Purchasing a house - Solicitors request query

Hi,

My husband and I are currently sale agreed on a 2nd hand house. We got a survey done and it has listed 9nr alterations that have happened to the house ranging from garage being converted to utility to the driveway being widened.

The vendors solicitor has forwarded an Architects Cert that has only mentioned 3 of these items so of course our solicitor has highlighted the remainder and asked them to revert on a) whether planning was required & b) confirmation that they all complied with building regs

However our solicitor has written to us and said that it is upto our surveyor to confirm whether planning was needed and whether they comply with Building Regs.

The surveyor is not a chartered Architect or Engineer and has simply put together a pre-purchase survey highlighting any issues that may exist in the house and putting us on alert.

Can somebody please explain what is normally done at this juncture. I know the phrase 'buyer beware' is important here and maybe we should get the opinion of an Architect and Engineer employed by ourselves but from other experiences with house transactions I would have thought that the vendors solicitor should provide this information and that as it would be given by a chartered individual we could pursue them directly if any info was wrong. We dont want to incur additional expense carrying out work that is essentially doubling up whats required.

Any opinions/answers appreciated.

Your difficulty is that, as a purchaser, you should make your own enquiries. The vendors solicitor is going on the basis of the info supplied by their client. Your solicitor has passed on your queries to the vendor's solicitor. But it is for the vendor to choose how to deal with those queries - their solicitor can only act on their instructions - vendor's solicitor does not themselves carry out an inspection of the property.

My advice? Spend the money on your own Architect/Engineer and let the two experts battle it out.

The old adage of "the day you buy is the day you sell" is imperative. All the leverage is before contracts are signed so get it sorted now, establish the nature of the issues and how they should be dealt with/resolved before contract and what risks, if any, you are willing to take.

Do not rely on suing someone else's expert. It could be a long, expensive and futile exercise.

mf