This one isn't for me, it's for a colleague. Just a first pass here for opinion, qualified or not!
Colleague moved two weeks ago. Yesterday he had a letter from the owner of the house next door saying that five years ago some work to the guttering was done on her house. Then subsequently some work was done on the guttering on the house he now owns, and this has caused damage and damp to her house. And the people who did the work on her house have said there's nothing wrong with what they did, so not their problem. The guttering runs across both properties as it's a terrace.
And before she takes legal redress, would he please pay for it.
So - does he have any liability for work done before he bought it, do we think?
Obviously there's all the issues about extent of actual damage, liability, getting surveyers, who to sue or claim against if he can, etc etc, but the initial questions is - is he actually liable or is it a case of telling the neighbour she actually needs to claim against the person he bought the house from, as it happened in her tenure?
I feel sorry for him, it's his first house after renting for years and they just got married a few weeks ago too. Takes the shine off a bit!
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My unqualified but common sense* opinion is that one can't be held responsible for damage to other property when he was not even the owner of the said house.
Surely the problem neighbor can claim it on his/her own house insurance? Then it would be his/her insurer's task how to recover from your friends' previous owner's insurance?
Did the seller (who sold to your friend) indicate any dispute with neighbors in seller's information sheet?
* = which qualified judges may lack even though it is their opinion which counts at the end (sorry couldn't resist saying this).
PS: Try posting in MSE forum where there are some property lawyers who can advise better.
Last edited by: movilogo on Wed 9 Nov 16 at 09:50
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Returning to the core question, when you buy a "second hand" house you are responsible for it "as is" immediately. Caveat emptor applies.
I too am unqualified but my common sense view is that the buyer and their own insurer has the initial responsibilty to deal with a third party claim if it only arose after sale. Subsequent establishment of the full facts and history will then determine any liability by the new owner and which, if any, insurer will cover.
Presumably there was nothing picked up on the buyer's survey?
This sort of thing must happen all the time and insurers will have standard processes to deal with them.
Finally it's a pity that it's already been formalised by the neighbour. Unless there is other undisclosed information or "history", both immediate parties are innocent. If that were the case I would be inclined to look at the problem on site and chat it through with the neighbour to see if it can be resolved amicably. Of course the neighbour may well be one from hell but let's start out positively!
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>>getting surveyers
Surveyors would do a better job.
8-}
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I would suggest contacting the people he purchased from (or their Solicitors)
I suspect that the neighbour has tried this on before with no luck and is taking advantage of having new people to try again.
Probably worth asking the person complaining if they raised this with the previous owner, as he may have a case if they didn't declare this as a dispute to his Solicitors
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This isn't near Birmingham is it? My daughter moved out in the last year or so from a house where the next door people were continually complaining about one thing or another. Daughter had her guttering replaced and next door complained about a leak and internal damage. Daughter got the gutterer back and he demonstrated that the problem was entirely the next door neighbour;s and pre-existed the new guttering.
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It feels like a try-on to me too, but anyway. I was trying to find out what liability a new owner has for pre-existing issues, if any.
I've chatted to hm this morning - his initial feeling seemed to be "sure, we'll pay half of whatever number you cook up", but I think I've dissuaded him from doing that immediately while he gets his ducks in a row.
It's not what I'd do, anyway.
And no, not Birmingham!
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Try the gardenlaw forum. There are several very knowledgeable people there, and lots of examples of disputes of this sort.
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Thanks Cliff - having just spent way too long browsing the horrors that lurk there, I'll point him at it.
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"Try-on" was my first reaction. I would be inclined to ask when the second lot of gutter repairs was done. Then if she had raised the damage with the previous owner, and what the reaction was. Ultimately call her bluff gently and decline any responsibility; the expenses of surveyors or solicitors should thereby be avoided.
In the meantime I would contact the seller and get their version. It would be understandable, if reprehensible, if they decided to keep mum and not jeopardise a sale, but don't sellers now have to sign some kind of declaration covering disputes?
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Almost regardless of the legal position, I would try pointing out that it is to neither party's advantage to have a neighbour dispute, which would have to be declared on the sale of the property. As such it might be best to drop hands and each sort out their own problems.
It might also be worth trying to determine if there was a dispute with the previous owner - if undeclared, then there might be recourse to him/her.
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Ask your own side solicitor who handled purchase whether anything about this dispute was declared by the vendor.
Then - separately ask the complainer if they had approached the prior owner.. and if yes, then when?
If yes, then your solicitor can advise vendor's that it was not declared. so vendor's responsibility...
If no, vendor's responsibility. (pre existing condition anyway)
Last edited by: madf on Wed 9 Nov 16 at 14:02
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Neighbourly relations set aside for a moment.
Tell them to get stuffed. It's a try on. I've never heard such a load of gumf.
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Observe the flow of water in heavy rain, any leaks and their origin. Can't be that difficult?
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Me? I'd write a letter stating that I was sorry to hear about the issue which had arisen during the previous ownership of the property and only in order to formalise and audit trail their claim you would be forwarding the claim to the solicitors of the previous owner for their attention and resolution of the matter.
That should wrap up the issue.
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Well, in fact he's passed a copy to his own solicitor who handled the sale, and she is going to "get back to him", I think with evidence or otherwise his vendor disclosed a neighbour dispute, although they seem to think she didn't disclose anything.
