What things did you regret after buying your house?

[HeartOrHeadDecision]

House purchase is such a big thing and yet you only have about 2-3 times to visit it briefly before you complete. And once you move in there might some little annoying thing that you really didn't expect. Was there one for you?

Not talking about a structural problem but let's say the door turned out to be tricky to get things through or the stairs too steep. Or sockets in a funny place.

Anything you always now check when looking for a new home?

When we brought current house back in early 90s - it hadn’t been touched since the 1950s so you can imagine the refurbishment work required - we didn’t realise we’d need to replace the roof though as it was leaking and the loft was damp…. The previous owner thought it was great to leave old carpets dumped up the loft with a load of other crap!

Moved from a 2 bed to a huge 5 bed. Did not realise how much maintenance (time and money) it is just to keep things looking naice. I now see why rich people have servants.

I regret not pushing more for a lower price, we knew there had been a leak on the shower and were told it was fixed, wish I'd asked for proof, the whole thing had to come out and be redone, added to that the roof needed doing, boiler replacing and oven, wish we'd switched both on during the viewings. Our fence needs redoing as the previous owner never bothered and the poor neighbour has had to shell out for it. Plug sockets in the bedroom only on back wall which is a pain. We had a survey done, but other than the roof, it wouldn't have found the little bits that have cost us.

Former owner turned off the water at the mains because "the house was vacant" (according to the EA) but in reality because there was a massive leak through the kitchen ceiling that only became apparent when we turned the water back on.

I wish I noticed that the patchwork of magnolia paint wasn't just covering up marks on the wall, it was covering up where the previous paintwork had been damaged down to the plaster - most rooms have need to be sanded before re-painting them and it's a PITA dusty business. Some doors are hung wrong (e.g. the kitchen door currently opens onto kitchen cupboards, blocking them, and has to be closed in order to access them); easy enough to fix but still irritating to have to do it. None of the toilet sinks are properly attached to the walls. We spent our first night in total darkness...they took every single bulb in the house.

The bathroom, when the bath emptied the shower filled up. The kitchen I thought just needed a good clean had to be ripped out straight away & we lived with virtually no kitchen for months.

It still is! We've been living on a building site for about two and a half years!

Note to self: Don't buy appealing Victorian wrecks with nice bones.

We don’t have any window sills upstairs!! I have no idea how we never noticed as we viewed three times. Wasn’t until the day we moved in I went to put my drink down as we were unloading everything. It’s very annoying as you can’t just add them in and I feel like the windows look really odd!

This. Exactly the same in my house, in most rooms. In my ensuite which is a small shower room they have managed to use a different type of skirting on each separate wall?

The untrained eye (or idiot rushed house viewer) wouldn't notice, but it does wind me up and I need to sort it out.