Oww, Ouch.

[Flossam]

Our survey is back. And I quote 'High damp meter readings were noted at low level throughout the ground floor of the property and a specialist damp proofing and timber treating company should be called to inspect or report on the dampness and undertake and necessary remedial work. The report should be obtained before completion of the sale in order to ascertain the cost of the work. The roof has small holes in it and should be thoroughly overhauled or renewed.

Have phoned solicitors and EA and am waiting for the EA to get back to me to discuss this. What do you reckon the chances are of the seller being prepared to resolve these issues? Also it's had a couple of damp proofing courses before, it's a 1900 property. Is damp par for the course or does this sound particularly bad?

no idea on damp proof but roof was very straight foward for us.

Thanks Katzq. The agents have already noted the fact that the valuation is the correct price for the house we are buying even with these faults so states that the seller is not obliged to do anything. we'll see what the vendor thinks about things and take it from there, see if DP's parents know any reputable tradesment and see if we can get quotes too.

Oh, i just realised you are the buyer! Ah - get them to fix first i would say then.

From what I can recall they drilled small circular holes in the wall about 1 1.5 feet up squirted in some kind of foam and filled hole with polyfilla, so we needed to touch up the paint work (although we redocorated the whole house anyway).

My SIL had a similar thing with a house that she purchased. her mortgage was given on condition she replace the roof, as per the surveyor's report. If it were me I would chance it with the vender and get a quote for the roof and get him to drop the price by the amount of the roof/damp proofing. if he doesn't, I'd seriously consider pulling out. Remember that you're going to have to pay a lot of money to get this done, and if you are ever in a position to come to sell this house again, these issues might be taken into account again. When did the vender actually buy this house, was it recently? there is a way to check - if you go to www.houseprices.co.uk and enter the street name or postcode, it will show you houses purchased there in .. the past 5 years or so. You will be able to see how much he paid for it etc, and if he bought it recently he will have been aware of the problems and will have chosen to do nothing about them. In which case, if you pull out it's nothing less than he deserved.

I think he brought it in 98. Because thats when it was last treated for damp, and because I've looked at that site and others before and never seen any records of the sale. The treatment wasn't in his name, so can perhaps assume that it was done on his bequest on buying the house.

We have already come to the conclusion that if he can't meet the cost of these repairs, either by fixing them now or by reducing the price appropriately we have no choice but to pull out. We just would have no way of funding the repairs ourselves.

oh no flossam what a bummer!
hope the vendor can sort this out for you

After the mortgage stuff everything seemed to be trundling along far too nicely. Looked at other houses and on rightmove at least there really seems to be very little.

hiya Flossam,

tbh, the surveyor is probably covering their backside. They need to point out anything that you might find 'down the line' so to speak, so there's nothing easier than saying 'looks like there might be damp' and there are holes in the roof.

Realistically, this house may be empty and unheated, and the last few months have been cold and wet, so that may be contributing to high damp readings. As others have said, to treat it (if it's not v. bad) is fairly simple. I wouldn't worry about this till a proper damp company has looked at it.

Re: roof - tiles slip all the time, and on an old house the roof has probably had piecemeal repairs. The guy probably stuck his head up the loft hatch, caught a few glimpses of sunlight where tiles have slipped or the lining felt has failed etc. and, well, you've seen the report... You might want to have a look yourself to see what you think. Perhaps only one area needs some attention ? A roofer or DIY blokey might remove an area of tiles, refelt and replace in just a few hours... impossible to tell without more investigation.

To summarise, if you've looked long and hard, and this place is at the right price, I'd be wary of chucking it all in until you're more fully informed. Use these 'negatives' to hassle the buyer on price !

But be warned, these old houses do take a lot of money to keep going. There's always something aging / breaking / sagging / failing etc. and it's not always obvious ! Be careful about stretching the finance so far that you can't take care of a boiler that dies or a window frame that had been painted over but is really shagged...

HTH.

Thanks Hub. I really am reluctant to 'let it go'. We have seen very few houses which are so up together spacious and ideally located, at a price we can manage. Also no chain. The house has been empty at least since we went to see it in December. Perhaps longer. There are financial reasons why it perhaps probably will be worthwhile persuing this place, which for some inane fear of the bloke sitting there reading this (likely!!) I won't mention. Lets just hope he is prepared to help. One more thing, the house is double glazed. So no dodgy window sills hopefully. It really did seem quite up together.

What will be will be, I guess.

Get the EA to have his / her friendly roofer / handyman / damp company turn up to give a quote to fix whatever might be wrong and then you'll either know how much more money you will need to find or how much the vendor needs to drop IYSWIM.

Maybe 'meet in the middle' if neither party wants to budge ?

Good luck !

I wonder why it was damp proofed twice?Does it have a course of blue bricks at the base?These normally provide dampproofing in houses of this age.If anything breaches the blue bricks,then you would get damp.Most house in this country havea little damp in some form or other,due to the climate.

We had holes in our roof,had them repaired & 9 years later it pasted a survey with flying colours,so your roof may not need replacing entirely.
Good luck.

Problem being Hub we have no cash. At all. We'll see how much it is. If the cost isn't extortionate I'll perhaps consider it, don't think DP will. Need to talk things through with him properly to explain things. He should be home tonight hopefully. It is worrying that the damp has had to be done twice I know. But already the house has been empty for at least 2 months, over the coldest time period, so that might have contributed.

Might be worth getting the local water supply company to also do a syphon test to confirm there is no leak in the supply pipe which typically runs under a terraced house to the sink. Perhaps a fracture is causing raised moisture levels ?

TBH (and I know how hard you've had to work to line up your finances), I'd be sure you weren't overstretching yourselves on the mortgage... it wouldn't be funny to face some urgent bills and not be able to cover them IYSWIM.

Really hope it works out for you !

Hi Hub. The mortgage payments will be less than our rent here (to the tune of £200) And between us our wages between us (cause I'll be back full time) will go up by at least 6k, before I get any unsocial hours, which I will. So we should be ok. But this is only for the initial three years, after that it becomes repayment, which is why I am so keen to sort out our finances in the menatime while the cost of living will be lower. That is my plan anyway. So I am hoping things will be ok. We will have 'spare cash' so to speak, not initially, but I'm planning on saving all that to debt bust, not to sort out things with the house. But if we had to, we should be ok (I hope).

God that was long and rambled wasn't it? I think the damp proofing company who went in before will be going back in to see what the problem is, they would know to consider that wouldn't they? [stupid emoticon]

Sounds like a decent amount of breathing room then re: money ! Believe me there are always plenty of surprises, and fixing stuff tends to be $$$

Try and see if the vendor has a guarantee on the damp proofing work - possibly he's already been in discussion / negotiation with them, you never know.

Yes I think he does Hub. Was last done in 98 with a 30 year garentee with the same company the EA 'reccomend' so hopefully that shouldn't be too big an issue. DP more positive than I thought though.