Home report / Full survey ?

[spg]

Advice please, about survey !!
We are in the process of buying a house.
We (actually DH) went with the home report option as part of the valuation done by the mortgage lenders. It would have costed us another 280 pounds or so to have got a full survey done. But, by the time we got in touch to change it, the survey had been arranged. Now, we have been told that we will have to pay the full cost of 980 pounds if we want to get a full survey done.

The mortgage broker was repeatedly insisting that the home report will flag necessary areas requiring attention and that they can be individually addressed and that it is better value for money in that sense blah blah blah..
Is this true ?

It is a 60s house and it needs work; the sellers have lived there for 13 years and have done nothing to the house (in their own words) apart from decorating. We took an architect with us who seemed to think that the electrics and drains etc will need updating and he certainly was indicating that a full survey would be appropriate.

What should we do?

A full survey will just tell you to have the electrics and drains (and anything else) checked independently by specialists anyway.

If there is one thing I regret it's skimping on the survey - for many reasons - a mistake that will never be repeated.

I would go for the full survey without hesitation - especially if the owners have never done any work to it. See the extra expense as a good investment.

Thanks for the replies.
So, what is THE most comprehensive survey that exists?

Would you not be better seeing what home report brings up and getting electrics properly tested by an electrician.
Even a full survey will not test these. We had one and didn't bother testing electrics. Just has to do a full rewire...

I hope it is all good [spg], but you are spending a lot of money, so a little more at this point might be a good investment and or a negotiating tool.

You might want to find out if there is any asbestos in the house. It was widely used in the 60s as a plasterboard substitute , chimney liner and in Artex ceilings.
Also, some cavity wall ties used at the time are ageing and might be failing, shown up as cracking.

A full survey would point these out, don't know if a home report would.

I think full structural sur veys are a waste of money. All you will get is a large report suggesting you get certain areas inspected by experts e.g. Damp company to check for damp, electrician to check electrics, specialist drain company to check drains and so on. Wait to see what comes up on the homebuyers report and take it from there. Also read the report with a pinch of salt as by the time you have read all the bits that need looking at you may think the house is falling down!!! Then read it again and if need be get a local builder to have a look with you.

If you're going in knowing it needs work anyway then what more do you expect the report to tell you? Anything that is significant and would affect the value should have been picked up by the survey you've had done.

We are buying a Victorian end terrace and plumped for the full structural survey. The report was surprisingly brief - not a lot of issues with the house. The overly careful wording is quite a laugh though; he mentioned several times that the roof needs to be checked out but you couldn't pin him down on anything specific (apart from the fact it doesn't leak!).

We decided we were happy with everything and are going full steam ahead. It only cost us £400 which is a bargain compared to quotes I've seen on MN. We are in the North, though.

Firstly, we were told not to upgrade the mortgage company's survey just do there free one and get a private one done separately with we have done. This is because apparently if you upgrade mortgage company's one then anything found will go back to the mortgage company and could then put them off or cause problems... we had a full structural survey done on a property that was clearly 'iffy' and came back that property needed 40,000 + worth of work needing doing so we walked away glad we got full survey done. However have only had home buyer surveys done since and not regretted it. If you think the property looks neglected and bodged yes full survey, if it looks solid just few little bits like asbestos ect home buyers will cover everything you need :)

You know that the house needs work. The survey will confirm this. What you want is the individual elements of the survey confirmed by an expert. I don't know whether the full structural survey does this.

Things like cavity wall ties being corroded and needing replacing would involve intrusive work unless you can see obvious cracks, bulges, sagging lintels, etc which the homebuyers survey would pick up on.