Moving House Worries - Can I Charge The Estate Agent For Their Cock Up?

[bednobs]

hi, the house we are buying's owner is living abroad. we were due to have our mortgage valuation survey. The surveyor liaised directly with our sellers estate agent. When our surveyor turned up the agent had not brought the keys with him. the keys were with one of their colleagues in another town! the colleague said "ok i can be there in 20 minutes" but the surveyor said no thanks, i'm not waiting you'll have to re-arrange.
Now they have to make a re-arrangement and want to charge us for the lost time/appointment (they'd had to come from a town around an hour away). can i expect the estate agent to absorb this cost?

[Peter Pedant]

yes I think their negligence has directly caused loss
so try it and see

short answer as I notice not in Law

[askyourgran]

Not your fault = not your arrangement, it is between the surveyor and the keyholder (estate agent) who has to bear the cost of the cock up.

[Buenchico]

You commissioned the survey, so you've got to pay for the cancelled appointment. (i.e. you can't simply tell the surveyor to send his bill to the estate agent).

However you can then demand compensation from the estate agent. If you can't get them to agree to paying up though a simple request, you'll need to follow the procedures in my final two paragraphs here:
http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Law/Question1434140.html
(That thread is obviously about a completely different topic but those two paragraphs still apply here).