to want to get a building survey?

[housebuildingsos]

Hi all,

I am in the process of buying a new house with my DP. It's a 3 bed semi in the South East (home counties). We spent ages looking after selling our previous place. This house is very pretty, easy to deal with and has a lot of potential for an extension. We have no kids and none due for a good 8-10 years (early twenties).

Our priority will be decorating the house how we like then towards the end of the year/2020 building an extension to make it a 5 bed.

I want a full survey done. It's about £500 and I think when you're spending hundreds of thousands on a property you may as well. We have concerns after finding asbestos in the garage (undisturbed but would need removing for extension) and we are unsure if the roof might need redoing soon.

My MIL/FIL said it's a waste of money because we won't be able to negotiate on price (we offered the asking the day after it went on the market) and we won't pull out. But if we found knotweed/severe costs from any other issues, I would pull out. Neither of us are good at DIY and both work fulltime 50-60 hour weeks so we wouldn't have time to deal with any extra issues.

Opinions?

I think you are being very sensible. I wouldn’t ever buy a house without a survey first, regardless of its age/condition and what I did or did not intend to do with it.
Houses are a lot of money to part with, and any potential unknown issue at this point could scamper you in the future.

Stop discussing it with your in laws. It's not up to them. I would get a full survey 👍

I would get a full survey. I wouldn't buy a house without one.

I agree with PP, especially as you’re considering a future extension, I would get a survey!

I’d always get a full structural survey done. When you’re spending that much on a house why wouldn’t you spend an extra few hundred to make sure there are no nasty surprises?

Always get the most in depth survey you can. Home buyers ones are rubbish. Full building survey is what you need. Very sensible

Do it. We did and then renegotiated the price as it threw up a few issues. Nothing major, but not DIY sort of stuff, so we reduced our offer to cover the costs.