flat with damp - would you offer or walk away?

[Greenhats10]

Hi,

We are FTB and considering putting an offer on a property where one of the rooms on the ground floor has wet and twisted floorboards at the back of it. It's a conversion and the rest of the place looks fine but for that one room. Am tempted to offer a bit less and just deal with it. but would you walk away. Is damp really hard to deal with? Not sure what it is as estate agent feigned ignorance

Any advice would be great.Never dealt with any sort of building works so just not sure whether to walk away or try and deal with it

I would walk away as if the problem was easy to sort out the sellers would have done it before putting it on the market.

I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. I agree that being a conversion it's too complicated to sort out.

My first flat had damp. They'd had treatment for it which needed to repeated (for free, under guarantee). Nobody can tell you how much it will cost to treat without more information about what is causing it, and as other posters have said, there is a whole industry selling their damp products, much of which are bogus.

Personally I would be put off a damp property now - just the smell of it puts my teeth on edge and reminds me of where I lived before. But if the damp is the only negative then I'd get an expert in to look at the area and give an independent assessment of what it's from.

Totally agree with @AntiHop We are not the people to be asking how much it will cost and what kind of damp it is. You need a trusted, experienced professional to go round and actually see it.

Unless the EA has seen any survey that highlights damp or any other issues. He won't know any issues. He just sells the house without any guarantees about the condition of the house
You pay for a survey to reveal issues and the extent of any issues.
Then you renegotiate the price based on the info and likely costs.
Could be a small leak that is easily fixed or long term extensive damp.
Your direct all questions via the solicitor so they are legally binding.
Get the specific info about the house and then decide on the work and commitment / your skills and if it is for you.

It always annoy me when sellers don't sort out very obvious damp problems before putting a property on the market. Or at the very least they should be able to give clear information of what the cause is and how much it would cost to fix, which would need to be reflected in the asking price.

The attitude of the seller/agent hoping that the buyer won't notice is just wrong.

If it was a house it might be a different story, but with a leasehold/share of freehold flat you also need to remember that you might need to get involved in a conflict with the freeholder and other leaseholders if the problems comes from the structure of the building and it might prove costly and time consuming to get work done.

I would definitely walk away...

The attitude of the seller/agent hoping that the buyer won't notice is just wrong.

Nowhere does it say that the seller is hoping the buyer won’t notice.

They could be selling it without rectifying it for any number of reasons. Sometimes people just need to move and take the price hit of selling it as it is.

Will spend today pondering on whether to put in an offer or get a survey done hopefully soon...

I get that vendors might just choose to sell their properties as is, but as a buyer it's so hard to know whether you're taking on a small project or a really big headache that you'll regret the whole time you live in the place

We bought a house that had damp on the back wall. It was clearly from the broken bit of guttering at the back and the survey said the same.

That was the cause, but it had been left for so long that the plaster had to be stripped back to brick and redone as when we took the wallpaper off it all came off in wet clumps.

It had also soaked in to the joists of the floor which had gone rotten and they all had to be cut back and replaced, ripping up the original floorboards in the process.

Cost us around £1.5k to put right.

Don't buy a property with damp unless you are prepared for a whole load of hassle and expense, which even then might not fix the problem. Walk away.

We have a house with damp in one wall and that has been enough of a pain to find and eradicate the source (it's still damp) so I'd walk away from a flat where you are at the mercy of both the freeholder and whoever owns the flat upstairs, if it turns out that the problem is with, say guttering or an improperly sealed upstairs window (had that in our last house - heavy rain in a particular direction sent water pouring through a doorframe, below the window)

but as a buyer it's so hard to know whether you're taking on a small project or a really big headache that you'll regret the whole time you live in the place

I would be prepared for it being a big job. Take it very seriously and expect it to take time, money and effort to rectify. Anything less than that is then a bonus.

I would absolutely walk away. We live in a house with damp and it's a pain in the arse. The thought of having to deal with this in a flat where there are other owners/tenants to deal with would fill be with fear.

You won't know if it's a small project or a big headache without further information.

I bought a flat with damp as a ftb. We had a specialist damp survey done. The report said what the problem was and how much it should cost to rectify it. We then went back to the vendors and negotiated a lower price based on the results of the survey. It was a big project, we couldn't move in straight away, but it worked and we lived there happily for a long time.

You really need to decide how much you want the property, how much hassle you are prepared to put up with and proceed from there.

thank you everyone! might get a survey done and then see what it says....

It'll say consult a damp specialist!

Is it an old house (Edwardian or older)? If so, try to get a surveyor who specialises in old buildings. Otherwise the survey will likely just say to call in damp company for a ‘free’ survey, and the damp company will tell you you need an injected damp proof course and/or tanking. Have a look at the heritage house website.

If the floorboards are wet I would be worried about the joists being rotten. Is the damp area near the outside? Has the ground level been raised externally?

We bought a house with a damp problem and I don’t regret it (so far) but I do think it’s better to know the cause.

No - I'd walk away from that. Sounds like sever damp. Unless the property is really extraordinary and you can justify the hassle and the expense because there's nothing else like it on the market, you are just opening yourself up to a massive hassle.

Don't shell out for a survey: it'll tell you to consult a damp specialist.
Ask the vendor to pay for a damp specialist.

I wouldn't hesitate to walk away. Once bought a house with dry rot. Fucking nightmare, and to sell, too.

It's a back wall that's blocked off/you can't get to?
And the damp could be coming from below, or from the wall itself?

Walk away - this sounds incredibly expensive and tedious. Will you have to negotiate access from a neighbour to even get to the outside of the wall? What if there's no damp proof course? or there's one that's failed?

I wouldn't even do a survey, if you can't easily access the wall to even find out, imagine how expensive any repairs will be.