10 year damp proof certificate!

[Belliot]

Okay... I am going to try and cut a long story short!!!

I bought my flat nearly 4 years ago... rising damp has occurred and I checked through old documents from the sale and realised that the property had already been dealt with in the same area and there was a 10 year guarantee for the worked carried out.

When I contacted the ‘damp’ company, they said that we could not get the certificate changed into my name as my solicitor should of carried out this when I bought the house and it should have been completed within 3 months of the purchase.
(I could not find any print on this in their documents!).
I also contacted the property association of which they are a member of and they said it’s down to the company’s discretion.

Surly the work is under guarantee and not the owner of the house!!

Does anyone know how a solicitor I can get to look into this for me?

Thanks

[Teleph0ne]

Most of the time the guarantees are insurance company backed but very hard to claim off, a bit like the NHBC guarantee, there is always a series of loopholes that they can disapear through so I don't fancy your chances

[buildersmate]

The best chance you have is to kick up a stink with the solicitor who assisted in the purchase of your house.
One of the standard enquiry questions that a buyer's solicitor asks the seller is something like 'what remedial work covered by guarantees exist in relation to the property and please provide the certificates. This should have elucidated the damp-proofing, and the solicitor gets the certificates. He should then have passed them onto you on completion, having checked that the warranty is transferable (or advised you accordingly if it wasn't).
I suggest that you write to this solicitor outlining the problem and asking for his comments in relation to the assertion by the damp company. You don't have to employ a solicitor to pursue a complaint against another one - and at this stage I suggest you don't call it a 'complaint' - just ask for their comments - then decide what to do. Solicitors have to have professional indemnity insurance to operate as a practice, so they won't take it personally. Would you would then do, assuming the answer isn't satisfactory in excusing them, is to make a complaint against the Practice via the Senior Practice Manager. The objection is to get their PII to pay for the remedial work, plus the cost of a new insurance policy at their expense for the remainder of the warranty period.
These people are paid well enough - they need to perform or suffer the consequences.

[Belliot]

Thanks Buildermate for the good advice! Thats exactly what I am going to do! Wish me luck!

[Twenty20]

Are you sure it's rising damp? Many experts now dismiss the notion of rising damp as a myth, something dreamed up for the benefit of 'damp cure' companies. I seem to remember it was either Which? or the BBC who had a brick wall partially submerged in water for years with no rising damp evident.