surveyors

[voiceofdoom]

I recently bought a new house and although the property is quite old I was under the impression that it had gas fired central heating already in, in fact the surveyors report
says that it has.

I am now in the process of having a new gas central heated system put in but I would like to know if the surveyor is at fault for not noticing that their was no system and if so who should I complain to about this mistake.

[monkeyeyes]

What sort of surevy was it ? Carried out by whom ?

[weeal]

Surveyors normally cover themselves by saying "no testing of the gas central heating system was carried out " or similar, I used to type up the reports. Does it have a clause like this near the end of the report? after the property description?

[terence7556]

it seems to be a common aspect in our lives that "professionals" are not accountable for their acts/omissions whilst charging considerable fees for their services, although i have never heard of a surveyor testing the systems within a property.
could you not go down the route of going after the seller through your solicitor.when i bought/sold within the last 18 months i was asked if my heating system was working and if it had been sreviced by a corgi registered person. did your solicitor do this?

[weeal]

also, there is normally a legal clause stating you have 'X' amount of days to report items such as central heating to be faulty, its around 7-10 days in Scotland i think, should be in your legal offer papers

[monkeyeyes]

If your survey was conducted for 'mortgage only' purposes, there will be so many get-out-clauses that it won't be worth pursuing.
However, if you had an independent survey carried out by someone competent who really should have known better I suggest you get in touch with them.
You could point out that had you been informed that there was NO gfch you may have used this to negotiate a reduced price with the vendor as you would wish to install this later.
But it DOES beg the question of why you didn't notice this yourself.

[weeal]

theyve asked the question and gone away monkey - huh

[Buenchico]

If the surveyor (or his company) is regulated by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, this should help:
http://www.rics.org/newregulation/publiccomp.h tml

Chris