Damp Course

Former Member

Hi all,

I need some advice.

My husband and I purchased a house 2 years ago, its quite an old house, but was refurbished by a builder and sold on as 2 smaller more modern houses. My husband is in the army and so we now live in army accomodation miles away from the original house and we have since rented the house out.

Anyway, it's been empty for about 5 months now and our letting agents have just informed us that there is rising damp in the living room and that its going to cost us £1,000 to get a new damp course...

I'm just wondering where I stand on this one, my main thoughts are that it should have showed up in the original survey that we had done before purchasing the house, and also that as it is a refurb, the man who refurbed it may be liable?

Am I just clutching at straws here?

Thanks in advance!

Tittletattle

Former Member

What sort of survey did you have? Most surveys other than a really exhaustive structural one would be fairly highly disclaimed in terms of responsibility. I think you would be lucky to recover costs from the surveryor, and I can't really see a refurbisher being liable unless the damp was introduced by something that they did that contravenes regulations.

In other words, it's your problem.