Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Other subjects
Original poster

anyone know anything about a "homebuyers report?"

18 replies

tiredemma · 26/04/2004 18:44

our mortgage provider is going into our new house tomorrow to do something that is called a "homebuyers report", it cost £450 and when i asked dp what it involved he didnt have a clue, i know that they were going to do a survey but ive never heard of this report before , i was a bit pi**ed of with dp for not asking, i dont want them to do something that cost so much money when there is no need for it, im bloody broke after buying the house!!
can any of you knowledgeable mnetters enlighten me please????????

OP posts:
Nutcracker · 26/04/2004 18:45

I have heard of it but haven't a clue what it is really. I thought it was some sort of survey.

Flip · 26/04/2004 18:48

Have a look at this .

Nutcracker · 26/04/2004 18:48

I just put it in on google and it said that is is a report requested by the bank or buliding society you are borrowing from, and from what i could understand it is a survey.

Original poster
tiredemma · 26/04/2004 18:52

oh goody, i thought dp had agreed to the survey AND a homebuyers report, thankfully its just the one thing then.

OP posts:
ZolaPola · 26/04/2004 18:55

Not an expert, but have bought & sold a couple of times. As far as I know there are 3 types:
1)v. basic survey for mortage company (they basically want to ensure that they're covered in case all goes wrong and they're the ones to sell it), no real details
2) home-buyers - to check the house overall (usually I think on the purchaser's behalf)
and you'll get a report on the overall state of the house
3)full building survey - structural examination, usually rec. for older or 'in need of modernisation' houses.
A friend of ours who's an architect said the 1st is when they walk past the house with their hands in the pocket & have a quick look.
The 2nd , s/he walks past but takes their hands out this time & contemplates. The 3rd he/she actually stops to look this time! (Not serious, anyone out there who is a surveyor!) Good luck with the move.

BadHair · 26/04/2004 18:56

There's a basic survey, which is all that the building society requires to see what condition the house is in, then there's the full homebuyer's report, which goes into much more detail and will tell you if there are any potential problems.
Having bought an old house on just the basic survey I can heartily recommend that you get the full homebuyer's report if the house is more than 10 years old (ie out of the housebuilder's guarantee).

Original poster
tiredemma · 26/04/2004 18:59

thanks alot, the house is about 70 years old i think so dp was probably right to get this survey done and not just a basic one.

OP posts:
noddy5 · 26/04/2004 19:10

I think it is in between a valuation and a full structural survey.I have been trying to find out this aswell this week!

kiwisbird · 26/04/2004 19:25

NatWest call their survey and lending check a "homebuyers report, it is a survey (not full structural) and it allows them to find out that your intended purchase is worth what you are expected to borrow and pay for it... also they use any "faults" and teh cost of repair against the total amount you can borrow, and sometimes insist on withholiding mortgage funds til the faults are fixed or you sign a form saying you will do it within 6 months.
usually anything that comes up in survey is negotiable with seller though.
Your lender will not lend without an approved survey and £450 is actually pretty good!

tatcity · 26/04/2004 19:29

Beware - they can be scary when you first read them

They never come back and say there are no problems with the house! We had one which looked horrendous, but when we read it more and more closely it didn't seem too bad. We've ended up buying the house anyway!

It will probably recommend you have a separate damp and timber survey done - and that you get the electrics and heating checked out. Ours did - so I wish we hadn't spent the money on this type of report as I was going to get these checked out anyway!

Just don't worry if it seems alarming when you first read it - just take it all in slowly. There's always going to be something wrong with an oldish house! Good Luck.

carla · 26/04/2004 19:34

I'd ask for a full structural survey, if I were you. They're far more thorough. Can you ring early and say you'll have one done yourself and pay for the difference? I'd be far more reassured by that, and if you're going to have to fork out £450 anyway, I personally would rather pay a bit more for the peace of mind. HTH

Tinker · 26/04/2004 19:37

Can you ask the vendors if you can see their survey from when they bought the house (if it was relatively recently)? My mortgage adviser suggested this since if they say "No" then they may have something to hide. They have nothing to lose by showing it to you.

Original poster
tiredemma · 26/04/2004 19:43

thats a good idea actually tinker as the previous owners only bought the house themselves @10 mths ago as a buy to let, but while doing it up they decided to sell, they had everything done to it that thier survey said needed doing ( they even re wired the whole house and had a new roof put on etc)
will tell dp to phone solicitor tomorrow to speak to vendor!
thanks

OP posts:
Hennypenny · 27/04/2004 00:58

Get a Full Structural Survey and so not ever worry about the expense. If they find stuff like damp in places that you wouldn't see it, you'll be grateful. Also when they do it, as you are paying so much, insist that you are there. Make sure they go up into loft and all of that. You also want them to use their dampometer on every bloody wall and watch them ( they turn them off when they can't be bothered to write report). 3 things on a house that are really expensive to repair.

damp course (especially on old houses, if the dampometer goes off in a new one (over 3 years old) , forget it!!!)
sagging roof (on older houses)
electrics (if power points still round shape and only 1 in every room you need to re-wire)

robinw · 27/04/2004 07:06

message withdrawn

sexgoddess · 27/04/2004 07:18

When we bought our current house 10 years ago we had a Homebuyers report. Basically it said everything was fine, electrics needed slight updating to bring them in line with current edition requirements, no evidence of woodworm etc. In reality, the house was littered with woodworm, the mains cable was charred coming from the fuse board, and many other problems. Based on the RICS conditions on the survey you have little comeback in the event of wrong advice. However luckily my super dooper boss (lawyer) sent a letter to the surveyors company and we managed to get £500 from them towards the cost of remedying the problems (full rewire, replacement timber/tanalised what we could etc).

Next time I will take a builder and an electrician.

JanZ · 27/04/2004 10:41

When we had our homebuyers report done (probably wasn't a full structural, as in Scotland you need to survey BEFORE you offer!), the surveyor wrote "the house APPEARS to be built of stone" (my capitals). This is a solid sandstone Victorian house!!

It didn't give me much respect for the rest of the report. He also said there was a problem with damp, but when I got the damp proof specialist around, he said there was nothing unusual and that he didn't think we needed to do anything - that the surveyor had just been covering himself!

Next time we're going to get a cheapy valuation report done for the mortgage company and have a full survey (including valuation)done SEPARATELY by a "surveyor's surveyor", ie one recommended by one of dh's many colleagues in the property business. It'll cost us a wee bit extra, but we wouldn't need to get the cheapy one done until after our bid had been accepted. This would have the added advantage of the mortgage company not being able to put retentions on to the mortgage for things that had been discovered by the extra bit of the survey that WE were paying for - as happened last time.

grumpyzebra · 27/04/2004 18:25

I sort of thought that even a basic survey (if any good) should say whether you should have a structural survey done... so I wouldn't have a structural done in most cases, as a default.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page