House buying - Seller states No to flooding

[fastgerman]

Hi All,

We are 2 years in on our home and the attached garage has flooded 6 times and risked flooding the house fully last week - we had to lift drains in the drive for the water to flow and sandbag the front door.

Our neighbours state they have helped the lady before when this has happened.

The property was vacant when we purchased as the lady passed away and her 40 year old daughter (who is a lawyer) was selling.

Evidence we can get:

Seller's form states No to previous flooding

Estate agent requested survey to be re-written as the surveyor had written 'ponding' occurs - previous sells had fallen through twice before us with the estate agent advising it was down to builders quotes for extensions being too high

Estate agents photos show drain lids lifted at the front of the house as they were when we visited the property - yes we know we should have thought about that at the time...

Photo and video evidence of the water flowing down the hills opposite and into our drive











Is this worth perusing?

Thanks in advance

Edited by fastgerman on Wednesday 14th November 14:41

[robbieduncan]

What did the environmental search your conveyancer did show? We bought a house this year and got a massively detailed environmental report which included a lot on the (lack of) flooding risk

[fastgerman]

Nothing on environmental searches - a long way from a river / sea / lake etc.

The drains are rubbish so we have been emailing + several face to face meetings with Thames Water, Council, Highways, Private engineers etc. We have gone halves on some work that made an improvement but not fully resolved.

£10k spent so far, reckon another £10k or so needed. Think we would have offered 5% less than we paid if we knew of the issues.

[was8v]

I'm not qualified to advise...

But that image and your description is of the garage, not the house - so an outbuilding not the house?

The level of the house is a good bit higher than the garage.

Is there a blocked field drain or grate uphill of you somewhere?

Can you install some drainage to take it away or a feature to divert the excess water away from your property?

If they sandbagged the house it might well have never flooded.

Edited by was8v on Wednesday 14th November 15:01

[Paul Drawmer]

What does your solicitor say about it?

Is there a difference in definition between rising water levels from a water course, and run off from a hill?

[fastgerman]

No blocked drains etc, just not enough drainage.

Solicitor wants fees before doing further work.

A family friend who is a lawyer thinks we should ask our solicitor to send a couple of letters with categoric evidence of continuous flooding and request a 5% re-imbursement and no court case.

[jack_smartie]

Is the road beyond your gate an adopted highway or a private road?

Was the driveway tarmaced when you bought the house?

[was8v]

fastgerman said:

No blocked drains etc, just not enough drainage.

Solicitor wants fees before doing further work.

A family friend who is a lawyer thinks we should ask our solicitor to send a couple of letters with categoric evidence of continuous flooding and request a 5% re-imbursement and no court case.

Does it not hinge on whether or not the house actually ever flooded though? Water may never have come in, especially if they sandbagged the doors.

[deckster]

As a general rule, if the seller has knowingly lied on the particulars forms, then they could be liable up to and including having to refund the purchase price if the untruth is serious enough and you would reasonably not have bought the house had they been honest.

More realistically here, you would need to prove that a) it had flooded, and b) the seller knew that it had flooded. That may be hard to show (although I did read of one case where the seller answered 'no' to flooding, when it turned out they had posted a picture on Facebook showing the flooded garden) but if you can and you can also reasonably show that you would have offered less had you known the truth, then you could have a case against them.

[fastgerman]

Road is public with parking areas.

The actual house has not flooded but the attached garage has - is that not the same?

Yes the drive has tarmac on since the last 10 years atleast - very old and crumbling.

If we didn’t lift the drain lids, it would have come in through the front door. The water was over the damp course.

I think we can fully resolve but will be around £20k all in once done.

Edited by fastgerman on Wednesday 14th November 15:08

[Muncher]

Quite frankly it will cost you at least that amount again if you want to go after the vendor for telly porkies.

[fastgerman]

The sellers questionnaire is supposed to protect the buyer though otherwise what’s the point?

Maybe a ‘no win no fee’ lawyer is the way forward?

Similar case:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk...

[Lotobear]

I suspect this will very much depend on what the question was and what the answer was in the pre purchase enquiries form

Given the vendor was a lawyer I would be very surprised if she has not carefully covered herself in the way the question has been answered.

