At the end of the day surveyor's reports cover some but not all issues, and the property information form covers others, but there is nothing to say that all the heating had been checked, the electrics were all safe, doors closed, etc, etc. If I had wanted all that checking I could have paid to have that done, or just looked closer myself in some cases.
Yes, it's very much 'buyer beware' and we resigned ourselves to that.
This was our 9th house move together and the only one where what we have found was not as expected. The house had been owned by a medical professional and family so for some reason we assumed that it would be clean, safe and be hiding no obvious faults.
I could not personally imagine knowingly selling a house to someone with issues that could (and should) have been resolved before the sale when there is no way they could not have known about them...
How they got any sleep with the animals in the loft is beyond me! :)
I do know that they appear to have had poor work done in many areas and either thought that was normal or didn't know any better. Some of the electrics had a signed off safety certificate, but on inspection by our sparky (who trains others professionally) he said they were downright dangerous in places.
We thought it was odd the the double-glazing in a front bay window had gaps between the window and the brick-work on the outside that you could get most of your hand into, and there were lots of pencil marks and numbers written on the windows too. We had the guarantee for them and called out the (national) company that had installed them and when they visited they were incredulous. Turns out they had never completed the job and there was a day or two's work left to go and the customer had never chased them for it in the previous few years.
All finished now and not charged for, it but other work they had done appears to have been done very poorly.
Still, we put it down to experience and next time will be far more eagle-eyed to potential issues. We hated the house for the first year / 18 months but love it now and know that it is both safe and all working correctly so when we sell it we will have peace of mind :)
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