Survey has come back - damp & cavity wall tie failure

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Our valuation survey has just come back (we're also having a full survey next Monday) and the bank have valued the house at less than we had agreed because of the damp and timber issue with the valuation survey. There is £7k shortfall which we have to get to vendor to drop off the price.

Assuming they agree to it what do you make of this from the survey? Are these copy and paste snippets they pick and choose from or is this really serious? (The house was built in 1907 by the way so obviously some of these are age issues.) Is a damp specialist just going to try and sell me a product?

MATTERS AFFECTING VALUE

In addition to items of routine maintenance and repair, urgent repair is required to the following :-
Damp and timber. There is evidence of dampness to ground floor walls and timbers in contact may be defective. You should instruct a damp and timber treatment contractor to investigate the full extent and carry out necessary work.
Walls. There is evidence of cavity wall tie failure and repairs are necessary.

MATTERS FOR YOUR CONVEYANCER

The property has been altered by removing brick internal ground floor walls; these have subsequently been rebuilt as partition walls. There has been distortion to first floor brick internal walls, therefore checks should be made to confirm whether all necessary permissions and consents were obtained.

Is this as scary as it sounds? I hear of FTBers running away screaming over this kind of thing and I'll admit it is making me panic. However I also read a lot of things on hear from MNetters saying they heard this kind of thing (especially about the damp) and they've lived there for 10 years happily.

I know we really have to wait for the full survey to come back but I'm a tense pregnant woman who needs to get the worry out.

Cavity wall tie failure, if left unchecked, can cause structural failure of the building as the outer leaf can peel away from the building, most commonly on a gable end. They can be replaced though, there are lots of specialist companies that will do this. Maybe get a quote and budget to have them done?

The bit about the distortion to the first floor brick walls would indicate to me that it is possible that they removed load bearing walls at ground floor and didn't provide enough support for the wall above. If it was done later than 1985 there should be Building Regulations permission for the internal alterations, if prior to this then you have no way of telling apart from an intrusive survey, which most vendors are not keen on.

Thank you WoodBurnerBabe well that's all pretty terrifying, isn't it?
Hmmm I think this might end up costing us a small fortune in bring it up to a safe standard for our children before we get round to moving bathrooms, new kitchens and general decoration.

I'm a bit scared to be honest.
I really hope they have some kind of certification for the removal of walls and addition of supports but if not I think I'm ready to walk away.

Well, if they meant the house was going to fall down they would have knocked more than £7k off the valuation.

Surveys always sound scarier than they really area. The damp - too vague to tell, could be very slight, could be serious. Cavity wall ties - yes you'll need to have them done but that'll be 1-2k not tens of thousands. Internal ground floor walls - could be serious, you'd need to know more.

Lucky you're having a full survey so you'll have a second opinion and hopefully more detail.

A lot of the process of buying a house is sitting around in a state of agonising uncertainty waiting for people to get back to you!

Re the damp, you can find a surveyor who specialises in it rather than have the inspection done by a company that sells treatments. You'll have to pay for it (DH paid £300 about 10 years ago) but it could save you more money than that in the cost of treatments. (Again, part of houseowning is forking out eye-watering sums of money with nothing to show for it!)

Will keep fingers crossed for you.

Cavity wall tie failure? In a 1907 house? That's quite bizarre, cavity properties before the war are unusual, and those that are around didn't have metal ties, they had occasional header bricks crossing the cavity instead. Maybe they mean in a newer extension, but if not it sounds a bit cut and paste to me.
Damp and timber is a standard cut and paste clause, if you couldn't see it, smell it or feel it when you jump on the floor in question I'd be less cautious, surveyors always cover their arse with this clause.
Looking back at the OP, it's a valuation survey, the person doing it isn't a building surveyor, a proper survey by an independent building surveyor is worth it's weight in gold with an Edwardian property.

Very true about them only knocking £7k off TTU and according to the survey (and our research) even with the discount it is toward the middle of the the pricing for a house like this in this area, if the £7k was added back on it would be toward the top end.
I don't see the damp as a major issue in that we looked for it very specifically and so did our builder and didn't see/smell any at all in the main house and we spoke to a neighbour who says the area is "pretty much damp free". There is however damp in the utility room due to rain leaking in but we offered on it knowing this was an issue we'd deal with the week we'd move in.

