allow myself to be fobbed off by any of them. Generally if they know early on in the arrangement that this is the situation, the attempts at obfuscation stop and they pay proper attention,

.andy

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Reply to
Andy Hall

On Mon, 25 Oct 2004 19:34:54 +0100, a particular chimpanzee named MM randomly hit the keyboard and produced:

Check who carried out the Building Control (if it was the NHBC, their inspection regime tends to be less frequent than the Local Authorities). Check that the Building Control body did all the stage inspections (foundations, dpc, drains, etc). Check that the work has had a final Building Control inspection and been completed. You may have to ask via the builder, as this kind of information is not available to third parties. If he's not happy to release this information or allow you to ask yourself, then you can make an inference from that.

Reply to
Hugo Nebula

On 25 Oct 2004 07:47:58 -0700, a particular chimpanzee named snipped-for-privacy@tiscali.co.uk (Chris V) randomly hit the keyboard and produced:

...Any _major_ structural problems.

Reply to
Hugo Nebula

Actually it only covers thing which didn't comply with building regs.

There is this semantic difference between the NHBC Requirements and the NHBC Standards. The "NHBC Standards" are lovely and detailed, and any house built to these standards would be superb. The NHBC warranty only warrants that the house has been built to NHBC Requirements - these are that it meets current building control regulations.

An example - in the "standards" it suggests that ridge tiles on rooves in exposed areas be fixed using a coarse mortar and/or with additional mechanical fixing for the end tiles. We lived in a close where this had not been done, and when every house in the close lost one or more ridge tiles in a day of high winds, the builder told us all to claim on our home insurance policies. On enquiring to the NHBC about the NHBC warranty covering the cost, it eventually became clear that since this wasn't mentioned in the "NHBC Requirements" then it wasn't covered by the warranty.

As it happens, the builder still had another ongoing development nearby and when several people in the close suggested to the builder that the press might be interested in their lack of sympathy for our situation. Mysteriously, we all arrived home from work the next day to find the rooves repaired and damage rectified...

Ironically, you actually get more cover in the NHBC warranty if NHBC did the building control (see

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I'd still prefer the local authority to do the building control though.

Al

Reply to
Al Reynolds

It seems that it very unsatisfactory if the "private building controllers" (NHBC) in practice have different standards from the Local Authorities.

I seem to remember a recent case in the paper where some houses were build with inadequate staircases, and the builders and the NHBC building control each said it was the others responsibility to avoid to such errors.

James

Reply to
James

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