I have recently bought a second hand caravan via a private sale in May. The caravan had just been serviced at a dealer/service center local to the seller, and came back with a clean bill of health. On the strength of this report, and our own viewing of the van we progressed with the sale.
We have used the van a couple of times now and I noticed some stippling on the walls in the bunk bed area and in the toilet which admittedly we didn’t spot when we viewed the van. Upon closer inspection the wall at the bottom of the toilet was quite soft to the touch.
I decided to get this looked at professionally by a local company. After doing some reading I was expecting damp to be present, but I have now been informed that there is significant damp in the van with a repair bill of circa £2500! I have been advised that due to the severity of the damp that this has been present for a significant amount of time. I have checked the damp report from the service that was carried out prior to buying the van and it was stated that there was no damp in the van. This was 6 weeks ago that the report was dated! I have since gone back to the service center in question and had another damp test carried out and they have found damp to be present, and they have stated that the damp in the toilet area has been there for at least 2 years! (I didn’t inform the service center that they did the initial report as I wanted to get an un biased review of the problem)
To say I am shocked is an understatement, we have spent a significant sum of money on the van and I am loathed the pay for the repair bill as the van was sold as having no damp, which is now not the case.
Does anyone have any experience of this or can anyone offer some advice on what I could do? Do I go to the seller, or the service center, or both?
i personally would speak to the seller first. i understand he did not write the report, but inform him that the same center have now reported damp. then confront the center. it could be a case for small claims court.
Its difficult to see how you could get any redress from workshop, its the previous owner who was their customer in that instance, not you. The only redress you have from a private seller is if they misrepresented caravan, ie claimed it was something it was not, ie dry.
So its possible you have redress from seller but they could argue that on the basis of the report they did not misrepresent. So a bit of a mess. Good luck with it, anyway.