Maudlebowski It's an end terrace with a later (but not much later - maybe 1930s?) extension for the kitchen, study and utility. Would cavity wall tie come into play there?

I'm most worried about the disappearing walls!

Cavity wall ties were just coming in in the 1930's, but it would have been an advanced builder who used them so still not common at all, I'm still sceptical :)
Disappearing walls, if it is as they've said, with brick walls at first floor level with nothing at all underneath, then whoever has done it is brave/stupid as they were lucky it didn't fall on them at the time. The fact that it didn't might mean that it's not brick above (you can tell by knocking on it) or if it is brick that there's a lintel in there holding it up. It's hard to tell without lifting the floor up upstairs alongside it to have a look. If its not cracked in the corners of the upstairs room that's a good sign as that's were it will go if its dropping slowly.
You really need a proper survey, I can't stress enough how little valuation surveyors know about building! Good luck, old houses are fab.

My first house was a Victorian/Edwardian end terrace with a cavity wall as the gable end wall - I suppose the wall must have been rebuilt at some point, not sure why.

Maud has a point though- it will be interesting to see if the proper surveyor thinks there is a cavity wall at all let alone one with problematic ties!

Re the damp, it's possible he used one of those two-pronged meters you stick in, which apparently often give false readings. (According to my dad, who has a professional expertise in hi-tech measuring devices!)
Given what you've said I wouldn't be worrying about the damp overmuch.

The CIRIA guide to replacing wall ties does indicate that although unusual, there are Victorian properties around that have wall ties, although they were generally cast iron, not steel. The galvanised steel ones that were common for many years are the ones that started being used around the 1930's.

Either way, it's easy to check with a boroscope and there are lots of specialist companies around who will survey it for you.

Thanks all for coming back to me.
I'm going to give the guy a ring tomorrow and ask about which walls he think are a problem (re missing walls) and also the location of wall ties which he thinks needs replacing. I know this sounds silly but because he isn't working for us but on the side of the bank is he allowed to tell us this information? The "survey" doesn't give even signs of which rooms let along anything more specific.

Our surveyor going out on Monday is the husband of a personal friend so I'm hoping he can be a honest with us. It's killing me waiting to see what he has to say and what the vendors have to say about a reduction in price. It was originally on at £125, we negotiated to £120 and now bank says £113.

Also meant to add it's useful to know about the cable ties and age.
The house is end terrace but a different style/format to the other houses, almost like a bookend if you will. I wonder if this is an usual style? Or if the the survey guy was just making copy and paste based guesses.

The house at the end was often the builders own house, they bought up the land in blocks and kept the best one for themselves. They often have a large original garage/ workshop where the builder kept his tools at the end of the garden, and the features/ workmanship is a bit better than the rest.
Having a friend do the survey is as good as it gets, you should get an honest, not over cautious answer.

Yes it has a garage, side access to the garden and a small piece of extra land, so I can see how that would be the case.

Re the walls - the vendor say they have building regs paperwork and are taking them into the estate agents today.

Hi All,
Our survey has just come back saying the bay window at the front of our 1930's house & the newly added porch are not tied to the house - not a flank wall for the extension. They say it has had some Wall Tie corrosion.
Could anybody please tell me if this is serious, or fixable at a reasonable price?
Apparently also suffered 'roof spread' but not sure what this is!
Any help would be really appreciated. It is all another language to me!

OP. Posters seem to be ignoring the fact that there is distortion to the first floor walls. This would indicate that the load (weight) from the roof/walls is resting on walls that were not constructed for this purpose. This load should be distributed on the walls that have been removed on the ground floor. Overloading a wall means it will usually distort. On a single brick thickness wall, this will also be evident on the end wall of a terrace. If there are complex structural issues, your surveyor may want to engage a structural engineer. On the other hand it may not be that serious. I would not assume the original survey was cut and paste as it seems fairly specific to me!

NewMrsA. Roof spread is where the roof is distorting because it is not structurally sound. It may mean the roof has been altered which has affected its structural properties. If an extension is not tied in, it basically stands alone and you may be able to see that this is the case. In other words it might have been a bit of a cheap job and the new brickwork was not tied into the original brickwork - but that does not mean it will necessary be a problem, but it might. I would ask the surveyor for a plain English description of what the survey means and whether the work is vital, or not. Only knowing this can you negotiate a reduction in price for the house. Did the extension get building regulation approval? The local planning authority should know this - assuming they have given the necessary approvals of course.