When do buyers usually get a survey done?

[InescapableDeath]

How long is a piece of string etc?

Yes, I know there's no one set answer. But just looking for anecedotal info.

We are selling our 50s house which is a bit rough around the edges. To my mind, it was priced to account for all this and the issues I know about were visible on first/second viewing (gutters need replacing, old boiler) but I'm getting ansty about what will happen if a buyer does a homebuyers or structural survey.

Their bank valuation survey happened week before last. They are first time buyers. Think that makes them more likely to wait for their mortgage offer before doing a proper survey? Or is there a chance they won't do one? (Surely unlikely)

We're actually not getting one for the place we're buying, but I know the previous owner very well and the house is only 20 years old. Last chain we were in, we had planned to get a survey booked in straight away. Just wondering what others do!

I’ve always done one ASAP. You then know if if you are backing out, trying to negotiate on price or happy. What’s the point in waiting?

You might not be aware of things that could bd wrong. So your buyers would be foolish not to get a survey. Ditto you!

Normally if they were having a structural survey it would be done as an extension to the morgage survey rather than separately. Ask your solicitor where you are and what they are waiting for atm.

I'm probably really out of date as we last bought 15 years ago but we just upgraded our mortgage survey to full survey so there was only one done. I thought this was the done thing. Perhaps they aren't going to get another survey if there's already been one.

I think with many properties being downvalued by lenders when they do their valuation survey and a number of FTBers having their mortgage applications rejected, it would be wise for them to wait until they’ve had their mortgage approved before spending money on a structural survey. Ask your estate agent to speak with them and find out their plans.

That's what I'm hoping - that maybe they won't bother... If they don't try to get any money off then even if we complete after March we can just about pay stamp duty. But if they do... argh!

Comtesse - yes that's the only reason I can think of for the wait.

I could ask our EA's sales progressor (she's really good), but don't want to prompt them into something they might not otherwise have done.

Luckily our house is very unlikely to be downvalued but the one we're buying still could be. Such a funny market at the mo.

When we sold our last house (1970s so a little newer than yours!) two years ago it was bought by first time buyers who didn't have a survey done, not even the basic home buyers one. They were keen to do things as quickly as possible as they were pregnant (so were we, but they were a few months further on than us) so we assume that they skipped a few optional bits along the way. We asked our EA and he said it was likely they'd assumed (correctly) that we would have had a survey when we bought it five years previously and sorted out anything that was majorly wrong.

I am aware that's there's major delays with surveys atm though so it could be that they've booked one but it isn't for a while yet? Ask your EA, you are going to be paying them for their "service" after all!

Or maybe because of the aforementioned delays with surveys, they've decided to go for it without one to save themselves money on stamp duty which they can then use on repairs?

@SnowmanDrinkingSnowballs I don't think that's true - I wouldn't advise it and I've never used the same person that values for a mortgage as a surveyor. The valuer works for the bank, not the purchaser.
As they will liase with the estate agent for access ask them if the buyers are going to get a survey done.

Lots of FTB don't understand the difference between a structural survey and a bank valuation- we had to explain it to our buyers.

We had a full survey done on our first house as an extension to the bank valuation. I wouldn't do that again; I'd employ a surveyor separately.

We didn't get a survey done on our current property as we're fairly well versed in assessing building condition and had funds to absorb some additional costs if needed. Nothing has come up so far that we weren't aware of through looking ourselves. However there are circumstances when I would definitely get a full structural survey - it would be a budgeting and bargaining tool.

If they haven't had one done yet they probably won't bother.

We're going through all this now.

We had the bank valuation first which was a desk top exercise, when that came back ok we booked a full building survey as it's an old house.
There was no option with out mortgage provider to add any extra survey onto the valuation. It took a few weeks to get a slot for our survey and then a week for the report to come back to us.
Based on our survey we have actually managed to renegotiate.
Our buyers though just had an on site valuation of our house and didn't pay any extra for a home buyers report or anything else.

