Any Building Surveyors onboard ?

[Blackswanwood]

RICS require their members to be part of an ombudsman scheme so you can have the matter independently reviewed. It maybe worth trying that.

 

[RogerS]

RICS require their members to be part of an ombudsman scheme so you can have the matter independently reviewed. It maybe worth trying that.

They might require it but the surveyor I used ....had one but they stopped doing property ...asked my surveyor for their replacement. Silence.

It is this question that RICS are asking the surveyor...well, taking 56 days and counting...useless feckers.

 

[sunnybob]

I tried to sue a solicitor once, after he cost me several thousands by not telling me something he should have.
sad to say, I think you have as much chance of winning as I did. :roll:

 

[Blackswanwood]

RICS require their members to be part of an ombudsman scheme so you can have the matter independently reviewed. It maybe worth trying that.

They might require it but the surveyor I used ....had one but they stopped doing property ...asked my surveyor for their replacement. Silence.

It is this question that RICS are asking the surveyor...well, taking 56 days and counting...useless feckers.

I would write to my MP and ask if he can help. RICS operate under a Royal Charter which makes them a public interest body so they are not beyond scrutiny of the way they serve the public. I doubt the MP would want to get involved with your dispute with the surveyor but would expect them to at least write a letter to RICS to prompt some action. Having been on the Board of another Chartered body I have seen this done and can confirm it focussed attention!

 

[RogerS]

Finally got details from RICS of the ombudsman/adjudication company used by my surveyor. Went through the process and it's Good News and Bad News.

The Good News is that 'I consider the building survey provided by the company's surveyor fell below the standard to be reasonably expected by the average person'.

I'd love to have seen the surveyor's face when he read that..he is such a pompous so-and-so. And I was awarded a small amount of compensation.

The Bad News is that the muppet who carried out the adjudication company said that as far as the requirement for a replacement sewage treatment plant ( the big ticket item) wasn't known at the time of the survey and so the surveyor would not necessarily have been aware of the requirement ..."noting that theGenral binding rules for small sewage discharge (SSDs) dated January 2015 do not specifically mention the point".

He/she is a fool. It IS there in black and white. In three different documents of the time (2015). The bad news is that there is no appeals procedure which I think is out of order. I can understand no appeal for something that has a subjective context but when it comes down to a clear error in reading a factual document then there damn well should be.

 

[Lons]

Roger, just a thought.
Does your building insurance cover the septic tank etc, they usually do and have you paid for legal cover. It might be possible to go down that route if your insurance company will foot the legal bill, maybe a big if but you never know.

 

[RogerS]

Roger, just a thought.
Does your building insurance cover the septic tank etc, they usually do and have you paid for legal cover. It might be possible to go down that route if your insurance company will foot the legal bill, maybe a big if but you never know.

Hi Lons. That's already been suggested and I did follow it up with the company that we were insured with at the time of the survey - "Wriggle-Out-of-it and Run" aka Aviva. They deemed that as the 'event' (ie when I 'discovered' the septic tank issue) occurred in April 2019 - when we were with another insurer - that their - Aviva's - policy did not have to pay up.

It was their top-of-the-range policy which cost a packet and so all the more galling. I'd hate to have to make a claim on any lesser policy of theirs ..."Terribly sorry, Mr Smith, but when you took out your policy the location of Earth within the Milky Way was not where it is now and so your claim is invalid".

You have reminded me to check my current insurer's policy although I'm not optimistic.

 

[Lons]

They're all the same Roger!

We have our 3 cars insured with Aviva and they also undewrite the motorhome policy. My wife had an accident in june with a motorcyclist who was 100% at fault. We had an expert witness, the rider admitted responsibility to the police, my wife and the witness, the police officer said it was clearly his fault and Aviva agreed. He came out of a T junction on to a main road without looking and into the side of her car, had my wife not had the reactions she did to avoid him or had there been traffic travelling in the opposite direction he might not be alive today.

His insurer AXA disputed the claim and 3 months down the line it isn't resolved yet, supposed to go to arbitration a couple of weeks ago so I'm going to chase it again today as I want my £150 excess back. If they don't get a move on I'll be contacting the ombudsman ( have you done that btw? ) and if that fails I'll threaten legal action and attempt to use the legal cover I pay for on my Aviva insurance policy.
It's already affected us as my motorhome policy renewal was due and I had to drop my missus off the policy or pay a penalty because of the outstanding claim. She'll never drive it under normal circumstances but was there in case of emergency.

To be fair to Aviva they are as frustrated as me but just shows how much they all wriggle no matter how damning the evidence.

 

[Phlebas]

Finally got details from RICS of the ombudsman/adjudication company used by my surveyor. Went through the process and it's Good News and Bad News.

The Good News is that 'I consider the building survey provided by the company's surveyor fell below the standard to be reasonably expected by the average person'.

I'd love to have seen the surveyor's face when he read that..he is such a pompous so-and-so. And I was awarded a small amount of compensation.

