Survey?

[HouseIsOnFire]

Hello,

more questions, sorry!

The house I'm buying is 1960s, ex council, with 2 loft rooms (ladder up, no stairs). Would you have a home buyers or a building survey please?

I am wary considering my last home buyers was absolutely rubbish and missed everything (blown plaster in all rooms, sawn through floor joist you could see inside a wardrobe etc), so wondering if worth paying more to get a closer inspection, or if it'll be the same again and I'll just pay more for not much use??

Also, any idea when you book the survey in please?

Thank you!

I've always had a survey (well 2 out of 3 moves).
I would find a surveyor through RICS, I think should they miss something you have a legal comeback.
I know it is not cheap but then nor is the house and if they give it a clean bill of health (they won't!) it's piece of mind for you.
If they find a significant issue you may be able to reduce the price of the propety to reflect this or walk away and avoid a major problem.

Oh absolutely will definitely have a survey!

I just can't decide between level 2 or level 3 (sorry, I wasn't clear at all!)

Am thinking I should just go for level 3 as then if stuff does come up later, at least I tried to mitigate it!

My buyers haven't booked in a survey on my property yet - I don't know when is too soon to be booking in for my onwards property?

I really wish the sellers did it and you got given the results when house viewing :(

I'd probably go for level 3 personally (although I would consider the cost differ ence)

I think if a seller provided a copy of a survey I don't know whether I would believe it was 100% accurate. Also the 'contract' would be between the surveyor and the seller and not you. Ultimately the surveyor may say the seller told them not to bother with the loft, for example.
Without some form of legislation a seller's survey might not be trustworthy.

We got a level 3, got it back yesterday. It's pretty in-depth! They've even got in the loft eaves and things.

The only thing they haven't inspected is services, as they're not electricians/gas trained etc, but they have made comments on age of boiler and system etc.

For us, there was only a £125 difference between the Home Buyers and the Building survey, so it made sense to go for the more useful one...

Our buyer hasn't ordered one for here yet, but there's no guaranteeing that they'll want one, so we went ahead with ours on the property that we're buying. It was carried out last Tuesday and we got the report yesterday.

Our house is ex council built in 1940s ish and we had a full survey. It made for terrifying reading but we were fully informed of any issues when we moved in. For a house of that age or if you are planning to extend later then a full survey is probably best. We're buying a more modern house and went for a home buyers survey this time through a RICS surveyor and it has been comprehensive. It was recommended that we had that one because the property isn't that old and from viewing it we couldn't see anything major that rang alarm bells. Granted we are not surveyors! It really depends on the property.

Thank you, only had the one quote so far and the difference was £200 so probably will go for full - It's a small difference for my sanity!

When have you booked surveys in please?

The way we did it was to look at the RICS website first and then take down some names, then compare their reviews on Google, narrowed down the list to 3-4 who had 5* reviews, then emailed them for quotes. Price ranged from £1200 to £1600 for a full structural survey, so we went with the cheapest one who still had great reviews. Report is very detailed and I'm pretty sure it didn't miss anything. Quite the opposite!!! It was so picky that I felt like pulling out of the house altogether I was so depressed. Anyway it was worth doing as we managed to knock £10K off purchase price. The process itself was super quick - maybe 2.5 weeks between booking and receiving the report. So maybe it's better to do it when you are sure you're definitely buying, e.g. when you have the mortgage offer in place, when all the parties in a chain have found a property, and so on. Good luck ..

If the difference is only £200 I'd go full. However friends on the surveyor. This summer I had two full Structurals and one homebuyers report. The difference was closer to £500, and to be honest I got as much info from the Homebuyers as the full structural (same firm but different surveyor).

The difference for us was only £200 for full building survey, so we went for that, despite buying a nearly new build. Didn't want any surprises! Having bought a 1960s property before with only a homebuyers survey, I would definitely only ever get full building survey in the future. Hardly any difference in price but huge impact on peace of mind! If nothing else, at least you are minisming risk of surprises if you end up selling within only a few years (like we did!)... if your buyers get a full buying survey you want to know what is likely to be on it!

I'd pay the extra if it was £200. For an older house I wouldn't even consider anything but Level 3, same if it was 60s or later but not in excellent nick.

can I just check - do people get the survey in addition to the valuation that the mortgage provider will do?

Yes :)

We were given a home buyers survey by the mortgage provider which was crap. We had previously also had our own independent survey which was cheaper and massively more in depth. It also included an off the record phone call about what actually needed doing from the report (none of it).