What not to do

[JamesWeston37]

Being a home owner first and an estate agent second I can say from painful experience (and not practicing what I preach) that trying to save money at any point during the buying, selling or renovating a home can be a false economy unless you are exceptionally lucky. I skipped doing a survey on our last purchase thinking we were going to renovate anyway and missed the leaky front roof (4k extra). On our last project we went for the cheapest builders and had to kick them off after about months (meant to be a 3 month job) and get someone else to finish it which cost us about £5k extra. Always use good solicitors, surveyors, builders, the stress alone just isn't worth it.

[missymayhemsmum]

And your AIBU is???..
Totally disagree, having paid hundreds for a surveyor not to spot problems that became blatantly obvious having lived in the property for a week, and for solicitors to write illiterate letters saying the opposite of what I told them to say.
And having sacked builders who were so up themselves it was a wonder they could hold a hammer in favour of the lad from round the corner.

[MammaTJ]

Surely if surveyors fail to spot a problem you can sue though!

[WinterOfOurDiscountTents15]

Where is the aibu?

And you're estate agent who bought a house without a survey? Thanks but I'll take home buying advice elsewhere if I need it.

[MrsGentlyBenevolent]

It's the answer to the question most of us didn't ask..... Are you a bit lost, dear?

[missymayhemsmum]

Mamma TJ you would think that, wouldn't you. But if you read any house survey it is mostly disclaimers and standard clauses, very little information, followed by a valuation which is amazingly exactly what you need to get the mortgage.

[Yarp]

How do you find a good one?

How do you find a good estate agent?

[fastdaytears]

If it's a full survey you can definitely sue, but if it's the valuation type you need for a mortgage then mostly they don't even look inside the house IME and are all disclaimers. The price difference is quite significant though. My survey didn't give me a valuation because the mortgage one did. It just gave me loads of boring blurb about asbestos and guttering.

[Melonfool]

Surveyors......in my last house the survey said the lead flashing on the chimney needed replacing. I have a mate who's a roofer, he went up years later to do some tiles, had a look, said it's fine.

I sold the house after being there twelve years. New owner's surveyor didn't mention the still untouched lead flashing but their report did say the roof "may need replacing in five to ten years", no shit Sherlock, it was already c50 years old and he was basically saying "to cover my ass I'm going to state the inarguable truth that nothing lasts forever".
The buyers wanted their own' roofer to look at it. I said they could have anyone they liked look at it, I wasn't reducing the price we'd agreed. No idea if they bothered or not but they bought at the price we'd agreed.

I didn't bother with a survey on next/current house.

Absolutely no guarantee a surveyor would have spotted the leaky roof.

[Melonfool]

Oh, and values being same as mortgage?

We're just remortgaging, standard rate tarting. They're paying for the valuation survey. It's just been done and they've valued the house at £50k more than I said. Which is 1/6th more. And means they now have to reissue all the mortgage paperwork and proposals etc. Sigh - what was the point of that then??