"Ric" wrote in message
...

"Andy Hall" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 25 Oct 2004 15:45:33 GMT, "Cicero"
wrote:


"Andy Hall" wrote in message
. ..
On Mon, 25 Oct 2004 15:22:54 GMT, "Cicero"
wrote:


"MM" wrote in message
.. .
Should I get a survey done on brand-new house?

MM

================
Quite apart from the structure of the house you should also find out
if
there are any legal technicalities such as covenants, shared access,
rights
of way etc. Things like this can cause big problems if you don't know
about
them until somebody parks their car in your front garden!

Cic.



True, but AIUI, that is part and parcel of the solicitor's search
work....


.andy

==============
Yes, I agree, but a solicitor might see such things as so routine that
he
might not bring them to the attention of the buyer. It's worth asking to
be
on the safe side.

Cic.

Of course, but I wonder whether a surveyor would be reasonably
expected to know about or investigate such things - I didn't think it
was their area....

I'm pretty sure its not - and I would be really ****ed off with a
solicitor
who, having paid them the rather large amount of money they charge for
conveyancing and searches and the likes, decided not to tell me important
things that were thrown up by the searches.



==============
My suggestion was prompted by one very bad personal experience. I bought a
new house several years ago and because it was new (with no searchable
history) the searches showed none of the items I cited. When the Deeds were
prepared by the vendor a covenant was inserted which permitted several other
properties access through my property. This wasn't a problem at first but
some of the other owners assumed that 'access through' gave them a right to
park on my property. Legal action was necessary to confirm my right to
prevent people parking on my property and of course this resulted in very
bad relations with several neighbours. When I sold the property (as quickly
as I could!) the purchaser's surveyor did indeed ask me personally about the
situation and actually measured all the boundaries to confirm their
location. The purchaser was made fully aware of the situation and had the
result of my legal action to prevent any repetition of the original problem.
My solicitor was not very helpful and only acted under pressure from myself.
He had either missed the covenant at the time of purchase or hadn't
considered it worth his time to explain it to me. Although my experience may
be rare I think it is worth asking both solicitor and surveyor about such
things. If it doesn't concern the surveyor he will surely not be upset about
being asked and may actually know about such things despite being outside
his terms of reference.

Cic.