Opinions on surveys

[cakeabake]

Hi all,

Just wondering what the general consensus is on a pre-purchase survey - would you always get one done? Are there any circumstances in which you wouldn't - if, say, the house was newer?

Would be interesting to hear opinions (pro's v negatives) ...

I’ve never had one done, have bought a few total wrecks and current one just has issues. I have had a couple of minor surprises with the current one but I very much doubt they would have been picked up on survey.
I suspect most people have a survey.

Thank you, it would be interesting to know what % of people have a survey done.
What kind of things could come up that Might not be included in a survey?

Always get a survey done

I would never buy without a thorough survey.

I suspect most people get a survey done especially if they're buying residential property for their own use. There's not a massive amount of point if you're buying a wreck that you plan to totally renovate. I don't think they're massively useful in, eg, some blocks of flats either. They are generally pretty useless as well especially the Home Buyers survey. They don't have the scope or time to look at anything specialist or in any detail.

I’ve never had a survey ( only once for mortgage valuation).

only thing that would concern me is subsidence, which I check for.

never had any major problems, only minor things that are uncovered when ripping out which a survey would not be able to spot.

Always get a full survey to be sure of the main things but be prepared for them to add caveats for everything. My survey missed the fact we have a full cellar! I only found it myself 3 months after moving in!

We always get a survey but don't know why we bother as they seem to be a complete waste of time!

I had a survey done but house was only 20 years old, so just got a level two…basically just came back with extremely minor little things

We had a survey done recently and honestly we didn't learn any from it, it was a waste of money. That purchase fell through and we aren't bothering with one this time around

We got the more detailed survey done both times we bought and it was really useful for highlighting where we'd expect to need to spend money and giving an idea of cost.

Both times we bought houses from elderly person who'd lived there for decades so houses clearly needed stuff doing. The surveys gave a good indication of whether roof work was needed or rewiring etc.

Structural survey was useful for us. Highlighted many things that needed doing, now we know and have an idea of cost. It was also useful as we negotiated the price and got 15k off. So yes, I would definitely recommend it. Do some research though and get a firm with good reviews.

I'm an older cash buyer after downsizing, and had a survey. On the telephone the surveyor said it was a 'nice bungalow' and he thought I'd be happy here. I found out all the floors were rotten about six months later and needed completely replacing, then the 'new' resin flat roof on the extension was blown off a few weeks later in Storm Arwen. I don't think I'd bother with a survey if I moved again.

We've not had a survey on our last four purchases all of which were wrecks of varying degrees. Each time we were cash buyers.

The 'newest' of these was built in the 1850s and the oldest 400 years ago (not listed).

Having renovated eight properties ourselves, we feel fairly confident knowing what to look for and - having seen the errors made by surveyors on houses we were selling - we don't particularly trust their findings.

My parents had a full survey done on a bungalow they wanted to buy some years ago. It looked very pristine and had been recently done up by a builder to sell on. The survey revealed so many serious problems which the builder had covered up, glossed over or just plain botched. The property was valued at about £75k less than the price my parents had offered. They pulled out immediately, so they ‘lost’ the hundreds of pounds they’d spent on the survey, but considered it money well spent and a bullet dodged.

After having full structural survey done on our previous house and not learning concrete answers to anything we were concerned about such as any damp etc. we decided not to get a survey done on our current house to which we moved to recently. I think we saved lot of money asafter refurbishing we haven’t discovered any issues we didn’t know about. I think surveys are waste of money as there is lots of covering their back by the survivors

Thanks so much for the opinions. House buying is so expensive and stressful

It's a really tricky one. Surveyor in a recent level 2 recommended investigating cracking at rear so wasted £500 on a structural engineer who said it was just normal time-led settlement. If I'd been to look myself I wouldn't have spent the money, knowing from experience of other houses that it was nothing to worry about,
On the other hand, on a previous property where we really should have had a survey but didn't, (being sceptical about surveys) we probably wouldn't have bought it if we had done, certainly not at the price.

I have a comedy mental image of you opening a door and abruptly disappearing from view

How do you live in a house for 3 months and not know it has a cellar ? Was it a secret door and you had to pull on the spindles on the stairs in a certain order to open it 😀