Not mine but my neighbours. When he first used his heating after moving in he had multiple leaks through the ground floor ceiling. Removing the upstairs floor boards revealed hub caps to collect the drips. 
Unbelievable.
- Thread starter jlacd
- Start date
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If you can find out the date when they made those stickle brick buckets you can prove it was the last owner. Is there any legal action you can take in a case like this? Was there anything in the paperwork when you bought the house to say that no defects were known? Just a long shot. Trouble is trying to proove it, he could say a builder did it I suppose.
It's another option, but trust me, living on the West of Scotland, we really have no shortage of water
I think I'd rather have a watertight roof.
When we moved in, there were ice cream tubs under the radiators to catch the leaks. At least you could see 'em, so I knew what to expect.
Even now we have a nice blue ash tray under the toilet overflow, to collect the drips, - looks quite nice really, and stops water dripping on the plywood boxing. The missus quite likes it, actually.
Even now we have a nice blue ash tray under the toilet overflow, to collect the drips, - looks quite nice really, and stops water dripping on the plywood boxing. The missus quite likes it, actually.
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Two instances that spring to mind when I read this thread...
No.1
In my own house I always seemed to hear a trickle of water when the sink in the downstairs toilet was used. When re doing the floor I lifted the boards and found that the waste pipe off the sink was cracked. Directly under the crack was a joist. To prevent the joist from getting wet a rubble sack was nailed in place and the water just ran straight into the ground under the floor. Took me about 30mins to repair...... why the builder I paid to originally do the job couldn't have made the repair escapes me, perhaps that's why he never chased me for the outstanding £1000.
No.2
Went into the loft in a house I was working and found a web of plastic guttering catching drips from the leaking roof and channeling it into the cold water tank...... nice. Water in the storage tank was very murky
No.1
In my own house I always seemed to hear a trickle of water when the sink in the downstairs toilet was used. When re doing the floor I lifted the boards and found that the waste pipe off the sink was cracked. Directly under the crack was a joist. To prevent the joist from getting wet a rubble sack was nailed in place and the water just ran straight into the ground under the floor. Took me about 30mins to repair...... why the builder I paid to originally do the job couldn't have made the repair escapes me, perhaps that's why he never chased me for the outstanding £1000.
No.2
Went into the loft in a house I was working and found a web of plastic guttering catching drips from the leaking roof and channeling it into the cold water tank...... nice. Water in the storage tank was very murky
lol, when i moved in there were 3 childrens carriers the plastic veriety in the roof space, not unusual i thought especially as the lady selling the house was a nanny, a few days after movong in i noticed a damp patch in the bedroom upon further inspection, i found the carriers still in position and overflowing with rain water. everything else had been removed from the loft.......... then again the same house the basement had been decorated as a kids room without any tanking, windows or means of escape. the room was damp, smelly, dingy etc, scarey when the women who owned it was a registered child minder.
Thankfully here in Belgium we have rules that protect the buyer. If a seller deliberately hides a problem (like panelling a wall that's damp, putting a bucket in a closed roof space to hide a leak, etc) they are liable for ALL costs relating to the repairs.
Unfortunately this doesn't protect you from idiotic neighbours who do stupid things to the building.... My upstairs neighbours just fitted a new kitchen. In their wisdom, they decided that it was perfectly acceptable to attach an extractor fan to the chimney used by mine and their gas boilers! Their solution when I confronted them about why my boiler cupboard smelled of their dinner and my boiler kept cutting out, was just to use the fan when my boiler wasn't on! Thankfully a quick call to my plumber and the insurance company confirmed to them their stupidity.
Honestly, who just goes around knocking holes in chimneys in a shared building? How stupid can you be?
Unfortunately this doesn't protect you from idiotic neighbours who do stupid things to the building.... My upstairs neighbours just fitted a new kitchen. In their wisdom, they decided that it was perfectly acceptable to attach an extractor fan to the chimney used by mine and their gas boilers! Their solution when I confronted them about why my boiler cupboard smelled of their dinner and my boiler kept cutting out, was just to use the fan when my boiler wasn't on! Thankfully a quick call to my plumber and the insurance company confirmed to them their stupidity.
Honestly, who just goes around knocking holes in chimneys in a shared building? How stupid can you be?
Is there no rules in the UK against previous owners deliberatly hiding problems?
I've recently moved, and one of the various bits of paper I received was a document signed by the previous owners stating effectively that they weren't aware of any issues that could affect the sale (it was obviously in legalese and several pages long, listing specific things etc) - so theoretically you could probably sue someone for breach of contract if they deliberately didn't tell you about something, but I don't know how easy that would be to get through.
They could also claim that they didn't know about it (e.g. "it must have been done by the owners before me" if they hadn't been in the house a huge amount of time etc)...
They could also claim that they didn't know about it (e.g. "it must have been done by the owners before me" if they hadn't been in the house a huge amount of time etc)...
Long standing English law concerning sales of property are based on the principle of caveat emptor — it's up to the buyer to check what he's buying.
That does not, however, let the seller off from fraud or misrepresentation.
That does not, however, let the seller off from fraud or misrepresentation.
Yeah ... it's "Buyer Beware" ..... that's why we pay for Surveys to be done before purchase. However, as the cheapest surveys are non-intrusive, they're never going to uncover stuff like this.
I love the Belgian model - that's great. If we'd have had that level of recourse, I'd have had the seller on the French doors in the upstairs bedroom. Which had been installed on a cill with lovely lead flashings..... except he'd screwed the freakin' French doors to the cill, through the lead flashings ..... so we had water p!ssing in the downstairs bedroom ceiling first Northerly storm we had after moving in!
well hi there im new here, names Nick, live in Evesham...
I used to live in eastbourne and got a call from a friend who had just bought a flat and the ceiling was creaking in high winds. We was planning major mods including opening up the ceiling space a bit as it had false ceilings throughout (old victorian building) so I got up in the space to investigate the creak.. imagine my horror on finding the bottom of a chimney resting on what appeared to be 3 by 2 timbers nailed together like little gallows brackets. The creaking was the brackets groaning as the chimney was buffetted by high winds..
I used to live in eastbourne and got a call from a friend who had just bought a flat and the ceiling was creaking in high winds. We was planning major mods including opening up the ceiling space a bit as it had false ceilings throughout (old victorian building) so I got up in the space to investigate the creak.. imagine my horror on finding the bottom of a chimney resting on what appeared to be 3 by 2 timbers nailed together like little gallows brackets. The creaking was the brackets groaning as the chimney was buffetted by high winds..
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