As he asked me to read all paperwork at the time, and I would have been all over it like a rash if there had been anything there like this, I'm pretty sure she didn't too.
Anyway, what he will do with that info, one way or the other, I don't know.
He didn't seem to have checked whether that check was going to cost him money, so who knows!
I'll update the soap opera if anything interesting happens, but thanks for all the input.
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There is presumably a grey area between a full-blown "dispute", already at the angry impasse and exchange of solicitors' letters stage, and a simple discussion about what do do about gutters which seem to be a shared problem, and how to split the costs.
Arguably a bit of misunderstanding about what exactly if anything has been agreed does not constitute a notifiable dispute.
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God Almighty. If he asks his solicitor what he thinks then he's going to get a bill that will be larger than the cost of repairs...
Keep the solicitors out of it. All they will do is argue and incur legal fees.
If there is a problem with his gutter affecting the neighbour, then he is likely causing a legal nuisance, so he should get it sorted asap. And it's probably making his own house damp too. So I'd be getting a roofer in today.
Damage arising from the previous five years, lol.
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>> God Almighty. If he asks his solicitor what he thinks then he's going to get
>> a bill that will be larger than the cost of repairs...
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>> Keep the solicitors out of it. All they will do is argue and incur legal
>> fees.
Yep, that was pretty much my take on it too. Be interesting to see, therefore, what actually happens.
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From my experience, even if the dispute has been officially documented, it need not cause a problem with re-selling provided the dispute was effectively settled. You would still have to declare it when selling though. The real issues that cause significant problems are disputes over noise and boundaries. Property sales since 2012 now are covered by consumer law so there is far more responsibility for the seller to notify the buyer about problems rather than hiding behind the previous 'buyer beware' mantra. There have been cases of sellers being sued for non-disclosure years after contracts were exchanged.
Solicitors should only be involved as a last resort when all other options have proved unsuccessful.
Last edited by: The Melting Snowman on Thu 10 Nov 16 at 11:42
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BIL bought his house in 2002. New neighbour settled in next door in 2013, and within a year claimed ownership of a 30 meter strip of land due to an error in the deeds.
Cost him c £35k in cash to settle it..
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Cost him c £35k in cash to settle it..
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Wow that's some settlement.
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Wow indeed.
When we moved in the solicitor identified a two foot wide strip of land of about 75 feet long that ran right across our plot. For some reason it still belonged to the previous owners before last. People we were buying from had no idea it had never been theirs.
One of those "who cares" things, but she insisted we sort it. Sounds like that was wise, especially as when contacted they luckily didn't care at all and we paid them £1 to buy it.
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>>a two foot wide strip of land of about 75 feet long
It is called a "Ransom Strip" and is used to prevent future development of the land.
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>> It is called a "Ransom Strip" and is used to prevent future development of the
>> land.
Must have slipped though then. End of our garden was fields, then in the ownership of the ones before last, I guess in the nineteen eighties, they sold them and there's a housing estate of some size on there now - 150 houses perhaps, something like that. I imagine they made a lot of money.
The strip ran across the end of our garden, basically where the fence now is. Across the width of our garden on the other side there are four houses - and they're not big. Crikey.
We also found there was still a right of way for them to bring cattle down what is now our drive to those fields, which our solicitor also sorted.
The joys of an old house - it's been a farmhouse and a pub in its time as well just a house. Of course, there's damp and bits falling off too, but that's just me on seeing the bills, not the house.
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>>Ransom Strips
In a nearby village six houses were built behind a row of 1950's houses and have been empty of 2 years now because the developers ignored the few feet of land owned by someone else that is used to access the site and was not a right of way.
The developers had even laid tarmac, kerbs and drainage on the access road and the owner threatened to have it all ripped up and returned to its former state.
All resolved after a significant pay out!
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If BIL's solicitor was negligent, then he could sue, unless it was a strip of land which BIL was using for some - 'assuming' it was his.
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This topic reminds me of the first house I owned - in an East London terrace. When the old lady next door died, a Pakistani family moved in and started to refurbish the place. Our guttering at the front was plastic, joined at the boundary to their cast iron version, which led to the downpipe at the other end of their garden. I knew they were going to replace the cast iron with plastic, so, when I got home that day, I crossed the road to check that they'd got the levels right.
I spotted straightaway that the new downpipe had been fixed too high and the rainwater would back up and overflow at the boundary wall. I completely failed to notice that the whole front of their house had just been painted bright pink - a good example, I think, of our propensity to see what we want to see! The downpipe was quickly sorted - they were good neighbours and we are still in touch, but I couldn't describe their builders in the same way.
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"The downpipe was quickly sorted"
As John Boy says above.
I really don't get all this dispute and solicitor stuff - give me ladder, a drill and a few screws and the fall is adjusted. If not a 'stop-end' might do. Whatever, it's an hour's work max.
What ever happened to 'make-do and mend' etc. ?
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I asked for an update today, for giggles.
The story seems to have been:
Some days pass and...
Lo, solicitor says "oh, you sent me the neighbour's letter as an attachment to an email, but I don't have the ability to read a jpg. Send it again".
Some more days pass and...
Lo, solicitor says, "oh you sent me the letter as a different attachment but now it looks like a slideshow and I can't read it. Fax it to me".
Some more days have now passed whilst he looks for a fax machine.
Me: Why didn't you just post a copy a week ago?
Him: silence.
This young techy generation, eh?
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Property woe - movilogo
