Nicola Kelland - Monolithic Cladding

My home is constructed with a monolithic cladding on a timber frame. I have been thinking of selling, but the agents are telling me they can’t sell it. What should I do?

This is always a very difficult time for owners, many of whom have no idea if there are any weather tight issues with their house or not. But come time to sell, and with the publicity over monolithic cladding and leaking homes, suddenly there appears to be a problem with selling your home.

Your real estate salesperson is required by the REAA to warn any potential purchasers of any potential problems this type of construction could have, or the style of the architecture that may leave a home more at risk to weather tight issues.

So where does this leave the homeowner? My advice is get some independent advice as to the state of your home. Employ a well qualified or certified building inspector to assess your home, which may involve some invasive testing of the timber framing. You will then know if you have any problems and can decide on a plan for moving forward. It may be that you will need to re-clad your home, or if you sell the property with known watertight problems, all purchasers are fully aware of these. But make sure you have consulted your solicitor and obtained good legal advice first.

But what if there are no problems on the building report?
Then you can proceed with the sale process, but again consult with your solicitor first. Give all reports you have obtained to your agent or salesperson. They may ask your permission to pass these on to interested purchasers. Again your salesperson, in their duty of care, will be required to strongly suggest to potential purchasers that they should also seek their own independent building inspection as the type of construction and style of the home, suggests that it may have watertight problems or could do in the future even though your report looks fine.

What if I don’t tell my agent that there are some watertight issues? Most agents or salespeople will ask you about any issues there are with the house that a potential purchaser should be told, and ask you to confirm this by signing off on these as part of their agency agreement, which is a legal document. You cannot tell a salesperson to not disclose any building or detrimental issues with your property. They have a duty of care to all purchasers and must disclose these, or remove themselves from selling your property.

At Kellands we have sold monolithic homes, some known to have problems, some that haven’t had any problems. As long as the process of the sale is handled  transparently, and full disclosure to all parties, they can be sold, but bear in mind that just as the CV’s have been altered to lower the value of these properties, so to has the market value been affected.