buying an extended house

[SweetPeaPods]

We have seen a house that ticks all our boxes but it has previously been extended. I don't have any experiencing of extensions, or buying a house other than a new build. Anything I should be aware of? Will the surveys do all the relevant checks or will it cost us more in extra surveys? Should I be asking the owners anything before we put in an offer?

Check if the extensions has planning permission/is OK in terms of building regs. If no planning permission the vendor should at least take out an indemnity insurance. That's how it was when we bought our house. Your conveyancer should know what you need.

Good to know thanks.
My mum keeps saying to avoid a house with an extension but this house ticks all our boxes so don't want to overlook it straight away.

Silly to avoid houses with extensions! If done well can transform a house!

simple basic thing about extended properties, check that the central heating had also extended to the new rooms and that the new rooms are not making the central rooms too dark.

If garage has been converted, ask about insulation.. If done properly, no problem, if not, the room might be unusable for most of the year.

We lived in a properly extended house for 27 years, it was fine and the extensions caused no problems when we sold.
Just moved to another extended house, with all the relevant paperwork. If done properly no problems.

Paperwork is key so as others have said, planning, building regs, electrics and gas certificates. I have all of mine from when I extended and converted a garage. I even have the structural engineer's report for the steels.

Agree about landlocked rooms where an extension has been added onto the back of a property and middle rooms may lack light.

Have a look to make sure the extension isn't leaning away from the house, some are toothed in brickwork wise, others are just tied in.

Echoing LesserSpottedBee, I walked away from my dream house last year because I could see that the brickwork on their extension hadn't been properly toothed in. Even worse the bricks were a different size and slightly different colour.

They were surprised when I asked to go up into the loft to look at the inside of the roof structure. One glance told me the house would be an expensive nightmare.

Make sure you get a good survey !!

My house has a rear extension, it's the warmest room in the house year round my favorite place to be, I love it. It was done in the early 90's and I got all the paperwork for it when we bought the house.

Lovely thanks.
How do you know if the survey our solicitor instructs is a good survey?

The clue used to be in the price of the survey options presented to you.
The higher the price, the more extended the survey (we always avoided the cheaper one, because we have never bought a brand new house... Having said that, my friend got a new flat and it has had the roof fixed and a wall re plastered at least 6 times in 3 years, so probably best to avoid the cheaper option altogether).