Valuation Survey - anything to be worried about?

[pettyprudence]

Hello

I am a FTB and got our basic valuation survey back today and it has said that the following work is "urgent". Is it though? And by urgent how urgent?

• Defective rendering @ rear needs repair/replace (there is some penetrating damp in FF bedroom but its right next to the guttering so I assumed that would be the cause, not the rendering)
• Some walls only single brick thickness - erm yes... its a victorian terrace.
• Chimney stacks require repair (this is the only bit really that worried me)
• Damp & timber - evidence of damp to ground floor (ok I have only visited twice but there was no visible evidence or smell of damp) and sub floor ventilation in-adequate (does this just mean the airbricks might be blocked?). Timbers may be defective.

-aspects of electrical installation/central heating giving cause for concern

So which of these are just covering their arses and which might be real cause for concern?

(FYI although I am not having a full survey done, I do have trusted plumbers, electricians and civil engineer going to look for me for opinions/quotes. Through my job I have access to any contractors I need - but not surveyors! Oh and my dad who is a builder will be inspecting too, but he's the wrong end of the country)

Thanks in advance for your wise knowledge

Chimney stacks can be expensive as you'll have to get scaffolding which pushes the cost up. Depends how bad it is and what the outcome is if you don't do the work - is it likely to fall? We've just had our chimney rebubilt (at great expense, even though the cost was shared). It was identified in our survey, but not marked out as urgent and we waited two years to do it.

What aspects of the electrics are giving concern, or aren't they specific? That would be the one that worried me most and would strike me as most urgent. If, as you say, you've got an electrician you can call on then get them in to have a look. Go back and inspect the suspected damp for yourself and get your Dad in.

yes going back before we exchange is on my list of things to do.
bugger, chimney stacks were not in my plans! how expensive are we talking?anything more than £50 is a pita right now
also, do the valuers know how much the property is being purchased for? don't know if their valuation figure is a coincidence or not!

Yes, the valuers will know what a property is being purchased for. It is fairly unusual for them to value it at higher than the purchase price.

ah so not a massive coincidence that they valued the same as our purchase price then

petty - why don't you call the surveyor and ask him for more info on all the above on the phone. they are generally a lot more chatty/informative when it's not all written down in a document.
re chimney stacks - ours were neglected and pretty bad and we decided to take one down because it was literally like the leaning tower of pisa (all neighbours happy with this and shared costs) and then had the other repointed. they are by our roof terrace so they only needed a small amount of scaffolding for one I think.
removing one I think was £2500 and I can't remember the pointing - maybe about the same? so yes it's pretty pricey. you could get a structural engineer to take a look - although that's more expense.

sorry two other things - the structural engineer we had round wasn't as fussed about the chimneys as the surveyor - he said it's very unlikely they would go over. I was just on a roll so did them.
also ours were huge - very big victorian house - so that could have really pushed the cost up.

Ooo ooo my bosses are structural (or civil) engineers, but mostly they are property developers!

I had assumed that the surveyors wouldn't give us any further info as we'd only paid for the basic bank valuation but I will give them a call on Monday. Will also be calling all my contacts to arrange a mass viewing of the property with electrician, plumber, carpenter, bosses etc....! Luckily the vendor has already moved out so we can have a proper poke around.

The chimney is the only thing that's got me worried. The electrics have been replaced within the last 10 years and the boiler is only 3 years old. Plus the vendor is giving a 12 months guarantee on the boiler too. The damp must be very minimal and probably due to an air-brick or possibly just condensation. I am planning to strip back and restore the flooring anyway.

The survey really is as vague as my op and is about 3/4 of a page long!