i'm selling my house and the buyers survey has come back. everythings fine except he says the house will need a new slate roof in 5 years. he says the trusses,lathes and slates are fine and says because there are 14 copper straps on the roof its a sign the roof is coming to the end of its life.that, as we know, is a load of rubbish.
two specialist roofers have given me a report that says the roof is perfectly fine and will last for years.
is it possible to get an insurance to cover the roof? i have no idea where to go with this

thanks

All property surveys I've had done have said the roof will / may need replacing shortly. It is the surveyors protecting themselves normally. Most roofs if undisturbed will last along time. Buyer will try to argue for a discount on agreed price. You'll need to judge the situation and how desperate you are to sell, etc.

In the past I've said to people wanting money off for everything that the property was valued as seen so take it or leave it. As by that stage they've got their mortgage offer, paid the surveyor, run up legal fees, possibly committed to sellinganother place they would not normally drop out unless they are advised it is a show stopper. However, there are no guarantees - just a game of poker.

I occasionally have blood in my stool.

dally thankyou. our new house is agreed and everything is about done. my buyers are first timers who are green and haven't a clue. i'll ring him and have a natter. thanks again

Well, more on the surface than actually 'in' it. And sometimes on the paper when I wipe.

They'll be more cautios then so you'll need to take that into acccount. Against that the fees they've already committed will probably be significant to them and they'll be wary of pulling out and having to shell out on surveys etc for a new place. It also depends on your situation - if you are no particular hurry to sell you can call their bluff totally and risk them pulling out. Otherwise, you can make your own point and if necessary show them your roofers reports and offer them a few hundred quid off.

Probably all that anal sex you like.

they are eager to buy but are worried the roof will fall off in 5 years! we are days from completion and i don't want to lose our new house now. i was hoping some idemnity insurance would help. never had one before though

Not sure about the insurance - not something I'm familiar with.

When you say days from completion - have you already exchanged contracts?

tad rhino – Please be aware that, as with boilers and much more, as far as we know, nobody here is qualified to give you professional advice on such a matter.

No one has, as yet, given professional advice.

I've not tried it, actually. I could always give it a go though. Perhaps I could ask your son what it's like first.

Quite. And yet so many people seem to make the Sin Bin their first port of call for advice on all manner of personal and financial matters.

exchange next week!

legal advice was a poor choice of words as i'm seeing a solicitor tomorrow. i wanted people who had been in the same situation and wanted to know what they did.
that wouldn't have fit in the thread title though!

I had something similar when I sold my last house, the buyers solicitor found that the extension that the previous owners had built was apparently stood on top of a shared drain access point, according to a plan they had found anyway.

No-one knew whether it was or not but their solicitor asked for (off the top of my head) around £250 for an indemnity insurance just in case the drain ever blocked and an authority demanded access to the access point which would mean removing the floor in the extension.

I'm convinced it was a solicitors clerk making a name for him/herself and told them that I wouldn't contribute, having said that this was in 2006/07 when the market was at its highest and buyers were queueing up for property, they kept persisting and eventually we agreed on £100 to make it go away.

The same scam used to be done by surveyors on wall ties when a house is a certain age and before they've even drilled a hole and stuck a camera in the cavity and who then go on to recommend a company to do the job, to some extent they are covering their own backside but on another they are taking referal fees.

The answer will be that I bet the surveyor involved "knows" where to obtain an indemnity insurance policy, or their solicitor will, and yours probably will too, find out what it costs and for the sake of £100 or so pay up and do another "job" this weekend to pay for it

The advice he wants though is if he calls the buyer's bluff, will they pull out? The answer to that is a gamble, and not a legal question.

Insurance companies do not cover existing defects. Why would they give a policy to pay out when something KNOW will go wrong, goes wrong? However, he couldn't take out such insurance anyway, only the buyer could. You can't insure something you've no interest in; secondly, what use would that policy be to the nervous buyer? How would that go, anyway; "[iDon't worry, I've taken out a policy, so if the roof does fall off in a few years, be sure to track me down and trust me, I'll be sure to make a claim for you[/i"?

No, but as a seller, the buyer will ask him to pay the one-off fee for the indemnity.

You mean like the qualified boiler person who gave advice, im sure he'll thank you for dismissing his input.

In fact i know one person on here who i believe would be qualified to give such advice on that matter

We arent all McDonalds workers you know, although that may be the view from your ivory tower

No he won't, because there's no policy that would cover it, as well as that is clearly not the problem.

The indemnities you are talking about are basically all title defect indemnities. Not property defect indemnities. You can't indemnify against a roof defect. There either is one, or there isn't. The question of whether the roof is fine or fooked can be resolved right now by a surveyor's report.

If I want to insure my house, then I take out a buildings policy. The issue here is seller thinks the roof is fine, buyer thinks it is on its last legs. Any buildings insurer has as a pre-requisite that they do not insure existing defects - as that is not insurance. Any insurer will just quote you a premium, for one year, and if nothing happens, the next year, and so on. Even then, stuff that wasn't wrong with (say) the roof may become wrong, if it is due to wear and tear they still won't pay. All they will pay is stuff that goes wrong due to an insured peril - eg storm, etc.

Therefore there is no insurance remedy to be had here. The idea that you can get insurance to pay for something that you know or suspect is already fooked is novel.

* [size=85You can get "latent defects" buildings cover but clearly this would not be "latent" as the buyer has already discovered the issue he believes exists.[/size