I had something similar when I sold my last house, the buyers solicitor found that the extension that the previous owners had built was apparently stood on top of a shared drain access point, according to a plan they had found anyway.

No-one knew whether it was or not but their solicitor asked for (off the top of my head) around £250 for an indemnity insurance just in case the drain ever blocked and an authority demanded access to the access point which would mean removing the floor in the extension.

I'm convinced it was a solicitors clerk making a name for him/herself and told them that I wouldn't contribute, having said that this was in 2006/07 when the market was at its highest and buyers were queueing up for property, they kept persisting and eventually we agreed on £100 to make it go away.

The same scam used to be done by surveyors on wall ties when a house is a certain age and before they've even drilled a hole and stuck a camera in the cavity and who then go on to recommend a company to do the job, to some extent they are covering their own backside but on another they are taking referal fees.

The answer will be that I bet the surveyor involved "knows" where to obtain an indemnity insurance policy, or their solicitor will, and yours probably will too, find out what it costs and for the sake of £100 or so pay up and do another "job" this weekend to pay for it

The advice he wants though is if he calls the buyer's bluff, will they pull out? The answer to that is a gamble, and not a legal question.

Insurance companies do not cover existing defects. Why would they give a policy to pay out when something KNOW will go wrong, goes wrong? However, he couldn't take out such insurance anyway, only the buyer could. You can't insure something you've no interest in; secondly, what use would that policy be to the nervous buyer? How would that go, anyway; "[iDon't worry, I've taken out a policy, so if the roof does fall off in a few years, be sure to track me down and trust me, I'll be sure to make a claim for you[/i"?

No, but as a seller, the buyer will ask him to pay the one-off fee for the indemnity.

You mean like the qualified boiler person who gave advice, im sure he'll thank you for dismissing his input.

In fact i know one person on here who i believe would be qualified to give such advice on that matter

We arent all McDonalds workers you know, although that may be the view from your ivory tower

No he won't, because there's no policy that would cover it, as well as that is clearly not the problem.

The indemnities you are talking about are basically all title defect indemnities. Not property defect indemnities. You can't indemnify against a roof defect. There either is one, or there isn't. The question of whether the roof is fine or fooked can be resolved right now by a surveyor's report.

If I want to insure my house, then I take out a buildings policy. The issue here is seller thinks the roof is fine, buyer thinks it is on its last legs. Any buildings insurer has as a pre-requisite that they do not insure existing defects - as that is not insurance. Any insurer will just quote you a premium, for one year, and if nothing happens, the next year, and so on. Even then, stuff that wasn't wrong with (say) the roof may become wrong, if it is due to wear and tear they still won't pay. All they will pay is stuff that goes wrong due to an insured peril - eg storm, etc.

Therefore there is no insurance remedy to be had here. The idea that you can get insurance to pay for something that you know or suspect is already fooked is novel.

* [size=85You can get "latent defects" buildings cover but clearly this would not be "latent" as the buyer has already discovered the issue he believes exists.[/size