The Bad News is that the muppet who carried out the adjudication company said that as far as the requirement for a replacement sewage treatment plant ( the big ticket item) wasn't known at the time of the survey and so the surveyor would not necessarily have been aware of the requirement ..."noting that theGenral binding rules for small sewage discharge (SSDs) dated January 2015 do not specifically mention the point".

He/she is a fool. It IS there in black and white. In three different documents of the time (2015). The bad news is that there is no appeals procedure which I think is out of order. I can understand no appeal for something that has a subjective context but when it comes down to a clear error in reading a factual document then there damn well should be.

I have some experience with these things. On the commercial side, never with ‘punters’, if you will excuse the phrase. Obviously I cannot provide you with advice as to your particular case, and am not purporting to do so, but I hope the following general information helps. People write books on this subject so necessarily I have elided and omitted many details that seem to me to be inessential at this point.

What third party dispute resolution service or individual are they using (from what you say it doesn’t seem to be an RICS arrangement/appointment, but I may have misunderstood you)?

Is the third party acting as an arbiter/arbitrator (no, I don’t know why we Scots use the correct term, and you English another) or an expert? There are specific legal requirements on the former.
There should have been a terms of engagement/scope of instructions for the third party, to which you would have had to agree. This will, almost without exception, have a clause saying that the third party’s decision is final, but this is frequently qualified by the phrase (or something like it) ‘save for manifest error’. Which may give you some avenue for redress.

Additionally experts’ decisions can be set aside by the courts for fraud, partiality (has to be definite, not an opinion), or failure to comply with instructions. But the courts (in Scotland at least) set a pretty high bar for these grounds: they are not fond of challenges to what is meant to be a resolution pathway after all.

If you think any of this might help I can expand, but I think you may well end up in the hands of m’learned friends if you want to take it forwards.

 

[RogerS]

Many thanks for your suggestions.

CEDR were the adjudicators. Currently gathering further information before deciding what to do in their case.

If I do go down the legal route with the surveyor then it will be the Small Claims Court.

BTW I dropped you a PM regarding your username as I was wondering out of curiosity, are you the Phoenician or from the title of a book from one of the greatest authors (IMO) of all time ?

 

[Phlebas]

Many thanks for your suggestions.

CEDR were the adjudicators. Currently gathering further information before deciding what to do in their case.

If I do go down the legal route with the surveyor then it will be the Small Claims Court.

BTW I dropped you a PM regarding your username as I was wondering out of curiosity, are you the Phoenician or from the title of a book from one of the greatest authors (IMO) of all time ?

Well, if I can give further info, let me know.

Hmm, I hadn't really noticed the PM system. So my apologies for not replying. Actually both. I like the original poem (and am amused by the fact that ol' Thom's explanatory notes are more confusing than the text). And I share your view of the author (although possible not quite as unquivocally). I knew him a bit, Rankin used to bring him into my preferred bar when they had done book panels together at the festival. Unless there is someone else using Elliot quotes as titles...

 

[rafezetter]

Roger - all I have to say is, "you've got a fight on your hands" which I'm sure you're realising.

My father bought a house years ago that turned out to have a significant structural issue - to cut a long story short it took 3 years and almost £100,000 in legal fees before the surveyors were deemed to have failed in thier duties and that the general public can not be expected to understand all the intricacies of "what is and is not part of a survey (as you state elsewhere), and how that pertains to the given value of a property" - or words to that effect.

The court made them liable but even then thier insurers tried to chisel, they only offered 2/3rd of the cost of what it would take to repair the issue, which was significant - around £80,000 - in the end requiring half the roof being taken off and 2 rsj's almost 30 feet long and 4 feet high being threaded through the building parallel to the front and rear elevation - essentially 2 HUGE metal purlins to take and distribute the weight of the roof, as the loft remodel done by the previous owner had CUT OUT all the bracing of the rafters!

It was as a clear a case of surveyor negligence as you could get, yet.... it still took several court hearings and three years to get them to accept liability.

Oh and the kicker was in the settlement offer they added a clause which stated "this payment will also cover any further liability pertaining to undisclosed issues found in perpituity" or some such.

So my father refused it until they increased the value, which they did..... in the end. Which is a good thing as we've found some other nasties while I've been doing renovations to the house.

It was a real struggle, and this was on something that was a clear case of professional negligence. how a surveyor can miss that the front and rear walls are being pushed out because there's no evidence of bracing at the roofline is beyond me - even I would see that.

So if you really intend to pursue this, I'll say "good luck", you'll need it.

 

[RogerS]

....
So if you really intend to pursue this, I'll say "good luck", you'll need it.

Thanks, Rafe. Spurred on by Lons, I've checked and I do have legal cover with my current insurance. I fully expect that their claims department will say 'Ah this happened in 2016 when you weren't with your current insurer and so we're throwing out the claim'.

So on the one hand you have 'Wriggle-out-of-it and Run' saying that the event date is April 2019 and not covered by their policy and 'Not-us-Gov and Run' saying that it happened in 2016 and so not covered by their policy. They can't both be right surely. That would be a call to the Ombudsman.

Probably I'll go for the Small Claims Court route.