Reply to: Questions to ask house owner of place I'd like to buy (maybe)

[quackhandle]

3) Remeber that the vendor is under no obligation to tell you the truth though.

When we bought our first house the prevoius owners failed to mention to us that one of our neighbours had had their child taken off them were complete loonies/bullies and had also done time for murder.

qh

[moorfield]

5) Is Wilmslow your neighbour ?

[norrahe]

Find out if they've made any improvements/extensions to the house that would require planning permission of any sort. Some people quite happily go ahead with extensions etc.. without getting them and this could impact you in the future should you buy the house.

Also check if there is any planned building and development proposals for the area dependant in the type of housing and or wind turbine/factories etc.. this could devalue the house greatly or just make the area hell to live in.

Do check the house on different times of day and on the weekends.

[vetran]

1) get your solicitor to check this we had a sliver owned by the council adjacent to the pavement of our driveway took ages to sort out.
2) ask then check with council
3)It was on the standard disclosure we signed 5 years ago have a memory New Lie legislated and messed it up. Solicitor should know.
4) Ask its an interesting test of honesty.
5) are you leaving the curtains, will you have them dry cleaned first? Where did they get those interesting wipe marks?

upmystreet gave some interesting info. Marketing population classifications. Crime stats, school catchment areas etc.
Pay £6 for landreg info.
Google earth it, surprising what you see.

A few sites give estimates for house value GIYF.

Make a list of everything you think needs doing and get ideas of costs use that. Wish we had, spent a fortune but its nice now.

Get access to the deeds as soon as you dare. Preferably before you agree to hand over wonga.

Durbs is spot on, go there early at rush hour, afternoon, weekends, evening & pub closing time. You will be living there so you need to be sure its nice all the time.

[Durbs]

Make sure to drive past of an evening too. Friends of ours thought they'd found the perfect spot but then sensibly checked it out again at night and turns out that just beside it was the local yoof hangout

[Troll]

5) Do you have to take your shoes off before entering

[SizeZero]

5) Do you like movies about Gladiators?

[Troll]

Hi,
Off to view a property on Monday and will be meeting the owner. I was hoping you wonderful bunch could help me put together some questions to ask and indicate which ones they must answer by law.
On my list was:
1) What right of way is there to the garage
2) Are there protection orders on the feckin huge trees that keep the place in perpetual shadow?
3) Are there any disputes with the neighbours - what are they like?
4) Did they have a survey done when they moved in in 2006 - can I have a copy
5) .......erm

It sold for £225K at the begining of 04 and them at £242,500 towards the end of 06. Asking is £250K. Next door which has a lot in common went for £195 first quarter 2002

Thanking you

5) Do the radiators need bleeding

[TimberWolf]

Hi,
Off to view a property on Monday and will be meeting the owner. I was hoping you wonderful bunch could help me put together some questions to ask and indicate which ones they must answer by law.
On my list was:
1) What right of way is there to the garage
2) Are there protection orders on the feckin huge trees that keep the place in perpetual shadow?
3) Are there any disputes with the neighbours - what are they like?
4) Did they have a survey done when they moved in in 2006 - can I have a copy
5) .......erm

It sold for £225K at the begining of 04 and them at £242,500 towards the end of 06. Asking is £250K. Next door which has a lot in common went for £195 first quarter 2002

Thanking you

5) Will you take a 50% reduction?

[rootsnall]

Hi,
Off to view a property on Monday and will be meeting the owner. I was hoping you wonderful bunch could help me put together some questions to ask and indicate which ones they must answer by law.
On my list was:
1) What right of way is there to the garage
2) Are there protection orders on the feckin huge trees that keep the place in perpetual shadow?
3) Are there any disputes with the neighbours - what are they like?
4) Did they have a survey done when they moved in in 2006 - can I have a copy
5) .......erm

It sold for £225K at the begining of 04 and them at £242,500 towards the end of 06. Asking is £250K. Next door which has a lot in common went for £195 first quarter 2002

Thanking you

Have a look online at the land registry before you start paying for solicitors, you should be able to see the proper plot and read the deeds, and pick up if there are any charges against the property.

[rootsnall]

Since when did the seller have to provide that level of detail, and take on responsibility for said neighbours?

Whenever I have sold a property it has been in the list of questions sent by the other parties solicitor, so a direct question that you can't avoid if you do have problem neighbours ( without telling fibs ). But, saying that, a friend of ours recently sold a property that had a nutter neighbour, the police had been called on a number of occasions. The list of questions the other solicitor sent never asked the question, so they said nowt and got away with it.

[gingerjedi]

Since when did the seller have to provide that level of detail, and take on responsibility for said neighbours?

Don't know, apparently it's a standard question to be asked if there were any disputes which they said there were not, define dispute? I'm not a lawyer but it's going to court so there must be some sort of case?

[threaded]

Have they had any grants for the house (means you can't get them)

Why are they moving (and if they look at one of the other houses round-abouts then there is a neighbour dispute)

Just drop into conversation about mail redirection and ask if they're still getting mail for previous owners (could be an indication the address has a bad credit rating, which will damage yours by association)

[shaunbhoy]

No.3 is very important.

A mate of mine sold his house at around 15% below average for the area (as a whole) as the street he lived on had quite a few undesirables living there, 2 years later he's still locked in a legal battle with the buyer who claimed he was never told about the nuisance neighbours.

The buyer (who didn't know the area) never questioned why it was 15% below average but it would have been pretty obvious to anyone who knows the town, thats the argument my mate is using.

They're in court next month and my mate is expecting to payout anything between £5K-£60k.

Since when did the seller have to provide that level of detail, and take on responsibility for said neighbours?

[mudskipper]

Make sure you check the broadband!