Anyone had a not so great survey and gone ahead anyway?

[allinadaystwerk]

Had a initial chat with my surveyor who highlighted various issues such as damp along one wall, some movement, brickwork, blown plaster in most rooms, joists gone in some areas and work needed in the roof. Would you walk away?

Some movement? Is it basically subsiding? That would make me walk away.

Damp, dodgy roof etc wouldn’t provided the house was very cheap, I’d have the cash to do it up and it’d be worth a lot more than I’d spent.

The movement is quite common in houses like this apparently due to where new door has been placed. It's the back of a mid terrace. I wanted to do quite little of refurb work so was hoping to not have to spend loads on the fabric of the house iyswim

It’s subsiding? I would run rather than walk and I’ve done a few renovation projects.

Reckons it would be around 8-10k to fix before I even started on refurb

Depends if you want the work, clearly there are some issues that need resolving so it’s down to whether have the time and the inclination and you want to resolve them, this puts you In a major bargaining position if you really want the house as you can renegotiate to cover the cost and some, I purchased a house when the surveyed said it had subsidence, got it reduced by 10s of thousands with a view to doing the work, turned out to be bad workmanship when it was built and cost next to nothing to fix in comparison to the amount we got off the price

I've be nervous about the movement and might walk away based on that but the rest as long as accounted for in price or would reduce further would still continue. I would chat to surveyor on phone and see what they think. I found my surveyor was a lot more open on phone than in writing and I also asked about a rough cost for the work - in my case he said £20k so I asked for a £20k discount on price and got a further £10k off. It was a house in need of work so had been expecting some issues.

Yes, we were turned down for a mortgage on 1930s semi due to suspected subsidance 15 years ago. We got a full structural survey which advised that the movement was historical. Haven't had any problems since and love our house. If you love it maybe a more comprehensive survey would be helpful?

That should have said quite a bit of refurb eg new bathroom and kitchen revamp complete redecorate. It's a great house but the survey has got me wondering. It's not as cheap as I think I need it to be

The survey was a structural one

There’s a big difference between a bit of cosmetic work and the long list of issues that have been identified. I can’t see how 10k would touch it if you need damp proofing, repointing, joists, roof, plastering etc

Maybe just find a new house.

Jojo I think you might be right. It sounds like a money pit doesn't it. Maybe if I grt a huge deduction on the price it could still work

As Jojo says £10k sounds cheap for all that? esp when you are talking joists etc (where more might be uncovered)

The market seems to have really dried up the last few weeks. But yeah perhaps it's back to the drawing board .. bugger! 😖

Did you get a structural engineer in or just the RICS full survey? We walked away from subsidence but that was severe, new, and looking on street view getting much worse over the last few years. Also surveyor said it would be 100k to fix which we did not have, unless they would be willing to sell for less than a third of the price (unlikely).

Conversely, some movement was not what ours said. Our survey said to get an engineer in capital letters, 1st paragraph. Friend got the engineer in to a “some movement” house and they said it was historical. Though do remember you need repair works in cash rather than mortgage.

Unless cracks are monitored, it’s difficult to know if they are historic or not. One visit by an engineer won’t establish if there is current movement. Historic damage needs repair and often cannot just be left if bricks are in half and render damaged.

A door being put in resulting in cracks might indicate it was in a load bearing wall, but without the required RSJ or lintel support.

Roof repairs can be £25,000 or worse and joist issues are rarely a cheap fix. What’s wrong with the roof and joists? It all sounds expensive and definitely not £10,000. The vendors should get this sorted out before trying to sell via their insurance.

Hi OP, we had a similar list of concerns from our survey (though no movement).

We do own a flat in north London though which is on a "subsidence risk area" that encompasses an entire London postcode and doesn't adversely affect prices there! Touch wood we've had no issues ourselves but it's why no one in our neighbourhood does basement conversions!!

What we did with our surveyor was ask what we thought it would cost to fix the issues - cost per job. Then we told the EA/vendor - in fact we sent them the written survey! - and asked for access to get quotes for remedial works, which they agreed to.

We had a damp guy, a roof guy and a general builder come to quote - vendor was ok with giving them access - and their quotes were all considerably higher than our surveyor's estimates :( So we sent their quotes through to the EA and said we needed the price reduced by 75% of the costs of the works - we'd cover 25% but the vendor needed to adjust by the larger amount.

We pointed out that if they went back to the market, eventually every buyer would get the same survey report and they'd be in groundhog day - at least we were prepared to complete on their timeframe and cover 25%.

They agreed to the reduction and we eventually sourced some more competitive quotes (easier to get multiple tradesmen in when we were in the house!) so basically all our costs got covered by the reduction.

It wasn't the ideal start to our new purchase but at the end of the day we love our house and it was worth it! Best of luck :)

We had two surveys, an independent which on paper was terrible but in person the guy said was probably all condensation and historical movement and that he would ventilate and watch and wait but can’t put that in writing.

The banks surveyor went crazy and found various problems, missed others, demanded a massive retention unless we got the ‘property care association’ (a bunch of shysters) to advise on treatment and then wrote them a blank cheque plus got a full rewire.

I phoned the bank and told them their surveyor was an eejit, offered to increase our deposit to cover the retention or go to one of their competitors. Within five minutes they threw out the surveyors report and lent us the originally negotiated amount.

Since moving in the damp has disappeared with simple ventilation and fixing a leak in the central heating, tell tales have shown no further movement, and the wiring will get done when we decide on extension plans.

I should add it was priced very much with the condition in mind and the sellers were absolutely adamant there could be no further movement on price. If you offered an amount not reflecting the condition then downward movement on price may be achievable.

Some of this really depends. Work needed on the roof - if it's a full re-roof, I would do it but I would want money off. If it's something less than that I probably wouldn't be bothered. But I am used to old houses and I expect them to have issues.

These sound like major issues to me. I would find something more structurally sound.

Yes we did here and we found more stuff wrong than in the survey. Movement would freak me out as that might mean underpinning (so the next buyer might have an issue getting a mortgage) or you might if it's significant. Everything can be fixed but it all takes money. I think I would walk away unless you are truly committed to it