A
Anonymous
Guest
I have only just discovered this website, which is fantastic as I have a couple of questions concerning a survey my boyfriend and I had done on a lovely house we're hoping to buy. We're first-time buyers so very new to this, and we don't know how seriously we should take some of the comments on the survey report - hope someone here can offer some advice!
Basically, there don't seem to be any major problems with the property, but the surveyor recommended further surveys/reports on a few areas. These are the main things he mentioned:
- he recommended a timber report as "most houses of this age might have some woodworm"
- chimney and roof edges need repointing as the cement joints are starting to erode
- the kitchen and bathroom are built on a solid-floor extension and apparently there is some condensation staining on the walls due to inadequate ventilation. What can be done about this? (There were no signs of damp anywhere in the house.)
- he recommended getting the electrical system tested (is this just because he didn't do it?)
- the loft has been converted into a bedroom, so the roof space hasn't been inspected, is this a problem and are there issues we should know about if it's not inspected thoroughly?
- the neighbours' nearly 20ft-tall tree is just a few metres from our house and he said we should get a quote from an arboriculturist for checking the roots haven't done any damage
I've heard so much about the same comments coming up on surveys all the time due to the surveyors needing to cover their backs that I can't decide how important these issues really are - do they need immediate attention, how much will it cost and should we get them checked out before exchanging contracts?
A survey was done on the property just a few weeks before our survey, since the current occupants have already sold it to the company who's developing their new house (part exhange deal). Based on this survey, they had valued the house at £10k more than what our accepted offer was (and our valuation indicated our purchase price is a fair price for the house), but we don't know the details of the previous survey and obviously had to do our own. The house is a three-bedroom, end terrace, brick-built property on three floors (incl. the loft conversion), built in the early 1890s. We now realise that maybe we needed to do a full building survey rather than the homebuyers' survey and valuation, but as we only did the latter, we would at least want to make some sense of the report we did get.
Would you recommend getting further surveys done, getting quotes for any work that might need doing or renegotiating the price? Or are the reported problems common in older houses and nothing major to worry about? (Or both?)
Thanks so much for all your help!
Basically, there don't seem to be any major problems with the property, but the surveyor recommended further surveys/reports on a few areas. These are the main things he mentioned:
- he recommended a timber report as "most houses of this age might have some woodworm"
- chimney and roof edges need repointing as the cement joints are starting to erode
- the kitchen and bathroom are built on a solid-floor extension and apparently there is some condensation staining on the walls due to inadequate ventilation. What can be done about this? (There were no signs of damp anywhere in the house.)
- he recommended getting the electrical system tested (is this just because he didn't do it?)
- the loft has been converted into a bedroom, so the roof space hasn't been inspected, is this a problem and are there issues we should know about if it's not inspected thoroughly?
- the neighbours' nearly 20ft-tall tree is just a few metres from our house and he said we should get a quote from an arboriculturist for checking the roots haven't done any damage
I've heard so much about the same comments coming up on surveys all the time due to the surveyors needing to cover their backs that I can't decide how important these issues really are - do they need immediate attention, how much will it cost and should we get them checked out before exchanging contracts?
A survey was done on the property just a few weeks before our survey, since the current occupants have already sold it to the company who's developing their new house (part exhange deal). Based on this survey, they had valued the house at £10k more than what our accepted offer was (and our valuation indicated our purchase price is a fair price for the house), but we don't know the details of the previous survey and obviously had to do our own. The house is a three-bedroom, end terrace, brick-built property on three floors (incl. the loft conversion), built in the early 1890s. We now realise that maybe we needed to do a full building survey rather than the homebuyers' survey and valuation, but as we only did the latter, we would at least want to make some sense of the report we did get.
Would you recommend getting further surveys done, getting quotes for any work that might need doing or renegotiating the price? Or are the reported problems common in older houses and nothing major to worry about? (Or both?)
Thanks so much for all your help!