The vendors of the property I am purchasing are to become my tenants, albeit that I have granted them rent free for 4 months as part of the purchase negotiations. I completed an Entry Report therefore a couple of weeks ago, which was only returned to me last Friday, with Settlement on the property being today Monday. With the change of hats from vendor to tenant, they have come clean and annotated the Entry Report with a number of issues they don't want to be blamed for, the most important of which is the fact that two of the toilets have cracks from the base of the pedestals going up in a curve, one about 12 inches long. The Building & Pest inspector hadn't noted these (nor had I or the agent), but much as they don't appear to be causing a leak, I believe the pedestals will break away in those areas in time. Any advice would be gratefully received. I have no option legally but to settle on the property today, but do others believe I have a case to bring with the Building Inspector under his Professional Indemnity to claim the replacement of the two pedestals under his insurance policy?
Bring the issue with the Vendor..then try to negotiate with the price agreed to cover to replace the toilet if that is the only concerns you have. Building report only check the structure of the house (e.g., roof leakage etc).
Hope this helps.
Cheers Leo
Thanks Leo … but unfortunately it's too late to try to renegotiate as I went Unconditional on the strength of the Building & Pest Report and other due diligence (eg flood mitigation – very apt in Qld at present). Legal opinion was that I had to settle today, and I take your point that Building inspection is only on the structural integrity of the dwelling. Lesson to be learned is to keep adding to the list I maintain of things to inspect with care myself when purchasing a property, much as I confess I have never thought to get down on my knees and examine the base of toilet pedestals!
a pest/building report is a totally different beast from a tenancy condition report, the latter noting wear & tear, marks & items of a non-structural nature.
At least you have now been made aware of these non-disclosed items.
When it comes to the quality of a building or pest inspection, a lot of it depends on who is doing the inspection. After the most recent purchase I've lost a lot of faith in these inspections. They are getting more expensive and the ones who do a proper job seem to be a dying breed. My Dad used to know one architect that would go check the subfloor, crawl into the roof, even crawl ON TOP of the roof to look for defects. Unfortunately he's now retired.
For this particular house I had expected the architect to go under the house and inspect the subfloor for any serious flaws. The dude didn't even go inside even though there was no issue with access whatsoever (the pest inspector went in, no problems).
This architect shone a torch through some of the weep holes and noted some of the stumps were concrete and some were wood. That was all. BUT, in his report, as if to cover his arse and avoid professional liability, he wrote something along the lines of: There are some cracks developing in the house which may be due to settlement or could be due to failure of the stumps.
Geez. Even I could tell you that if I were walking through the house half sober.
Well, if the dude actually inspected the stumps for himself, he would be able to tell me which was the cause with some degree of certainty. The pest inspector who physically checked some of the stumps told me that rot was developing in some areas and there was 'penciling', which of course would hasten stump failure. So it took me a full thousand dollars to find this out, instead of knowing after the $600 building inspection (in which case I could have called off the pest inspection if I wanted to).
Long story short, the inspections cost me over a thousand bucks, but I wouldn't rely on any of the information within other than there are no major structural defects (ie. the house is not likely to crumble to the ground tomorrow, but may well do so in the next 3 years because of stump failure) and there were no termites. And this is from Archicentre, supposedly one of the more reputable organisations. If anyone can clue me in on a good company to call for inspections in the future, I'll be VERY interested.
Unbelievable. In my line of work as a veterinarian, it wouldn't cost you $1000 for me just to say your dog or cat wasn't going to die in the next week (ie. no major illness)
Which state & city fword?
Scott No Mates wrote:Which state & city fword?Thanks Scott. I'd be looking for quality inspectors in Metropolitan Melbourne and to a lesser extent Geelong.
no probs fword, I could send you in the right direction for Sydney but can’t do much for Melbourne.
Scott No Mates wrote:no probs fword, I could send you in the right direction for Sydney but can't do much for Melbourne.That's alright. Thanks for offering to help.
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