Buying and selling a home can be stressful , especially when there are chains involved. A recent customer of ours shares their experience of loosing a house sale because of un-tested Artex Coating.
Mrs Langley had put her late mothers house up for sale , 1950’s bungalow situated in Calverton , Nottingham.
“My mothers died and I was left the house , I put it up for sale without even thinking about asbestos” , Mrs Langley says.
After a really positive viewing by an older couple , an offer was put in and Mrs Langley accepted.
“The couple adored the bungalow , it’s situated close to their children and with there being no stairs , this sealed the deal”.
RICS surveys were carried out and a note was made regarding potential asbestos on the home survey.
“I had never ever thought about asbestos in the wall paint , my mum had lived in the house for over 40 years. It just never occurred to be there could be any kind of asbestos in the building at all”
“I explained to the solicitor that if the coating was asbestos , I would deal with it by getting it removed or encapsulated”
Unfortunately , the buyers pulled out of the sale and withdrew their offer. Regardless of the offer made by Mrs Langley to rectify any potential asbestos in the artex coating.
” I was and still am absolutely gutted about the buyers pulling out. As soon as I got a copy of the home survey I got straight onto the solicitor and said I would deal with it. At this stage there had been no actual confirmation on whether the artex was or was not asbestos. It was just noted as presumed on the RIC Survey. But the buyers got put off and pulled out of the sale”
Mrs Langley called Smart Asbestos for advice.
” I saw Smart Asbestos online and called them. They gave me a few options and I chose to have the Asbestos Testing option”, Mrs Langley explains.
A sample of the artex was removed by one of our trained team. UKAS Lab analysis took place on the sample and results were provided to Mrs Langley by email.
“We had the sample taken and got the results back pretty quickly. No asbestos was detected in the sample , so I was even more annoyed” , says Mrs Langley
“I wish I would have had a full asbestos survey carried out before putting the house up for sale. Knowing whether asbestos was present would have saved me a lot of time and money”
If you need advice or materials tested for asbestos , it’s best not to leave it until after the inevitable has happened – Contact us for advice / free quotes.
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