Survey results.....advice needed

[Macey78]

We are in the process of buying a house. Survey just completed and the surveyor has asked for additional reports as in:
Structural engineers report
Damp and timber
Guttering

Should we be worried already?
It has taken an absolute age to find somewhere we could afford and have our offer accepted.
Feeling very worried!

Don't worry........ Yet. It's all part of the wonderful tapestry of buying a house. It's what they do.

Thank you fingeronthebutton

Yes I had this, Nothing to worry about, you never know there may be room to haggle?

The surveyor doesn't want to shoulder all of the responsibility, and wants experts in. Fair enough - although it does of course, all cost!

Damp, timber, guttering are all fairly standard, though the work for damp can end up being disruptive. Structural engineers' report is less usual - what are they recommending needs looking at?

What do you mean damp and timber? Is it the timbers which are damp? Are they needing replaced? Are they damp because of the guttering? It might be better to get a damp report on the building then you will know exactly what your dealing with and how much it would cost to fix.

We haven't actually had the surveyors report yet! Just the request for the reports. Will then have a better idea why these are requested. I suppose as we don't have the report its making me in particular worried.

Don't get a company in who do damp work and timber work- they often misdiagnose and sell you useless solutions. Get so done independent who doesn't have a vested interest. Presumably they would look at guttering too- that is a weird one to have specifically listed. Surveyor coving their back here.

The structural survey would be my biggest concern- I wonder why this has been requested.

If you had a home buyers report then it is pretty standard for them to recommend further reports (to release themselves of responsibility if they missed anything). When we bought our house we were recommended to have a damp and timber survey and to have the electrics checked independently. We didn't not her with the electrics but we did get an independent damp and timber survey done because the inital home buyers report had stated that there were a few areas with very high damp readings and a risk of rotten timbers (which the inital survey couldn't check due to furnishings). The homebuyers report suggested some very expensive work to remedy the damp issues.
We used an independent damp and timber surveying company (one that only does surveys and recommends work but doesn't do any work so had no vested interest). The specialist report was much more detailed and said that the damp issues were present but could be resolved easily using some much cheaper strategies than the original surveyor had suggested. We were able to use the reports to get the seller to reduce the cost of the property accordingly in order to cover the costs of the work required (for both the damp and other things highlighted in the homebuyers report).

I agree that it's not necessarily unusual to ask for additional reports for damp / electrics but not a structural survey (imo). There must be some red flag for the initial surveyor to think the house is not structurally sound. It might come to nothing so don't worry yet!

what DOES the surveyor know about then? With the exception of electrics and gas, HE is the one whould should be reporting on all this.

.specialsubject most surveyors don't give detailed reports and suggest further reports if you have only paid for a home buyers report or basic valuation. If you pay them to do a full structural survey then you should get everything without recommendations for further specialist surveys.

Hi for clarity, if you have a home buyers report, it is just a basic report for your mortgage co. It's basic because that's the terms of the report. If the surveyor thinks you need a different type of report because of the age, nature or physical aspects of the property, they are duty bound to tell you, hence many recommend further reports. Failure to advise you of this requirement can end up with them being faced with later claims of negligence if the property later turns out to have a problem they reasonably should have noticed on their agreed extent of inspection.., so they err on the side of caution as its in the interest of their pi insurance. Also bear in mind it takes min 5 years to qualify as a chartered surveyor. So they don't want to get chucked out of their profession. There are also considerable market pressures to make homebuyers reports as cheap as possible. There is a lot of truth in the saying that you get what you pay for. Hope this provides some context