Survey

[beguilingeyes]

What level survey are people getting. We're buying a fairly standard 1930s house. Superficially seems to be in good nick.

For 1930s I'd have a fairly comprehensive survey- the equivalent of the of the old 'full structural', not sure what they call it now. Our current place is late 1920s construction and that's what we had- it looked in good basic structural nick but poor decorative order and a lot of fairly expensive what I'd call non-serious 'work that needs doing', like reslating the roof in due course, etc.. It was well worth the money for peace of mind, though it didn't unearth anything significant we hadn't seen for ourselves (we're pretty experienced). I just didn't want to find we'd taken on a structural problem that we hadn't the knowledge to see hidden behind the more obvious minor ones.

For our previous 1960s house we had a slightly simpler one, but still a lot more than a valuation type. For one we dodged that was, IIRC, 1910s or thereabouts, the same, and so glad we did, it unearthed a real can of worms.

Place i'm buying is early 70s fairly bog standard build so went with a Level 2. Similarly seemed superficially okay and it has a few bits and bobs flagged up but nothing worrying for a house of its age. And have put money aside to sort those things out in due course.

I would (and did) go for a level 3 for a house that age.

I would never go less than a lvl 3 building survey now, having seen the difference in detail.

Have been badly burnt by homebuyers before, so heavily caveated and cautious, I don't personally think worth reading!

A good local independent surveyor (so not found through your mortgage lender or EA) will be able to advise which level of survey they think is most appropriate based on property age and location. We recently got a RICS level 3 survey done on a 1970s house, but mostly because it's in a conservation area.

We got the lowest level survey done when we bought our 30s semi. We felt that as long as a survey highlights serious problem areas, that would stop us from buying the house, it would be enough. I could tell from looking at the house myself that the roof was knackered but we already knew that we wanted to do the loft and had offered accordingly. No nasty surprises. We did a separate electric survey on the advice from our solicitor.
Most people advise to do a proper structural survey but we felt they were full of caveats and individual surveys (like electric, damp etc) would be more insightful.
Our buyers on the other hand offered full asking, but then employed the most thorough surveyor ever, and then asked for money off as a result of survey findings. We did come to an agreement with them, and even with the money off, the price was the best we could achieve at the time.