A friend of mine is selling his ~20 year old home in North Western suburbs of Melbourne. The buyer has paid the agreed initial/deposit amount and passed the cooling off period which puts my friend in the settlement period of a house sale. There is no lean or modification to the house since the time it was built, the only thing is a single skirting board that is coming off leaving a gap of about 5cm long by 1mm between the cornice and roof in the corner of the room.
The buyer, 2 weeks into the settlement period decided to call a building inspector. The inspector came and left, a few days later the buyer claims that the inspector said the building has structural damage and required it to be demolished. Apparently this is also reported to the council, the buyer now wants to cancel the sale. When my friend asked for the report from the inspector, the inspector claims that the homeowner, my friend has no right to it and only the buyer. A copy of the report was also sent to the council by the inspector.
Is this time for a lawyer or a separate second building inspector? My friend is dumbfounded by the fact that just like that despite living there all this time someone can just declare it unsafe and required demolition without specifying what is wrong.
UPDATE: so at this time he is going to to hire another building inspector and a lawyer/solicitor to force the contractual sale. My friend's real estate agent was confused at the initial inspector's conclusion, their own people who valued and took photos of the property saw nothing that would indicate heavy structural damage or else they wouldn't have advertised it. Despite that the real estate agent is now liable to take it off the market permanently due to the demolition order by the building inspector. So even if this was a ditching attempt by the buyer my friend cannot sell his house or live in it and will have to move out until it can be proven that it has no said structural damage. As for the contract it was handled by the agent and my friend said it was a regular sale contract but I, myself personally do not know what was specified.
Talk to your solicitor. If they have no way out the contract then either he gets a free deposit or they buy.