Surveys - which to go for?

[Aquiver]

Hiya,

We've had an offer accepted on a property we're looking to buy. It's a 1930s build (in London/SE) with a significant first and second floor extension inc partial re-wiring undertaken in 1996, plus another smaller extension made in 2012.

The house is detached and looks in good order (so visible cracks, warping etc). We're at the stage of deciding whether we want to go for a full structural survey (v £££!) or a mid-range home condition or homebuyers report.

If money were no object I would go for the full structural (I would rather know of any issues lurking) but our mortgage advisor seems to be encouraging us to go down the mid-tier route (citing that the extensions were done 20years ago at most and that he has checked the council planning sites etc to see that all relevant permissions were obtained).

Am I being overly cautious? What would you wise MNetters recommend?

I would definitely go for a full survey. It's not a risk I would take.

You never really know a property until you live in it, if you know now at least you can deal with it or even maybe get a discount.

Thanks Battery - that's exactly how I had thought until now, but our estate agent and mortgage consultant seem to think that is overkill (why?)

It won't be them that has to deal with any unforeseen issues though once we've moved in or even a year/few years down the line...

I would go full structural too

We had a homebuyers when we bought our victorian semi, our buyers got a full structural. Both surveys identified the same issues albeit 5 years apart.

We have just spunked out on a full structural survey for a large property built in the 1700's and there are so many caveats in it we are having to get a proper roofing surveryor in (our surveyor couldn't access parts of roof internally, or go up externally), plus damp and rot survey (he found some evidence, but needs a specialist).

I would get a homebuyers and then get additional reassurances from other specialist as needed. I would want to know anything big that is wrong with the property and a homebuyers should pick that up.

Not to be cynical but your EA and mortgage person get paid on commission and only get paid if the deal goes through. So they might be advising homebuyers as they are worried that a full structural could give you cold feet (a full structural survey often contains lots of scary sounding details - some are truly scary, others aren't)

I've also just had a full structural survey on a 400 year old property. As Glitter says there are so many referrals to third parties and 'ifs, buts and maybes' that I don't feel it was value for money. Get the mid range and bring in experts if they recommend it (roofer, electrician and plumber). In our case we love the house so unless the survey had said it was going to fall down we were going to buy it regardless.

my neighbours did not have a survey and found a problem that is going
to cost £20,000 to fix so they wished they had got survey (and then they
would not have bought it) Get piece of mind