No survey when house bought, now we have issue

E

eva

Guest
We bought our house about 3 years ago (second hand) and never got an engineers report or survey ( just the valuation that was required by the bank). I now know how utterly STUPID that was, we just listened to very bad advice.Now we have a major problem with our house (pyrite). The builder is not entertaining us so we are having to go down the legal route. People are telling us that it won't matter that we didn't have survey done as there is very little damage evident in house now- 3 years on- that house is covered by homebond anyway.
SO, my question is, will it affect our case that we don't have a report?
 
If you were the original buyer, you could bring a claim for breach of contract. You instead have to claim either under Homebond OR against builder/his architect in negligence. The fact that you did not get a report is not of huge relevance at this point.

This is generalised commentary only. Get case-specific advice from your solicitor. The only actual advice I am giving is this:- do not delay.
 
Thank you so much- we are going to file papers against builder in January but we were just afraid that we'd be laughed out of the place when they heard that we hadn't got a proper engineers report ont he house. Thank you so much for your help.
 
The house is about 6 years old. we bought it second hand. Homebond is a last resort as builder had lots of housed covered so each house is only entitled to a paltry amount.
 
eva said:
The house is about 6 years old. we bought it second hand. Homebond is a last resort as builder had lots of housed covered so each house is only entitled to a paltry amount.
Click to expand...

Eva, I have spoken to a Homebond representative who has suggested that the expansion tends to follow the path of least resistance - upwards.
Taking out the ground floor slab and replacing the offending hardcore and reinstating the floor and radon gas barrier and box is claimed to work.
However the disruption and costs are significant and may not adderss all issues arising in the superstructure, eg. cracking in external walls, etc.

There are several threads on this subject in these forums, such as; -

http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=101735

Can I respectfully suggest you read what has been said therein to get a better overview.

Could I also suggest you might PM some of the more prominent posters there such as "pyriteengine".

This is his profile; -

http://www.askaboutmoney.com/member.php?u=42694

Use the "contact info" tab to send a PM [private message]

I have found him very knowledgable on the matter.

HTH

ONQ.
 
Thanks very much onq. Have done all of the above and we have pretty much sussed what needs to be done. At this stage, i was just wondering about the legal side of things really. Thanks again for taking the time to respond.
 
No, most policies don't cover against pyrite and ours is the same!
 
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