Issues with home purchase

BlastedGlute

So our family recently purchased a new home. I say new, it's around 10 years old and it was bought from the original tenants.

We've been living here for a month now. Although our engineer gave us a list of the things he found, very basic stuff no major issues to speak of, things have been going a bit downhill. This is mainly to do with plumbing which as some of you may know is an absolute nightmare to deal with given the embedded nature of pipes.

A large portion of an outbox(a corner partition, usually made of plasterboard that hides pipes running down corners of some rooms) has become wildly damp spotted at the bottom. It now has a large portion, around 2 ft high of dampness showing which wasn't there during our inspections or when we moved in, but showed up after about a week.

There is also an issue with 2 radiators upstairs. Not only that they are not getting any heat(both only have a hot strip along the bottom, the remaining 90% is cold), but there is also what sounds like a dripping sound coming from one of them when the heating is on. Among these the toilet makes a very odd sound when you're, erm, using it. Basically, if one was taking a poop, as soon as said, erm ,wastage, enters the bowl, there is a overflow dripping sound happening somewhere to the back of the toilet. It's hard to pin down, but it's a second after anything enters the toilet bowl.

Anyway, sorry about all that.

Our engineer came back and was horrified at the issues we pointed out, claiming that he didnt not happen across any such problems, and I understand that he would not have been able to find these issues with his inspection. However I do believe there has been some concealment of very obvious issues which the previous owners likely covered up during there sale. I was wondering, is there any legal footing to be had here, or do we have to shoulder the entire bill for what could be some very tricky work, and so soon into us moving in. It's obviously deeply distressing as we paid quite a bit and even have to pay a management company to just mow the lawns and all that silly business. Thanks in advance for any advice!

Uno my Uno.

I'm sorry to say that You buy the house as is, dodgy plumbing and all. If there is anything wrong with it you're stuck with it.

amdublin

Have you tried bleeding your rads?

NUTLEY BOY

In these situations an engineer or an architect or a surveyor has a duty of care to you.

Their duty is to bring to bear such care and skill as it is reasonable to expect of a person of their professional qualification (s) when carrying out the inspection and reporting back.

In the context of structural surveys this duty will rarely extend to discovering everything that is wrong especially if the defects are hidden or concealed and incapable of reasonable discovery. Classically, they are not to be expected to engage in dismantling or taking up boards or the like unless their was some specific concern that prompt that level of investigation.

The rule of buyer beware I]caveat emptor [/I applies to buying a second hand house especially where you have had it surveyed and you then proceed to purchase.

This might sound harsh but this is the basic thinking and it is exactly as Uno my Uno says.

That said, IMHO I would have expected any defects in the operation of the heating system to have been identified if they existed at the time of survey.

Uno my Uno.

NUTLEY BOY wrote: »

In these situations an engineer or an architect or a surveyor has a duty of care to you.

Their duty is to bring to bear such care and skill as it is reasonable to expect of a person of their professional qualification (s) when carrying out the inspection and reporting back.

In the context of structural surveys this duty will rarely extend to discovering everything that is wrong especially if the defects are hidden or concealed and incapable of reasonable discovery. Classically, they are not to be expected to engage in dismantling or taking up boards or the like unless their was some specific concern that prompt that level of investigation.

The rule of buyer beware I]caveat emptor [/I applies to buying a second hand house especially where you have had it surveyed and you then proceed to purchase.

This might sound harsh but this is the basic thinking and it is exactly as Uno my Uno says.

That said, IMHO I would have expected any defects in the operation of the heating system to have been identified if they existed at the time of survey.

Most engineers reports will explicitly exclude things like this on the basis that the survey is based on a visual inspection only and things like heating systems have not been examined. Many reports contain so many exclusions and say so little you'd wonder what the actual benefit of them is.