Recent house purchase.

[sam.rog]

Hi all. I think I know the answer to this.

Purchased a house during lockdown. I had an engineers report done and nothing of note found. After the purchase found the chimney breast leaking into a bedroom. The room filled with smoke and obviously dangerous. There is no way the previous owners did not know of this. Should they have disclosed this during the sale?

Is it a case of suck it up or have the sellers been a bit naughty. They also left a load of belongings and rubbish which I have had to pay to dispose of so I’m not that fond of them.

Cheers.

[TimmyMallett]

At any point did the sellers declare on the property information/enquiry forms that the chimney is functional? Or a reciept to show the last time it was swept if a flue has been fitted etc?

I suspect it would be considered unreasonable to expect a surveyor (was it actually a survey or a buildings report?) to test a chimney. I know ours we had 2 weeks ago have a clear statement that you should get chimneys tested before using them and it's not possible to test them. That would require specific tools and expertise.

[andburg]

probably easy for the previous owner to claim they never used the fireplace

[sam.rog]

Should have specified that it is leaking smoke from the wood burner bellow. Not a water leak. Also there was a LOT of smoke upstairs. Think a flat roof pub before the smoking ban level of smoke.

Nowhere did they specifically say it was ok. But the fireplace did have ash at the bottom so it was in use during their ownership.

The engineers report was a structural survey of the property but with all the caveats that multiple items could not be inspected due to on thing or another.

The sellers were arses during the process and having to dump their rubbish didn’t help my feelings towards them, but this is dangerous, I refuse to believe that they didn’t know about it.

Edited by sam.rog on Friday 30th October 11:40

Edited by sam.rog on Friday 30th October 11:43

[Zippee]

Were they specifically asked about it though? Do they have to disclose everything straight up or are they only obliged to disclose when asked?

[leef44]

If you have the receipt for the disposal costs, you can go through your solicitors to claim the money back from the vendors.

[leyorkie]

How long was the house empty before you moved in?
We had a problem after a holiday, rooks trying rooks trying to build a nest.
This affected the draw and smoke came into the bedroom
Sweep sorted it £50 no problems since

[sociopath]

Just selling my late mothers house, and sold mine during lockdown. I don't remember any questions about chimneys for either of them.

I suspect that's a caveat emptor, you didn't ask they didn't have to disclose

[bigandclever]

leyorkie said:

Sweep sorted it £50 no problems since

OP should really have had chimney swept before first use anyway. Which isn’t very helpful for his question, but there you go.

[sam.rog]

I know I should have had it swept before lighting it but I was too exited to light the fire. Who doesn’t love a fire.

Like I said. I had a feeling that it would be suck it up and move on. I was just hoping that there could be a legal argument to put forward to the sellers to cover some of the cost.
At least it means I rip out the existing fireplace, re tile and make it how I want it. Every cloud and all that.

[matjk]

Think you just have to suck it up, the seller has so many outs,
we never used it,
we used it ages ago but not in years
we used it last winter and we didn't notice it etc,etc
Its a common problem as chimney went out of fashion in the 70s and got covered over, now they are back in vogue and as you say everyone
loves a fire (I do mine) so reinstate them, the favorite is smoke ends up going next door and they kick off.
Most log burners now have a steel liners fitted inside the chimney, its not cheap but its not crazy expensive. At least when its done its done and you know it will all be good for many years to come.