Had house survey done - eeek!!!

[Hulababy]

As you may know we hae recently found and offer accepted on a house. House is good price, great location, near good school for DD, and a great size, especially for area.

But BIL (a building surveyor) did a full survey on it yesterday and found lots of problems. All typical of a house of this age (1930s) where the owners haven't looked after the property properly.

Main problem is damp. Most downstairs walls have damp which needs doing asap.

Also:

• extension hasn't had proper flashing (???) added to it where it joins, so needs that replacing
• bay window is bowing - needs sorting out which can be a pain of a job
• chimney stack needs redoing
• electrics may need some sorting out - lots of connectors in the loft which wouldn't meet current standards

Think that's it!!! BIL is writing it all up and getting full costings for everything this week.

We do like the house and will still go ahead so long as:

(a) costings aren't way too high (BIL gave a rough estimate which seemed fine)

(b) current owners will negiotiate price - not sure how we go about this though. They must know about some of this as they only bought it 4 years ago, and the damp at least they should be aware of

(c) main work (ie. damp and window) can be sorted out before we move in. We have the option of renting our own apartmanet from our buyer for a month or two to allow this. Just need to get the workers.

Only option is to find another house :( which is not ideal. Not much around right now. And the house we saw where everyhting had already been done was a lot more expensive, and not as big either.

BIL suggests it is worth doing, so long as we can deal with the delay in moving and so long as we can at least split the costs with the current owners. If we do it asll we get a good house in a good state. There are no structural problems (only the damp).

Anyone else been through all this? How did it go? What would you do?

Never bought an older house before - other two buys were new. So have no idea about the next steps, etc.

Help!!!

It is probably for the best I hope you find somewhere nice you are lucky to have a surveyor in the family our sale fell through 6 times but we are now in a house we thought we could never afford in a great area so things sometimes work out!Good luck rightmove.co.uk is essential viewing!!!!!

Tonight's job is to go through all the brochures I collected in town today and go through all the local agent's websites with pen and paper to hand.

Very tempted to go for something not as old, or to ask specifically if these type of work has already been done - and can we see the receipts, etc. for the work done. We are now much more prepared to go to our upper budget to make sure it's been done too!

So, if anyone knows of a 3+ bed house for less than stamp duty (£250k) ideally in good school catchment in my town - tell me!!!!

Katzguk - keep hunting

noddyholder - yes, we are lucky. that survey would normally have cost at least £600 that he did. So we'd have been £600 down before we even started. Trouble is, what BIL, now realised is that we will have him down again and again, to do 2nd viewings with us. Shame he's in London or we'd have him come to see everything!

Sorry this one didn't work out . It is horribly disappointing whne you have already invested time and imagination in your potential "home". Rest assured they'll be others though and at least you are now primed to ask the relevant questions at an early stage. Good luck in your search.

Thanks :)

Have been nosying around Rightmove, Hula - \link{http://srch.hlc-s.co.uk/database.asp?group=elsh&database=rightmove&ref=BA8316\this one} has no pics yet but sounds OK...(obv I have no idea what the road is like! But picked up on Ecclesall from one of your old posts.)

Thanks for that JanH. I will get DH to phone the agents tomorrow to let us know when brochure is ready. Does sound promising though.

Have singled out a few possibilities which DH and I will go through later once DD is in bed.

this link to the website should work and the person selling the houses work number is on there just add 22 to the front, its a uni work number.

\link{http://www.shef.ac.uk/marcoms/eview/adstest/forsale/property/index.html\house}

just in case i haven't yet mentioned it theres always next door to me!!

Have e-mailed detasils to Dh at work to look into tomorrow. Thanks :)

not sure whether it will still be for sale was on website last month too, but i've not heard of the estate agent and i'm sure we got through them all when we were buying this place!!

Estate agents don't have a website. DH will phone tomorrow though. Most of house on the websites are the same ones that have been there for past 3 months - hopefully it'll mean we can get a bargain!

Now also looking at Totley and Dore area.

Hulababy, I'm sorry, I haven't read all of the posts. We bought our first home this summer, a couple of months before I was due to have DD2. We eventually moved in 2 days before a fantastic home birth. There was loads to do here, but it really was the house we wanted! It's also a '30's built house.......Damp proof course to whole downstairs, removal of fireplace and chimney, wall ties to whole house, double glazing on a lot of windows and one door/window unit, central heating (there was none!), oh, and one internal wall fell down! (So we popped it back up - it's only bricks and mortar ), loads of electrical work, overhaul of gardens, leaky porch, replacement of lintels and of course, redecorating, floor laying/carpeting and even replastering throughout, new bathroom and downstairs loo needed re-plumbing. I could go on! Anyhow, I really feel that if this is the house you want, go for it! The problems you mentioned don't sound too bad (though I don't have any experience of the 'bay' one....yet!) and if anything we (DH and I) feel this house is more 'ours' due to the work and care we've given it. When it comes down to 'which house' I think instinct is the best way to go.