Feeling very out of my depth as a FTB

[Burnout101]

Anyone get to the stage where you're quite down about house buying?

We've just had our survey back which I know can be a bit of a buzzkill anyway but it's brought it to a head how out of my depth I'm feeling at the moment. I have anxiety anyway so it's pretty much expected despite it being such a big thing but finding it so hard.

The survey wasn't too shocking but it advised getting a builder, a damp specialist and a roofing specialist to all look at the house before we exchange and as we've had to wait so long (mortgage delay and then delay gettting surveyor's report back) everyone's dying to exchange already so it feels like that's chucked a spanner in the works.

I'm going to phone surveyor today to discuss further but it's all about what 'might' go wrong and I don't know how to take that! Eg, he says there's no evidence of damp but there's no damp course (120 yr old house) so IF we have damp the timbers might rot etc and IF there's asbestos we'd need to be careful but no idea if there is. 40 pages of IF x happens we'll have to spend on y so I'm not sure how to take it.

The only things that actually seem wrong right now is the boiler's old so will eventually need replacing (we factored that in already), there's a hole in the roof that needs repairing - not a huge hole so don't know how major this is and there's high moisture levels, but no evidence of damp.

Is getting inspections by all the above something very normal or is he covering his back and we should get it looked at eventually but can probably go ahead if all seems basically ok?

The house is very solid and even his sum up said it's a good proposition if we're ok to spend money on maintenance (what does that mean - £500 a year, £50000 a year?) so we were very happy with it before but now it feels like it's half falling down and we need 50k in the bank before we move in.

None of this sounds scary. Surveys always do this. Most of it is arse covering. All houses need a degree of maintenance. I would deal with the hole in the roof and the boiler once it goes.

I'd get a quote for the hole in the roof

Surveys always bring up this sort of thing, I wouldn't be put off at all.

As a first time buyer 2.5 years ago I basically ignored the survey I had done. Rude awakening when I moved in and nearly blew myself up when I plugged in an extension lead. I had to spend 7k rewiring the whole house and then redecorate (which I had planned to do anyway) but I also had to spend £15k on damp proofing and I'm not sure it's actually fixed the problem. I'd investigate further even it holds up the sale. Lesson learnt.

Thanks everyone, he didn't seem to bring up much that needs addressing now besides the roof so hopefully that's positive.

@passthemustard - wow, that sounds hard going! Do you mind me asking about the damp - did they find evidence of it in the survey and you ignored that or was there no sign of it and then it occurred after moving in? Was it an old house? What problems have you still got?

When I moved last I found the survey I'd had done when I moved in, 16 years previously. There were several problems noted, none of which had been addressed in the intervening time, and none of which had caused any problems....

Thanks @minniemoll - I'd love it if it was like that for us, were any of the problems 'could be serious and expensive' level and just never materialised?

Surveys are becoming more and more a big waste of time and money for the majority. So many caveats, so many "get an expert opinion on xyz", they do not want to put their opinion and liability insurance to the test!

This time we opted for the valuation survey from the mortgage company and had a builder friend who came round to view after our offer was accepted. Builder friend picked up stuff in our current property that the surveyor completely missed, so I trusted him more!

Surveys are a waste of time, they just have to be done to get the mortgage. You have to expect there “might” be issues with a house that old, that there “might” be things wrong with this or that, and the surveyor is just covering his backside. Yet the house has been standing that long and will no doubt continue to stand.

The thing is old houses will have issues. You have to expect to deal with stuff. Damp though will probably be sorted by putting the heating on.

Get someone to recommend a good roofer, hens teeth, and get them to look at the roof. An unrepaired hole might be a sign of other lack of care.

Your mortgage company may insist you get the other surveys.

Thanks, it does feel like a lot of 'might' - a lot of the report was basically 'couldn't see any problem but that doesn't mean there isn't one and if there is one it could be £££', very frustrating.

The valuation survey was done ages ago (couldn't have the same survey for both as we wanted the building survey not the homebuyer's) and was fine, don't think they even visited, think they did a drive by possibly. The building survey we arranged just for our benefit so we don't have to tell the mortgage company anything do we?

No, you don’t need a survey for the mortgage. I’ve never had a survey and it’s never prevented the lender from releasing funds. The exception is if your valuation survey picks up that the property needs significant work and requires a retention or an expert building survey.

Definitely speak to the surveyor. We did this after getting a lot of 'might needs' on our (1930s) house - we were very nervous but speaking to the person who'd done the survey raally helped. In our case, he essentially said every house that age would have a similar report and if it was him, he'd buy it! It'll help you figure out what the big issues are and what's probably OK.

My house is an 1880s town house. It's essentially built into the side of a hill with two stories 'above' ground and two stories 'below' ground (but only on one side of the house!)

The bottom floor was used as an art studio by the previous owners and had a kitchen sink/worktops and a hard tiled floor with exposed brick work along the back wall that backs onto the hill. There was a distinct smell of damp, which the estate agents put down to the sink and the surveyor said might be to do with next doors extension. I wanted the room to be a sitting room with lovely big doors opening onto the garden but when the builder came to pull up the floor to lay the new one he found it was completely rotten and I ended up having to excavate the entire floor at which point we found an open storm drain running under the house. It's all been relaid, new concrete and joists and a special protective membrain laid down the exposed brick wall and across the floor and I have a lovely engineered oak floor and beautiful bifolds but it still smells damp and I occasionally get patches of mould on the skirting boards.

Thanks everyone, you've reassured me about a lot of the niggly things but I've emailed the solicitor to say I think we need to go ahead with the damp survey just in case, we'd kick ourselves if it came out to have massive problems later. Have also said we need the roof quote doing and may need to renegotiate depending on what it'll cost.

It's not helping my anxiety that thanks to WFH the solicitor only communicates by email and seems to say very little - she spent weeks hinting we should leave her alone as the searches weren't back and now they're back all she cares about is how quick can we exchange.

@passthemustard - sounds very similar to ours, ours is a townhouse with 2 floors above ground and one below but the ground slopes so the bottom one is below street level but on the same level as garden. So it's the 'below' ground that's the major issue - ours smelt fine when we went to see it but we're going to go ahead and get a damp survey I think, make completely sure.

Just make sure you get a damp survey rather than a damp proofing salesperson round...90% of the time damp in old houses can be fixed by either identifying the source of the damp (damaged guttering etc) or by ventilating the house properly.

I just think I will always be on the cautious side going forward. It would have been great to know about the drain before we exchanged contracts for instance. I feel like the previous owners and the estate agent did a massive cover up job denying all knowledge of the damp. The previous owner had owned the house for 30 odd years and we found newspaper from like 10 years ago under the floor so that's pretty obvious they did know about the problem.

I hope there is no problems for you, fingers crossed.

I can definitely relate to this having anxiety and recently been a first time buyer. However this is a surveyor arse covering. Any house built before the year 2000 could contain asbetsos. And whilst it may not have a modern dam proof course they were quite capable of using other methods like slate. I brought a house with a 'damp issue' picked up by a surveyor and confirmed as rising damp by a not very 'independent damp surveyor'. In reality there is nothing wrong with it but i did use it to haggle some money off. It is important to fix the source of any damp e.g a leaky gutter door frame bridging of the damp proof course with accessibility ramps (in my case). So they dont sound too bad at all, try and find out some more info if you want but remember the house is over a century old and survived fine up until now.