Hello all, I wondered if anyone could offer any advice please..
My partner and I wanted to buy a house we saw for sale. Upon viewing, we asked the estate agent if the house was normal construction. They replied that they though it was. So we made an offer which was accepted.
We then employed the services of a solicitor to deal with the conveyancing.
And we used a mortgage broker to find us a suitable mortgage. When this was approved, we paid his £600 fee.
Our solicitor arranged for the searches on the property to be carried out. We looked at these, and everything seemed fine. This cost us £320.
We then had the property surveyed, costing us £400. This is when we found out that the house was NOT of normal construction.
Needless to say we were pretty upset with this, as had we known this at the point of viewing the house, we would not have been interested in buying, as had happened previously with a different estate agent (we viewed a house, but then didn't make an offer when the agent told us it was not normal construction).
And we have already spent around £1300 so far (money we really can't afford to lose) only to find out that we don't want to buy the house after all.
Where do we stand legally on this?
Who is ultimately at fault here?
Am I correct in understanding that the estate agent must legally declare the type of construction if the property is they know? Is ignorance of this knowledge reasonable for an estate agent?
Are we legally entitled to be compensated by the agent for the money we've spent on the mortgage broker, the solicitor, the searches, and the surveys?
Any help/advice would be most welcome, thank you!
