A COUPLE who bought a £290,000 house in Penhill are devastated after it started to fall apart within weeks of them moving in, despite no problems being flagged up by surveyors before the transaction.

Clare Murtough, 38, says cracks in the wall had been disguised by doubled layers of wallpaper, visible holes in the roof allowed rain to come in and joists were rotting in the attic.

Shortly after she and her partner Jose moved into the property with their three young sons, the ceiling collapsed in an upstairs room, filling the room with rubble and dirt.

They said none of the issues with the property had been highlighted by Countrywide, which carried out the survey when the mortgage was issued.

It has already cost them thousands of pounds to repair, and the roof and many wooden beams still have to be replaced.

Describing their experience after moving in, Claire said: “When we opened the loft we noticed four holes of daylight coming through.

“When we stripped the wallpaper off, there were two-inch cracks in the wall. Everything had just been covered up. They had put two layers of wallpaper on one place where there were large cracks.

“All the joists in the loft were rotten, and since then, we’ve had someone to look at the triangle rafters and they’re all rotten as well.

“The surveyors said, ‘what do you expect? You only got a basic survey.’ I’d been to the house three or four times, and I’d queried two-inch cracks either side of the bay window, but they said that if it was a problem, they would have flagged it up.”

Countrywide has been approached for comment but has not responded.

The £300 survey did not flag up any concerns with the building’s structure, but more bad news was still to come.

Clare said: “One night, my husband called and said that the ceiling collapsed – they were just watching a DVD, and the ceiling came down in the other room.”

Fearing that her children could have been in the room at the time, Clare called the surveyors again but has yet to hear back.

Six weeks after completing the purchase, the family is still living out of bags and sleeping on mattresses in the lounge. Clare said, at times, the property has been uninhabitable and she and the children had to move to her mother’s house while the ceilings were reinstalled.

The couple have paid about £4,000 so far on repairs, with more to come.