Please can some grown ups help us about surveys?

[Magmatic80]

Hello, DP and I have had offer accepted on our first house (huzzah!), but we are worrying about surveys. We are having home buyers report done, which we understand is the middle one: better than cursory look in the door to make sure house exists one, but not as good as the survey that tells you if roof about to fall in.
The house is terraced and not new. Don't know how old as not obviously Victorian etc (if only!). Is this the right survey to get? We won't have much spare money to deal with disasters that might occur after we move in (We're planning on selling it in a couple of years to relocate).
I hear horror stories of rewiring being needed, roof disasters etc. after consulting google it seems that these surveys don't necessarily look in attics.
We can afford the expensive survey now, but is it worth it? Planning on having gas corgi chap and electrician look around as well as survey to advise us on those, but can we do anything else?
Please help us, wise ones! We are in SE London.

I would definitely pay the extra for the full survey. If you are buying in London I imagine you are spending a significant amount of money, and the cost difference between the surveys is not that huge, so to me it seems slightly mad to try and save a couple of hundred quid when you are spending half a million (potentially).

We shopped around and found a local independent surveyor we liked who did a full survey for just under £500, admittedly outside of london though. He found things that I'm not convinced would have shown up in a homebuyers, and we negotiated with the vendor as a result and reduced the price by 4.5k. So he paid for himself many times over.

You will need some help interpreting the results of a survey though, imo. Because they can be sued if they dont mention any major problems they tend to cover their backs (quite rightly), but you might want someone who knows a bit about home construction and maintenance to help you work out which of their findings are actually serious, vs those that are just normal for a house of that age. We are lucky to have a BIL who is a structural engineer who looked through it with us.

Good luck!

Yes i agree definitely go for a full survey. I've had a full survey three times - although all admittedly Victorian or older properties and it's so worth it.
But try and find a recommended local surveyor if you can.
And as above get someone who knows a lot about houses to go through the survey if there are bits you are not clear on. Also surveyors in my experience are more than happy to talk you through bit.
But also as above - they tend to list everything under the sun so don't get freaked out by it - but it's a good way to really know any potentital issues even if it's not work you need to do immediately/in the near future.

Ah brilliant, thankyou very much! We are right at the bottom of the market on London prices, but wanted reassurance that wanting a full structural survey wouldn't be a waste of money, so thank you!

Would this then replace the one that the solicitors arrange? Which is in their quote for the whole 'solicitory' bit? We have had letter from surveyors they have arranged yesterday to say they are on the case, so assume we contact them to discuss? Aargh it's so hard. THIS should be taught in schools!

Definitely contact them asap. Your lender will arrange a valuation survey (to reassure themselves you are buying something that exists and has four walls and a roof etc) and then you arrange one for yourself to fund out everything you want to know.

But sounds like you might have signed up to a package with a solicitor that included a survey? Check in the t's and c's of whatever you signed. If you haven't agreed to do your survey through their surveyors I would definitely recommend organising it yourself. It will almost certainly be cheaper. Our full survey was cheaper than the homebuyers our cretin of a mortgage adviser tried to make us use for example.

In fact, as a basic rule of house buying don't use the services you are offered by solicitors, estate agents, etc, be that mortgage advice, insurance or whatever, or indeed the damp guy your surveyor suggests. They are all operating on commission and kickbacks and are probably not best value. (voice of grim experience with said cretinous mortgage broker).

Ah yes, that would explain why (independent and recommended by close friend!) financial advisor is so strongly recommending homebuyers is fine.
I will check fine print when get home and contact surveyors myself. Yes, we have a package with everything in from solicitors (that was recommended by F.A).

Definitely do the survey. My advice is that everyone I know who's bought a house (including me) has had the survey come back with talk about asbestos. Don't freak out like I did and like everyone else I know did! They have to mention it, and it's good that they do but most of the time it won't be a health risk to you at all - it's almost always to do with wall/ceiling coverings, which is the 'safer' asbestos.

It IS a problem if you have industrial asbestos that is degrading though!

Oh and also as someone else said they do cover themselves so tend to err on the side of caution with regard to re-wiring etc. Basically once you get the survey do google/ask about anything you don't understand or that sounds scary - it can all sound a bit doom and gloom when you first read it.

We googled for a surveyor, he was very nice, seemed competent!

Thank you so much everyone! to all you voices of reason

seconding not to use the 'recommended' guy. When choosing a surveyor, tell him you don't want a report that comes back full of 'get a specialist in' - that's what you pay him for. The only exception is electrical checks, and gas safety; you want a Gas Safe registered person.

your solicitor should ensure that all heat generating appliances in the property have building regs certification. This is NOT the same as a landlords gas safe certificate BTW.