Anyone else bought a house of horrors....

[Firefightress1]

No not one where a murder was committed although there's still time!

Moved into our 'dream' house 3 months ago and now the timeframe for any issues has passed, we have had nothing but problems costing us a fortune.

The home report is done before sale in Scotland and all items were 1's (no work required, in good condition'. First issue is the roof, last week we had so many leaks in 4 different places. The flat part needs replaced and the roofer has said it's obvious botched repairs have been attempted so the previous owners were obviously aware. Currently looking at 2k plus... how long is a piece of string.

Second issue was the woodburner, it's completely broken, we weren't told so we had to replace it at 3k as it's the main heat source downstairs.

Now the boiler...... the wires were actually singed and burnt at the back which as a firefighter absolutely petrified me! Plus the electrical source to the boiler does not actually switch it off, I had to isloate it at the main fuse box! The heating engineer says its basically fecked and needs so many parts replaced. Again this was a 1 on the home report. Total cost so far 1500 but will go up.
What's the bloody point of a home report if they don't actually look at all the items properly. We obviously paid over the asking too.

Sorry, it's been a long 2 weeks of hell and I'm on my own as hubbie is away so I'm dealing with everything myself, I think I will just pour a massive glass of wine, I would have a bath but with no heating that's a no.

I know it will be an amazing house when it's finished.... won't it?
Just looking for advice from anyone that was in the same situation on how to keep sane! I know it's sold as seen but we declared all the wee problems or previous repairs we made on our last house. and fixed a couple before we sold. Spot the mugs!

Thanks for listening I just need a rant.

And breathe........

Standing in solidarity with you OP! We had a level 3 survey (UK) which brought up nothing untoward bar electric test cert needed for cooker.
fast forward 6 months - there’s damp everywhere, mould growing all over the place, the house is drafty and freezing. The guttering hasn’t been installed correctly (not sure why this wasn’t picked up on survey) It’s costing us a fortune to keep it warm. I’d happily cut my losses and move now but my DH wants to stay out and spend a small fortune putting it right. I hate it here.

I had similar. The gas fire was disconnected by the gas repair man on day 2, who said it was lethal, home installed and should never have been there.

Since then I've had all the wiring replaced because the former owners had done so much diy - lighting on shower circuits, sockets on the cooker circuit etc, that the electrician said the only way to be safe was to replace the whole lot.

Missing mortar on exterior walls plugged with shower sealant.

I'm about to dismantle the conservatory because it leaks.

I've been going 11 years so far. Thank goodness I didn't pay asking price. 🙄

Yep..we've been in our house 3.5 years now and had to do a lot of remedial work to sort out the utter botch jobs and downright dangerous hack jobs the previous owner had done.

We had a live electrical fuse box tacked onto the hallway wall at child-height that an electrician said needed condemning immediately as if a child pulled on the wires they could electrocute themselves 😳

Also discovered a serious gas leak in our understaffs cupboard..dickhead vendor had switched the gas supply off prior to our survey to hide it, in my opinion. Again the gas board condemned it until it was repaired so no gas supply.

How this guy slept at night knowing what a dangerous state he had sold us his house in, also knowing we had 2 young kids blows my mind. Totally immoral.

This as well as botched plumbing, extensive woodworm, a leaking roof dangerous wiring...it's been a rollercoaster.

Most of the big things have been sorted now, OH an I are doing the majority of the renovation ourselves as we do not have the money to pay tradesmen..fortunately OH is very handy and has plumbed in a new bathroom, replaced rotten joists and replaced floors!

Still lots to do but the house is safe at least!

..understairs cupboard..not understaff..we keep them in the shed.

It'll be 19 years for us next month.we knew this place needed work but every single thing we've done has gone wrong.The roof on the extension has been replaced three times,the back of the house has been scaffolded so many times it wrecked the conservatory so that had to be replaced as well.

The rendering(done in 2010)is buggered,the windows at the front are 'sitting in the wrong place'(whatever that means)so they leak when it's raining and the wind is blowing from a certain direction,our new bathroom looks lovely but a slow leak has left us with two massive holes in the kitchen ceiling and this week we've been told that we've got the wrong gas pipe.

So many posters have said undoing previous owners’ botched and DIY jobs has taken all their savings. Perhaps if you’ve bought cheaply and expected to do some work, you have that safety net of savings (£10k? £50k?) AND the skills to crack on, just with different jobs than you’d expected.

But I didn’t know there was anything to worry about until after moving in. We’d asked for copies of the plans for the various extensions, and only when filing all the house-purchase stuff away did we realise the planning permission was for a different layout of internal walls. Yet it had been signed off by buildings regs, and we’d moved from 100 miles away and didn’t know the vendor had a bit of a reputation. And he was emigrating. Neither our couple of brief viewings nor a survey would have had the huge dresser moved, which would have revealed the hole in the concrete wall. Nor demonstrated that the woodchip and anaglypta wallpaper and thick textured paint were glueing bits of wall together. Or lifted the carpet in the walk-in wardrobe to reveal there was no floor, just carpet over the beams for the downstairs ceiling.

We should have moved immediately, but of course nobody local had wanted it because they knew him. By the time my ex-H cleared off, there had been huge changes in asbestos legislation and I don’t think it would have been newly-mortgageable to anyone.

I’ll likely be here until I’m wheeled out or the house collapses, but I often dream of chucking it in an auction and ending my days in a little caravan on the coast. Though I guess caravans need fixing too!