Professor Property Advice

My son and his girlfriend had an offer accepted on a semi last week, which was advertised through a solicitors/property shop. The building society surveyor visited the property the next day to carry out a survey for a home buyers report and the building society rang my son straight afterwards to ask if he was aware the house was built of concrete, not brick. This was impossible to tell from a visual inspection as the walls were rendered and the estate agent gave no indication of this, either verbally or in the advertisement. I can only assume the building society surveyor had local knowledge. My son and his girlfriend were charged for a basic survey and they have therefore lost just under £300, plus whatever fees their solicitor will charge for searches already instigated..

I fully appreciate it is  "buyer beware" when it comes to purchasing
property. It does however seem very wrong that such an important feature and one that could have major structural implications in the future was not mentioned!.

To make matters worse the solicitor actually rang my son's girlfriend three times within an hour of the building societies call to say he knew nothing about this type of property and to find out from her all about Wimpey No-Fines low rise dwellings and the potential problems from her, as she had done some research following the building societies call. He also said the building society would have approved a mortgage, but I can safely say that this would only have been because they were borrowing approximately 78% of the asking price. The estate agent even rang me about ten minutes after my son withdraw their offer to ask me if I was still interested in property in the area in question ( I registered with
them 4 months ago). What a coincidence!

I am tempted to write to the solicitor to ask if he is prepared to pay
the basic valuation fee as a good will gesture as I do feel my son and his girlfriend were misled, but I don't know how we stand, particularly in relation to the Property Misdescriptions Act 1991. I am sure the solicitor would be able to run rings around us, but it seems so unfair.
Also I wonder if he would have allowed my son's girlfriend to make three phone calls to him for advice without charge.

Any help or information would be greatly appreciated.

Unfortunately there would seem to be little redress possible here. You have obviously not found anything in the details That would contravene the Property Misdescriptions Act (which is a joke anyway).  Learn from it and move on. Are you really sure you don’t want to buy it? Sounds like an opportunity to me! Renegotiate! Find a lender familiar with the construction and willing to lend. Everything has a price! Someone is going to buy it at a price in the future. Nothing is unsaleable.

I guess my advice (perhaps for the next property) would be take thing more slowly next time.

Let the solicitors be in touch with each other first and only then carry out a survey. Give yourself some reflection time.

Concrete walls are usually thick. Certainly thicker than usual. There are some Bungalows in

Andover with bicycle frame reinforcement in the walls.  You cannot expect to have a surveyor’s knowledge,

But just asking a few questions of neighbours at the time would have put you right and told you so much more!

Learn from it and move on.

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