Anyone bought a house WITHOUT having a survey?

[CobsAhoy]

just that really, we're first time buyers and our broker has said there's no point getting a survey as the quality of the survey our mortgage lender will get is sufficient.

Broker is an ex bank manager and has nothing to gain from us not getting a survey, but I was under the impression the bank's survey was just a valuation and not particularly in depth.

Anyone got any advice or experience with this?

We didn't with the last house we bought. We've had so many worthless, arse-covering surveyors' reports over the years that we thought the same as a pp; that £1k would be better spent putting right any problems that did turn up in due course.

Homebuyers/mortgage survey won't tell you anything you can't already see with your own eyes.
If a house, personally yes, I would get a full structural survey done. Speaking as someone who has just completely renovated a property, this is definitely worthwhile.
If a flat, don't bother, the surveyor won't be able to access everywhere to perform the full survey.

Just as an indication, we negotiated about a 15% drop in oprice on our current house based on costed works identified by the survey (dangerous electrics, windows that were unsafe in winds and likely to break into their individual leaded panes, a central heating system so designed that it couldn't actually heat the house and lead in places one would prefer lead not to be were the main ones we got done before we moved in).

However, it did also identify that these were 'stand alone' issues in a basically structurally sound house with no damp or rot or other highly expensive nasties, and that we could wait 10 years for the new roof.

I am trying for a 2.5% (£10k) reduction based on my survey findings, half the costs of the work identified, which I think is fair.

The vendor is struggling with it. I think I am going to start arranging to view others tomorrow as I think he is being unrealistic, on the market for two years almost, I wonder why?

Survey cost £600 OP. Well worth it.

I only had valuations on the last two houses I have bought but one was three years old and the other six years old. I sold a fifteen year old house and the buyer had a home buyer report done. The surveyor who came to do it said it was a waste of money. He said anything in his report would be either issues so obvious that the buyer should have spotted them or recommendations to pay for a proper survey for anything that might be an issue.

We got a home buyers report on a council flat that was 20 years old. When the seller decided not to sell we bought another in the same block so didn't bother with another. It was about 2 pages of text.

For my current 100-year-old run down house I got a full structural survey. House was empty and the surveyor was there 8 hours and gave us a wonderful 150-page document full of "currently no sign of X. You should check for X annually by .... and if you see Y then call a member of Z organisation to do ...."

We are buying a 15yo house and haven't bothered either. It doesn't need a full structural and as somebody said up thread, the homebuyers would only be able to inspect the bits that we can see with our own eyes.

Dh is 'handy' and an electrician and he's happy with it. I know lots of friends who live on the development and they haven't had any problems with their houses.

Bought all three of our houses with just mortgage report...two of which are over 100 years old...but then we kind of have a basic building knowledge...any survey will scare the shit out of you anyhow if it's an old house you are buying....

Just to clarify..'previous houses'..just in case anyone thinks I'm a house collector!