Honour amongst thieves

[Marc Berger]

Dino this goes on before the curator is involved, this is pre buying, pre application, there is not only the potential of the archaeology but all the other potential factors that might affect the granting of permission.

I agree it does not happen that often to me gonetopot in fact the last time I got it to all come together was in about 2007 when I managed to get the excavation costs as a claw back from the seller but looking back on it the buyer was switched on and draw up the contracts. This is the only client I have at the moment who has taken me up on my advice to have me along to purchase property and I am struggling to convince myself that its worth while if the other bidders don't take archaeology into consideration. What I tried to get the seller, after failing to get an evaluation, to think was that if he did not tell the other bidders about the archaeological potential that he was withholding information about the site.

If she asked you for professional advice, weighed it up, and offered what she thought was reasonable, then she cannot blame you - surely?

I am trying to convince her to have a claw back or a shared liability with the seller for the costs for any land that she buys. If it turns out that there was an archaeology required then nothings spent. I would also like to do an evaluation before costing the archaeology. I don't know totally what she tried to negotiate with the seller, if anything, about the archaeology. I know no evaluation was done. In the few conversations that I have had with her she has not seemed very convinced that the other bidders either took the archaeology into consideration or cared and I presume because the seller did not tell them. I charged her £75 for me time and I not sure she will use me again.

forming in the back of my mind was that every time I see some land/property for sale I could pop my card into the sellers and offer to do a cheap and inexpensive evaluation.

whats to disclose? you are just a muppet with a trowel.....but more likely they will find out later and get burned

yes and we all get to work for another miserable client who thinks we are out to burn them and that we are all in it together and presumably the seller gets a warm sense of pride from having had one over the archaeologists. It seems they changed the caveat emptor on contaminated land and maybe this is the model that needs to be spelt out to the sellers http://www.breckland.gov.uk/content/cont...nformation after all we do little more than remove archaeological contamination