A pre-trial hearing at The High Court in London has been told that the sellers of a beautiful Berkshire property had sold their home in the knowledge it was riddled with dry rot. Alastair and Carla Winsey have been accused of scraping evidence from the walls of the £2 million property prior to its sale.
The Winseys, who describe themselves as “self-taught restorers and decorators”, purchased the property, Old Vicarage, in 2014. The property has eight bedrooms, a swimming pool and tennis court. They then refurbished it before selling it to Matthew Gore and Kim Gozzett four years later for just over £2 million.
Mr Gore is suing the sellers of his home as well as the surveying firm that surveyed the property when he purchased it. He claims he was told it had no significant defects when he bought the property.
He has accused the couple of concealing dry rot fungus as well as serious structural defects at the property in the village of Grazeley. He said the defects are so serious that there is a possibility that part of the building may need to be re-built. He is claiming compensation of £1.2 million which, he says, is the difference between what he paid for the property and its “true value” taking into account the defects.
The Winseys say they warned Mr Gore about potential issues before completion of the sale. They deny the claim and have described the accusation as “opportunistic and misconceived”.
The couple now own a wedding venue, Silchester Farm in Hampshire, which they have transformed into a £25,000 a day “rural retreat and wedding venue” with a boating lake and rustic barns.
Mr Gore’s barrister said that rather than being defect-free, the property “suffered extensively from dry rot” He also said the former Coach House of the property “was structurally unsound as a result of works which the Winseys had carried out but which they had failed to disclose to the claimant prior to his purchase of the property”. There was “progressive movement in the roof” and the “front wall of the former Coach House, causing that section of the property to be structurally unsound, and requiring its demolition and rebuilding”.
He said that Mr Gore had been forced to “render the property safely inhabitable” by spending “substantial sums in investigatory and remedial works”, and that the property had actually only been worth £865,000 at the time of the sale.
The surveying firm, Haslams Surveyors, said that “significant sections” of its report had been disregarded, including its advice to further investigate “damp in areas of the ground floor” prior to exchange of contract.
Legal costs in the case have already reached £350,000 and the claim is expected to return to court later in the year.
What is dry rot?
Dry rot is a form of wood-decaying fungi that can cause severe structural damage to buildings. The fungus will weaken and eventually destroy the timbers found in floorboards, skirting, joists and any other wooden surfaces. It can be a significant issue in a property and difficult to eradicate, so should be investigated properly by a property professional. Read more on dry rot: Surveyor’s Guide to dry rot in the home
Dry rot is just one of the issues an independent Chartered Surveyor will be looking for when you have a building survey.