Who is liable? Load bearing wall demolished accidentally

[Millypip91]

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Hi there,

I am having a DIY disaster. We bought a 1930's semi in September. It's a 3 bed with a partially converted loft - loft was boarded and plastered, has electric and windows but was not officially converted with stairs etc. We had all our surveys done before buying and all was well.

We moved in and decided to make a bigger kitchen diner and get the wall between kitchen and dining room knocked through. We did our research and after a few quotes went for a reputable local building company who has their own structural engineers. We were assured by them that the wall was a stud wall and not load bearing so no building regs were required. Long story short they knocked down the wall and a crack appeared almost immediately in the newly decorated bedroom. We also noticed some worsening of hairline cracks in our recently re plastered bedroom ceiling. The builder thought it was just stress fractures and suggested that the ceiling was badly plastered before (by other tradesmen) so recommended plaster boarding and re-doing them. I had a bad gut feeling about this so instead I got a structural engineer to come out and assess the cracks. Unfortunately he informed us that the loft which was partially converted didn't meet building regs and all the previous owner had done was take the supporting beams out without putting extra supports in making the house structurally unsafe. Sadly this was not picked up in any of the surveys we had done. He also said that because of the lack of support in the loft the wall that was knocked down in the kitchen effectively was load bearing even though it appeared not to be. The builders didn't actually go in the loft so they didn't know about this but arguably they still knocked the wall down and told us it was fine so surely some of the blame lies with them. The previous owner did not declare any structural changes to the property so we already may have a case against her but I am wondering if I can pursue anything with the builders? Since it happened they did immediately come and put some beans back in the loft and temporary poles where the wall was up to secure everything but they are still trying to charge us a lot of extras for fixing the damage and I kind of expected that they would give us quite a hefty discount considering that they did knock it down. My other half doesn't seem to want to pursue anything against the builders and is trying to kind of keep them on side whilst they are still doing work and accessing our property but I am getting a bit peed off that they're not really being held accountable. W
ould love any advice x

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Suspect you're on a hiding to nothing trying to get any recompense out of anyone, surely when you were buying the place the lack of Building Control approval for the loft conversion was a massive red flag?

 

[jj4091]

If you have legal cover on your house insurance report it to them then let the solicitors and building experts and builders sort it out between themselves. Sounds far too complicated for you to resolve it yourself.

 

[Millypip91]

@freddiemercurystwin we are first time buyers and we had all the correct surveys done including paying for the additional surveys that the home buyers survey recommended and nothing was raised. They all said the loft was structurally sound so we didn't even know they had taken the beams out. We found out that this week after going back to the estate agent that the previous owner did the loft conversion in 2008 but didn't apply for planning for permission because it 'wasn't a liveable space and only used for storage' however the structural engineer told us it wasn't even safe for that. Accusing me of trying to get recompense feels a bit unfair just because I'm not a structural engineer and didn't know about it. I paid a load of money to try to check it/ get it done correctly and they made my house unsafe.

 

[robinbanks]

I think it's probably reasonable that your builders will be looking for extra money to fix this rather than having to pay you and fix this

How was the assessment made that this wall was not load bearing?

 

[kingandy2nd]

A Home Buyers survey does not assess the structural condition of your home, you should have requested a structural survey. That would have been one of the three options presented to you (valuation, home buyers or structural survey).

Your homebuyer’s survey will have disclaimers enclosed within about not assessing the structure, so your view about the survey and the assurances they provided are unfortunately incorrect.

It is unreasonable for you to expect your builder to have knowledge of prior, undeclared works that were not compliant. You did not make the aware of it either.

While I understand your desire for accountability, this in the main lies with yourselves. Your other half is on the right track - work with your builders to resolve, but don’t expect them to fund any remedial work.

 

[cdbe]

I think I'd be looking for answers from the builder and possibly their structural engineers - assuming the builder told you "we have our own structural engineers and will take care of that as part of the job". If there'd been collapse and death or injury I doubt they'd be walking away.

However, even if they'd identified the issue earlier there would still have been additional rectification costs so I can't see that the builders could be liable for much more than a bit of making good that might not have been necessary. Obviously if your position is that if you'd known at the start you'd have honestly never proceeded with the work it's a slightly different matter - but building works can be an unknown quantity hence the idea of a contingency.

 

[Harria70]

Was this not mentioned on the TA6 form ? I thought that was the whole point of the form, to prevent this from happening and giving legal recourse if it did