We had this situation recently. Buyer had valuation done beginning of October. Then when we were due to exchange their solicitor advised they should have had a home buyers and they had to wait 3 weeks till that came in. It has delayed everything and the survey came back absolutely fine.

I think most surveys are just a tool for reducing the offer , even if there is nothing serious wrong , they still pick up things like potential problems in the future 🙄. ,

I know, you have to hope that buyers will be sensible/realistic. When we got the survey on the house we're not selling, there was lots of vague terminology and 'this could be a problem,' 'this may need to be checked' etc, but most of it was arse-covering. If you have a naive first-buyer who thinks a 70-yr old house should be in perfect condition, they'll be scared off by most surveys!

When I moved two years ago I waited until the whole (long) chain was in place before booking a survey, as did my buyers. A lot of people do use the mortgage surveyor to book a fuller survey through them and some people don't have any extra survey at all.
My buyers used the survey to try to knock down the price, though nothing unexpected showed up. It took getting quotes from tradesmen and a few weeks of negotation to sort this out.

I have bits of my house that are 200 years old and yes, they are in perfect condition. Maintenance costs and people think it doesn’t matter. It does.

I’m going through this too! Our house is being surveyed later this week (but they did a valuation six weeks ago) and they said they wanted to be “further progressed” before they did a survey. Quite frankly if they try to renegotiate or stall any more after the survey, we are absolutely done with them. They already asked us to transfer £700 to them on the day of the move as a goodwill gesture because we have a new downstairs toilet and no warranty for it.

We said no way obviously!!

Does anyone know how logg be it’s taking on average after all surveys completed?

Tbh I have always got a survey as soon as I've had an offer confirmed. Surveys have saved me from a house that would have been a total money-pit....

PresentingPercy - yes maintenance does matter but there is also such a thing as a house being priced to take that into account. Which was made clear to our buyer when they tried to get money off after their second viewing (when a price well below asking was already accepted).

Anyway we do have some expectation/willingness to negotiate, I would simply be delighted if I didn’t have to!

Yes. I understand. I’m just wondering why you didn’t maintain it. You’ve now had a heap of issues you could have avoided.

Why? Is it hard to imagine :)

Permission to sound a little defensive - how much you maintain/invest in your property depends on your circumstances. When we moved in we were on lower salaries and went on to have two children. We didn't let the place fall apart, but we didn't invest, either. So we did repairs as needed (eg bit of roof, replaced two window panes), but not a new boiler. Actually we did try to sort the gutters out but one repair didn't take and since then we keep getting tradesmen in who don't quote us - argh! I would've thought this is relatively common?

My neighbour completely renovated their home and in exchange got a higher price. We just didn't think it was worth doing in our situation. We talked to our EA about whether it was worth updating, for example, the kitchen, and they said it was pointless as we wouldn't get the money back!

In hindsight, yeah we could've done more definitely. I feel like I spent 8 years in a fog of small children and it was only as we got the house ready for sale that we thought 'why haven't we done that!'. It's down to priorities I suppose and going forward I would definitely change them.

Our buyer agreed offer on ours mid October - got mortgage offer after 2 weeks which presumably involved valuation survey. Then proper survey was last week, cancelled twice by surveyor before that due to covid (suspect original surveyor got covid) and results may be out this week so 1.5 months after for us. We have similar issues to you - I would recommend if you have the money maybe get guttering cleared or done pre survey to reduce the chance of penetrative damp showing on it.

We have an old boiler too but still works fine and we paid for gas safety checks and a service and that shows its useable. I would consider doing that.

We also did electrical safety checks but that is against 2018 regulations so EA said most houses fail it as ours did and it pointed out £1k of works to bring up to 2018 rules. We are paying that to get a pass and everything in order but something to be aware of before ordering one.

Thanks silkiecat, that's useful to know. We had a company literally round the corner come to 'give us a quote' on the gutters and never got back to us! He's got good reviews from friends of mine, so super annoying.

Our electrics had a new consumer unit when we moved in but hasn't been updated since so am sure it would also not meet 2018 rules (but be otherwise safe).