Cladding etc.

[Workingman]

I might be mad, but surely it is up to the builders, developers, owners and so on to guarantee that their properties are fit for sale or to rent?

Yes, the tenant / leaseholder / freeholder should ensure that is the case, but getting those assurances are a minefield. The onus should be on the sellers / letters to prove that the properties they sell etc. are safe. If it later turns out that they were defective then it should be up to them to make things safe.

Or am I reading this wrong?

[Suff]

No I think you are right. Whoever is commissioning the cladding work is accountable for the work to be done to the correct building code. The builder is accountable to whoever commissions their work to do the work properly.

When selling a property, the owner/builder/etc should be on the hook for the property they are selling. There is a bit of a grey area where if nobody asks and nobody says, then who is to blame. Survey should pick this up and if the surveyor misses it, then there is a certain amount of accountability there.

In the end, if you own a building which is unsafe it is up to you to make it safe. After all, you are the one who owns the equity and stand to gain when it is sold. Either that or the cost of the rectification is taken out of the sale and the new owner commits to use that money to make the building good.

Those are the situations I understand from the little training I've had in UK trade law.

[TheOstrich]

Yes, but surely the owners of individual flats which have now been declared blighted should have the right to claim damages from the vendors they bought the property from for some sort of false declaration of "worthiness" when they purchased it? And so on right back down the chain to the builders? There are some pretty hefty declarations you have to make when selling a property .....

https://www.localsolicitors.com/conveya ... ng-a-house

However, it's always struck me that, in a way, this is nothing new. Back in the 1970's, I was friendly with a guy who lived in a 12 (or thereabouts) storey tower block in Birmingham. I can't recall if he was an owner or a tenant, but I do remember him moaning that he'd been landed with a huge bill due to structural repairs that had to be carried out on the exterior walls ......

[victor]

Going off your topic a bit but--
Son and D-i-L been in their new build house about 4 weeks now and--

En- suite floor needs replacing
Back bedroom window is broken ( that's how it was when it was fitted)
Kitchen ceiling developed a hole ??? how??? been repaired but not painted
Entire L shaped kitchen work top has to be ripped out and replaced including sink and hob
Utility room cupboards and work top has to be replaced
Lawn is about as flat as a Donkeys leg
Cost of house £350,000

Who passes off these properties ?

[Workingman]

There is a bit of a grey area where if nobody asks and nobody says, then who is to blame.

And therein lies part of the problem.

Too many people are so desperate for a place to live that they just sign without reading the Ts & Cs of the tenancy / purchase agreement. Yes, the scum who want to profit have the law on their side, somewhat, but "Caveat Emptor" still applies. Sadly modern buyers /tenants have no idea what it means, so they just jump in and hope for the best. Their advisors / solicitors are little better.

It's hard to sympathise.

[Suff]

It is also very hard to get good advice. When the new house we bought in Scotland suffered a catastrophic flood, because the builders left the heating off but forgot to turn the water off, in -10 conditions and the feed to the cold water tank burst, Mrs S was in panic, my solicitor was less than helpful. The solicitor said that under clause B of the missives (legally binding in Scotland), we could withdraw because of significant damage, but they didn't know what that would mean for us getting a home.

I knew that the builder had part exchanged with us and, at our suggestion to one of the people who wanted to buy our house, had also P/X'd our house to a much smaller and cheaper ex council house. Therefore the builder was on the hook for a second missive and liable for penalties if we didn't buy.

I told Mrs S that we were going to withdraw and take the house next door (still at foundations at the time). I called the solicitor, told them to advise the builders that we would withdraw under clause B but that we would take the house next door (same build), at the same terms and the same P/X, if they were willing. The solicitor seemed truly surprised that they snapped my arm off. Yes it cost us 4 more months before we got our home but, to me, it was worth it. But our solicitor should have been on the ball but seemed to just be paper pushing.

The original house finally sold. Then as time went on, tiles fell off the wall, razor sockets and plug sockets failed because they were a solid block of rust, we eventually gave the 40 page report we had done on the house, immediately after the flood, to the owner and told them to go for it.

The thing is you need to be sure of yourself, know the law and be on the ball. Something I don't see in a lot of younger people today. They just take stuff at face value.

It also doesn't help that regulations keep changing. When we decided to rent our house out and spend 18 months in France (initially), it turned out our 8 year old house didn't meet code and several changes had to be made before we could rent it. But if you are making a significant investment then the final responsibility for making sure the deal is good falls at your feet.

As you say, hard to be sympathetic for any of them.