Would you be put off by 20+ 'serious' issues on building survey

[Taybz]

We are buying a modernised 1930s and we're quite surprised that the building survey we had done on the property highlighted over 20 serious issues amongst quite a few classes as not urgent but needs attention. Some of the main issues are to do with PVC rainwater fittings, timber doors, timber floor structures, lack of safety glass in windows. Am I being unreasonable to feel that these are quite a lot for a seemingly modernised property? I doubt that the vendors will pay for any of the required repairs highlighted! Are surveyors just been overly thorough and I'm panicking for no reason?

What's your budget for improvements? When was it "modernised"?

A good surveyor is thorough and a survey will show every possible fault imaginable and that’s just the surveyor doing his job , you are paying him to highlight any faults ( and every house has plenty of faults - even new ones ) they are usually done in a three tier system like traffic lights , green = worth a mention , yellow = when you get around to it , Red = with some urgency ,
even the red faults are not always that urgent , it comes down to common sense and priorities
talk to your surveyor and clarify any you don’t understand
I wouldn’t expect a vendor to rectify very much at all , you are buying the house as seen and priced as such

Have you spoken to the surveyor? I found ours was a lot more open on the phone than in writing - broke things down in to which he would actually be concerned about and which he was basically covering all bases on.

@MolliciousIntent we have a budget of about 20k for further works/improvements but that was before the survey results. Parts were modernised very recently whilst others a decade or so ago?

@Timezoned that's good to know. We haven't had a chat yet but are due one. We need to decide what our main concerns are but I'm not sure how to choose this as the serious issues all seem significant. The roof is generally in a good condition but there are some concerns with the chimney.

YANBU Personally I would be concerned. Sorry, not what you want to hear.

@AdventuringAway that's reassuring. I was surprised that peeling paint on radiators was classified as a red 'serious' issue!

We don't expect the vendors to do a whole lot of work before we move in but surely they'd not leave anything in a dangerous state?

My understanding is that the overriding legal principle when buying is “caveat emptor” - the responsibility is on you to ensure you’re happy with everything, not on the seller to fix anything (or declare anything unless specifically asked). I wouldn’t assume anything. But the peeling paint is a good example of when a “serious” issue isn’t necessarily an immediate issue.

I think it depends on what the serious issues are. One of the things flagged on our house 6 years ago was repointing the chimney. We got someone round to quote after we bought the house and he told us it didn't need doing at all but he'd take our money if we really wanted. The roof tiles despite being old also didn't need replacing. None were loose or damaged.

The possible damp that needed investigating in the kitchen was a section of guttering that was installed with the down pipe too high, it cost £70 for someone to fix and took an hour. The wall dried out without issue.

The fence did have two slightly loose panels from a tree pushing behind them but it was a couple of years before it finally came down in a storm and we needed to replace it.

surveyors do tend to be very careful. We were told we needed a new roof but wouldn’t discuss further with what was the actual issue. My uncle is a roofer and just laughed and said it wasn’t old as he was the one who put it on 5 years prior for the vender. 10 years later and not one leak. Then again I did find they cleared a lot of the things up when I phoned them might be worth doing that.

A good survey will highlight everything. You can usually speak to the surveyor to ask them to clarify the points raised. Some may be minor points but the red ones may be more serious issues

It's hard to say, although surveyor do work quite hard to cover every small thing, that that they don't face legal action. We didn't bother on our last house. We just got a good builder round.

Crikey, that surveyor would have kittens if they came here. We've still got 'major' issues undone from when we bought it over 30 years ago!

This is all putting my mind at rest - appreciate it! Panic is now over although we are of course mindful that things do need to be done at some point. Has anyone had issues with open chimney pots? How dangerous is it really for pigeons??