To pull out of house purchase for this? Or am I crazy

[Newhome25]

This is causing huge amounts of stress with me and DH. I am six months pregnant and I do have anxiety so I realise this could be playing into my fears. We found a great house in the area we want. There’s barely any for sale and it’s not a forever home but a great start and perfect for life for the three of us for now. We have got to the stage where searches are happening and I said I wanted a damp survey and asbestos survey as the house was built in 70s.

Damp survey really reassuring but the asbestos one says there’s asbestos on the roof (described as sheets) and on the garage and on the plan it looks like also around where the guttering sits. These are all apparently stable and the roof is in ok condition generally. However, this still makes me feel sick with anxiety. The worst one is that parts of the loft have been filled in with filler that contains asbestos. We’ve been advised that these should be covered and the sellers have said they will sort this before the sale goes through. But… I’ve been reading into it and now I’m in full panic mode that if the areas haven’t been covered previously then little bits could have come off and be inside the house now. I’ve read even one bit could be dangerous. I can’t get it out of my head and want to pull out of the sale. DH is saying I’m crazy and he can’t proceed with it if im going to be like this but equally he feels we’ve spend hundreds on surveys and should just take the advice to get the problem areas covered and then get on with our lives. The surveyor has been re assuring but he’s not the one going to live there.

I have been worrying so much and just don’t feel comfortable exposing our baby to this. Am I being crazy? Is this a pregnancy induced panic that I will regret if we pull out? Please help!

Found out our 1970's house had asbestos when we replaced our 50 year-old boiler this year. £3k boiler replacement became £7k.
Chrysotile in floortiles and chimney flue was straightforward - guys wore their white suits - otherwise no drama.
Biggest stress was trying to identify what was meant by the material identified as 'NADIS' - which turned out to mean No Asbestos Discovered In Sample.

We pulled out for this reason many years ago. Annoyed that sellers don’t disclose as it wastes everyone’s time and money. They said it’s fine if you don’t touch it…….but DH is in the construction industry and would want to majorly refurb the property. Glad we pulled out tbh.

It's true that chrysotile is low-risk as far as asbestos goes. But it's still asbestos.
I wouldn't buy a house with any form of asbestos in it.

should you live in a house that doesn’t make you comfortable and makes you feel unsafe? No.

And you may feel limited in what renovations can be done.

If you continue renting and the house isn’t a new build you wouldn’t know what asbestos it had nor where it was. Personally I would rather know the potential issues I was taking on. (I did buy a home with an asbestos roof on the garage, removal cost 7k.)

If living in a home with asbestos makes you anxious, then it understandable why you would want to pull out of the sale.

Approximately 14 million homes in the UK are likely to contain asbestos as these were built when asbestos was being used as a building material. The is 1 in every 2 homes in the UK.

You will probably need to focus your search on newer properties built in the last 25 years. Asbestos was fully banned in the UK in November 1999.

I had to have every single ceiling replaced before we bought which ended up with house being tented - it was a big house too !! Asbestos is nasty especially if disturbed but you could get a quote to have a specialist remove it and repair before moving in if the house is a nice one -

While its supposedly perfectly safe when undisturbed, the issue comes when you need to disturb it, for example if you do a loft conversion or make repairs to the roof. My house has a little bit of asbestos which will need careful removal when it comes time to renovate that part of the house. The one you describe has quite a bit more. You could get a quote to remove the asbestos and see if the sellers are willing to reduce in price to cover the cost of removal. But tbh it sounds like you've got 'house ick'

We pulled out of a house because of asbestos. It was in the roof, guttering, kitchen floor tiles (under the wooden flooring) and the garage was made out of asbestos sheets.

The bank put a value of zero on the house and wouldn’t lend unless it was sorted by the seller. He refused so we pulled out.

To be honest I wouldn’t have felt safe having my family in that house so I don’t blame you for not going ahead

Unless it was my perfect house and I had funds to remove asbestos fully, then I would pull out and buy something else.

You can't 'deep clean' asbestos - it has to be removed under controlled conditions.

OP before you pull out, can you phone the company that did the survey and ask the surveyor these questions. They may be able to put your mind at rest, and/or give you an idea of the work you'd need to do to remediate the property.
You've paid them for their professional advice, so you may as well use it.