[Lemming Train]

fastgerman said:

Road is public with parking areas.

So presumably that deluge of water pouring off the road into your garden is flowing straight over the top of the gullies along the side of the public road? The solution is to ring the council's highways department and get them to send out their gully tanker to empty and clear them so that the water coming off the hills goes down them as it should and not arrive in your front garden.

As an adhoc gully tanker driver, make sure you get your neighbours to park their vehicles elsewhere or at least clear of the gullies as the boom arm only has approximately a car's width reach at 90 degrees to the gully. If they can't get close then the crew will simply turn around and go home and mark it as inaccessible. Also, after sucking out all the crap they should reverse the pump on the tank and fill up the gully with water to ensure it's clear and drains away properly before moving on to the next one.

[Muncher]

fastgerman said:

The sellers questionnaire is supposed to protect the buyer though otherwise what’s the point?

It does, but only to the extent that you are prepared to risk an awful lot of time and money in taking action against the seller and also to the extent that you are actually able to recover to recover this money. Even if you do win, you won't recover all of your own legal fees, maybe 70% at best.

I'm not a litigator, but every time I speak with my colleagues who are it becomes plain that unless you have at least £100k at stake, it's not worth bothering issuing proceedings.

[Slagathore]

fastgerman said:

Hi All,

We are 2 years in on our home and the attached garage has flooded 6 times and risked flooding the house fully last week - we had to lift drains in the drive for the water to flow and sandbag the front door.

Our neighbours state they have helped the lady before when this has happened.

The property was vacant when we purchased as the lady passed away and her 40 year old daughter (who is a lawyer) was selling.

Evidence we can get:

Seller's form states No to previous flooding

Estate agent requested survey to be re-written as the surveyor had written 'ponding' occurs - previous sells had fallen through twice before us with the estate agent advising it was down to builders quotes for extensions being too high

Estate agents photos show drain lids lifted at the front of the house as they were when we visited the property - yes we know we should have thought about that at the time...

Photo and video evidence of the water flowing down the hills opposite and into our drive











Is this worth perusing?

Thanks in advance

Edited by fastgerman on Wednesday 14th November 14:41

It could be possible that the daughter wasn't aware of the flooding, so when filling out the form, she ticked 'no'? Or possible she knew but knows it would be near impossible for you to prove that she, specifically, knew about it? Quite an easy one for her to just say she wasn't aware it had ever flooded.

What proof do you have the estate agents had a survey altered, and what was the survey? You typically wouldn't share surveys between buyers, you'd get your own done with your own choice of surveyor? The surveyors shouldn't be taking instructions like that from an agent. If you asked the agents and they know, which it appears they would have if they asked the survey to be changed, then you probably have a better chance going after them, as they have clearly lied and tried to deceive you.

[fastgerman]

Thanks All for your replies, much appreciated.

On the estate agent - we have this in an email chain.

Survey received which stated ponding and flood risk

Sent to estate agent who confirms the seller says it hadn’t ever flooded or risked flooding as her mother had lived there a long time

We asked surveyor to reword based on the estate agents and sellers feedback (estate agent in copy)

Surveyor rewrites survey....

Another lesson learnt as it was an estate agent recommended surveyor which we also have in an email

[herewego]

If the water is only that shown running in under the gate then it looks very easy to redirect it down the road.

[fastgerman]

We’re the end of the road :-(

[Lemming Train]

fastgerman said:

Thanks All for your replies, much appreciated.

On the estate agent - we have this in an email chain.

Survey received which stated ponding and flood risk

Sent to estate agent who confirms the seller says it hadn’t ever flooded or risked flooding as her mother had lived there a long time

We asked surveyor to reword based on the estate agents and sellers feedback (estate agent in copy)

Surveyor rewrites survey....

Another lesson learnt as it was an estate agent recommended surveyor which we also have in an email

You seem to be spending far too much time focusing on persuing legal avenues with slim chance of success rather than focusing on dealing with the source of the problem which could be something as simple as having the gullies upstream emptied.