Do-er upper survey

[Alsohuman]

We’ve fallen in love with a wreck. It needs everything which isn’t a problem, fortunately the money’s there to do it properly. Can you get a survey that just covers structural stuff and nothing else? We know we’re going to have to rewire, replace the windows, put in a new boiler, etc and don’t want a 30 page report of nitpicks. Anyone know what sort of survey we should be commissioning?

Didn't want to read and run but not sure really. We bought a do upper 8 months ago, building work for extension begins end of the month. We got a building survey. Mostly we knew the issues but it picked up 2 issues we hadn't seen. There was over £70k worth of issues listed. We dropped our offer by 3k so got our money back and a bit for the unseen work. It's a money pit but don't regret it.

Yes we have just had one. It makes a single clause about the property not being to current regs and goes on to say what structural work is required such as roof strapping, ventilation, damp plaster removal, asbestos removal etc. It is a top down list of the most essential work. No nit picking. The surveyor was an older man and we said we were only interested in what we need to do. He said it used to be more common to do them like this.

Get a full survey. You know it needs work but need to make sure it won't fall down. You can sometimes use report to negotiate on price, but if it's already priced because of issues then may not budge. We got our survey and just ignored most of the 'smaller' issues and noted the cost - tho this was inflated as we did much of the work bit by bit.

I'd just get the cheapest survey going, then arrange specialists or builders to look at any other areas you have concerns about.
Surveys aren't worth the paper they're written on. They don't check anything thoroughly, they arse-cover on absolutely everything, and often they are done by people without specialist knowledge to evaluate issues (hence the arse-covering).

I think you’re right Agatha. It’s 150 years old, stone built and steady as a rock, it’s definitely not going to fall down. We won’t be using a survey to reduce the price because it’s being sold as needing renovation and is priced accordingly.

We are in a similar position. We’ve gone with a full building survey as when I had quotes from structural engineers for a purely structural survey they were about 50% more than the full survey which covers much of the same stuff. Crazy. Just get a full, flag up any particular structural concerns you’d like looked at and wade through the report.