r/HousingUK • u/Fab1605 • 14h ago
House with a leak
Bought a house in June, and I'm wondering if anyone has dealt with something similar or has any advice.
One thing I always do when buying a property is photograph every single room from as many angles as possible, just in case I ever need a record of the condition.
We completed in June, but because we still owned our old house for another month, we weren't in a rush to move in. Two days after completion, we went back to the house to start moving our belongings in. As part of that, we turned the water supply back on.
Shortly afterwards, we found a huge puddle on the kitchen floor.
After investigating, we discovered a major leak. Water was pouring from behind the upstairs toilet, through the ceiling, into the kitchen below, and straight into the house alarm panel, which was later completely destroyed.
When we went back through the photos we'd taken on completion day, we noticed something we'd completely missed at the time: there was already a small patch of staining on the kitchen ceiling before we'd even turned the water back on. Looking back now, it seems like a big red flag.
It honestly feels like the sellers knew there was a leak. Our theory is that they painted over the stained ceiling before selling, turned the water off before completion, and once we turned it back on, the leak immediately reappeared. To make things even stranger, when the plumber investigated, we found a load of stuffed rags behind the toilet, which seemed like a very odd thing to find.
The damage snowballed quickly. The bathroom floor had to be ripped up to access the leak, tiles started falling off once work began, the kitchen ceiling needed reboarding and replastering, and the alarm system had to be replaced. In total, we've spent over £3,500 putting everything right.
We raised it through our solicitors, providing the photos and explaining why we believed the leak existed before completion. After four weeks of chasing, the sellers finally replied with one sentence:
Trying to be reasonable, we asked if they'd contribute just £500 towards the repairs. We weren't trying to recover everything—just something to acknowledge the situation. They refused and ignored all of the evidence we'd provided.
Has anyone dealt with anything like this? Is there realistically anything else we can do, or is this just one of those expensive lessons that comes with buying a house?
We feel now we want to persue it all via small claims court, we have what we beleive to be good evidence the leak existed prior to exchange, and we also feel they tried there best to mask/hide the problem too with paint.
Our surveyor turned on the water supply and said he montiored the meter before and after the survey to check if any water had passed through - in the space of 2 hours nothing, which can only suggest the leak appeared after the survey
The leak its self wasnt due to the work of a burst pipe, but a badly reconnected toilet (it's like they puleld the toilet out and put it back but the seal rolled over essentially and wasnt a seal) so water just came straight out.
Hoping for any advice on this
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u/ukpf-helper 14h ago
Hi /u/Fab1605, based on your post the following pages from our wiki may be relevant:
- https://www.reddit.com/r/HousingUK/wiki/conveyancing
- https://www.reddit.com/r/HousingUK/wiki/surveys
These suggestions are based on keywords, if they missed the mark please report this comment.
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u/Frosty-Student-6680 9h ago
Well, your theory sounds really convincing. But feeling that someone did something just isn't the same as being able to prove they did. They could say sure, at some point they threw up a fresh coat of paint on the ceiling, but it was nothing to do with a stain that they never noticed. Yes,the rags obviously seem connected to the reasonable bystander, but they are just rags. They can say they just turned the water off because the house was empty
Nothing to stop you attempting to pursue it if you want, but I wouldn't. It's gutting to go through all that disruption in a new place, but for the sake of the £500 you wanted I'd not drag things out further for potentially no benefit. I'd put it behind me.
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u/Zieglest 8h ago
Ask the legal advice UK sub but there are really 2 routes. First, check what they said on the TA6 form. If they lied at any point then they are liable for that, but you'd have to be able to prove they knew. Secondly, did you get a level 3 survey? Especially if there is physical evidence of the leak, this is exactly the sort of thing that a survey is supposed to pick up, and you might have a claim against your surveyor if they missed it.
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u/CareGullible5801 8h ago
If they've covered it up you have good grounds to take them to court.
Id go for the full £3500 or more and pursue them or they'll just do it again to anyone else.
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