Do not disturb the asbestos and it will be fine. It's when people start trying to "rip" it out that problems with it are an issue.

And what if they want to do major renovations at a later stage?

There will be an issue with selling on. I wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole.

Op, your fear is perfectly rational. I am not pregnant, nor am a generally a 'worrier', but I would withdraw from this purchase immediately. Your husband's comment is completely unreasonable. Don't do it. Other houses will come onto the market in due course. The fact that reputable mortgage lenders don't loan on property with confirmed asbestos must confirm this. Steer clear.

Really it comes down to this. Would you ever be happy living in this house? Secondly, if you moved in, would you worry about selling it on in the future as you've said, I think, it's not your forever home? If the answer to the first question, on balance, is no or not really; and/or the answer to the second question is yes or probably ... you have your answer about whether this is the right home for you. Good luck with your decision

My SIL has cancer now due to exposure of asbestos that could have happened around 20 years ago, so impossible to know where from exactly. It only takes one exposure, as particles can float in the air. It's devastating! I wouldn't go ahead with the purchase, personally, not worth the risk.

This is almost exactly my situation. Except it’s baby two that I’m pregnant with, and the decisions to abandon the purchase was made when we where barely 3 months.

The house was the perfect size, perfect garden, the area we wanted, etc.

We were 1 week from competing but the worry about the condition of the house, the fact that we wouldn’t be able to live in it straight away, and I was / am having a very difficult pregnancy (I’ve been signed off work since August and have only just returned as I’d been haemorrhaging constantly from the womb and docs don’t know the cause), all led my husband and I to back out.

We’ve lost lots of money, but the stress has lifted fully, and I’ve been able to focus on my health and my growing family. Bleeding has stopped and docs say it could have been triggered by stress, or at least made worse by it.

The people we were buying from were multi property landlords, who were quite difficult to deal with as searches had pulled up lots of problems, like extensions without planning permission, mould, etc, so I don’t actually feel that guilty. And more importantly, the decision to pull out might have saved my unborn baby’s life.

There will be more houses, more opportunities. We decided to focus on what is best for our family, however selfish that might seem to others.

No regrets here.

OP, do what is best for your physical and mental health.

Good luck with the rest of the pregnancy. 💐

Was supposed to quote the OP

To clarify, the asbestos sheets on the roof are apparently very easy to remove and very common for this sort of house. same with guttering etc.

the biggest worry I have is what’s in the loft which is a cement with chrysolite (spelling?!) mixed into it. Surveyor said it was only in two small patches and that he had applied a sealant to them so it’s not a problem and it is marked as low risk anyway even when it was exposed.

DH is usually really understanding but he’s saying any house we get could have a bit of this sort of asbestos somewhere and we can never be certain. His view is that we know where it is and know it isn’t a problem. I know why he is frustrated as we wanted this house as a stepping stone to the next one and it is a good buy for that as places take so long to come up in this area. I called the surveyor today and he was really nice and chatted it all through. He said the same as DH, that unless a new build most will have some trace and that it’s insulation that’s the main worry which he couldn’t see at the properly. I’m so confused as to what to do and feel I’ve gone down a rabbit hole now.

My house is about 120 years old. There is asbestos in the ceilings. We only found out when a leak in the bathroom came through the kitchen so we needed a new ceiling. It was sorted through insurance and a specialist company took down the rest of ceiling then covered it until a plasterer could do the rest.

no issues health wise and it is still in the rest of the house.

unless you buy a new build you will more than likely be buying a house with asbestos in it.

Your anxiety is probably playing a major part which I 100% get. I have PND and anxiety 2 years on. I hope you have support and therapy to help you with it.

There is no such thing as safe asbestos. I grew up in Australia close to where they mined it. So many of the men my parents knew have died from asbestos related diseases. I would never buy something I knew had asbestos in it. I work as a childminder and a friend of mine has a garage with an asbestos roof. She converted this into an amazing art room for the children however needless to say the children I have are not allowed in there. I am not taking any risks no matter how small.

They employ a specialist asbestos removal company.