Buy or Not to buy confused

[zomoxos]

Our offer 500K has been accepted for a 3-bed mid-terraced house located in London, the property has a ground floor extension (small room). The property requires a laundry list of refurbishments.

Boiler
Radiators (pretty outdated)
Carpet for the whole house
Bathroom
Two rooms have popcorn ceilings (potential Artex)
Water is slow and still connected with Tank in the loft (this need to replacement)
Loft insulation.
As per the survey, roof might require replacement in the next 5 years
As per the survey, windows are not energy efficient and need to be replaced.

We have kicked off Solicitor and Conveyancing process and search results revealed

Property title is only a Limited Title Guarantee
The rear extension has no building regulation certificate
No gas or electricity certificate will be provided and it's our responsibility to ensure to check this.

The solicitor suggesting to proceed with title and extension with indemnity policy, but we thought let's pull this offer. We like the house and has the potential and close to the school, and other amenities but as first-time buyers we felt too many risks involved in this transaction. So we are a bit confused at this stage as we have to spend 30K to 40K for the renovation then we don't know what issue could pop up at the same time above the legal issues as well.

Could you please advise?

Thanks

Over 5 years that sounds like more than a £40k renovation spend, particular if it needs a new roof in London.

If it’s a great area etc with good potential to increase in value, you’re intent on staying there for a while and, more importantly, you can actually afford it then I’d probably still go for it assuming the mortgage isn’t daft. But plan for the renovations to cost 50% more than you think (once they start ripping things apart they often find more problems) and take 50% longer than you think (avoids stress and disappointment).

That might be more food for thought than advice. The legal issues would put me off more than anything based on the fabric of the house. They can take longer and be more expensive to solve.

Best of luck whatever you decide.

It depends if you want to do work to a house. If you don’t buy a new one. Any older property can have hidden issues no matter how good it looks on the surface.

Carpets always need replacing so you can’t count those.
If the windows are wind and water tight and are secure they don’t need replacing.
the rads maybe old and fine or may need replacing. You can leave them until they leak.
The boiler is a good idea to replace sooner than later.
if you are not moving any pipe work replacing boiler and rads is not a difficult job.
A new tank for the loft isn’t expensive and that system of plumbing is fine although more unusual now
the roof what is the roofing material. If it’s tiles and the felt is old it probably will need attention
I would t worry about the gas and electrical certs. If the wiring is post 1970s it’s probably just a few upgrades needed.
you want the gas checking yourself anyway
30-40k probably isn’t enough to do everything. So can you live with most things for the location is the question you need to answer?
is the extension quite old. If it is building regs are less of an issue.

There no way your doing that for 30-40k

We are a year and a half into similar level of renovation (bar the roof). Lost count but think currently on 60/70kish

The issue you have is when your changing all the plumbing, radiators, boilers, wiring then all your walls and floors get fucked. In old houses that chasing out brick work. So you can’t even breathe without inhaling brick dust. It is literally unliveable!

Then once you have torn everything apart, run out of money and want to cry and scream you have to spend a shit load putting it all back together. Replastering walls. Refurbing floors and woodwork. It’s an insane amount of work. You need atleast 100k to get through it in a reasonable timescale.

It’s not something I would suggest for a ftb. Forever home yes. Not first rung.

My concerns would be boiler/bathroom/water pressure/windows.

What is wrong with the windows?
Why haven’t you mentioned the kitchen?

find another property?

Thanks for your reply.

Initial thought is not replace plumbing and leave the wall as it was. Basically rip off the wallpaper and repaint (only first floor), the ground floor need just repaint.

Windows are water tight but compliant is not energy efficient due to age of the windows.

Kitchen - is decent (might be paint?)

Agree. This will cost more than £40k and I think that more problems could be uncovered with this type of work.

I’ve bought recently and have managed to organise some similar work for about £25k - replacing half of the windows/door (they’ve blown/wouldn’t close), replacing roof, redoing bathroom. However I’ve not had to replace radiators. Some carpets ideally need replacing but I am going to live with those till I’ve saved up more. Could some of the work wait and be done gradually while you save?

I also have some artex ceilings but am going to leave those as have been told they are not unsafe as long as not disturbed. I can live with the way they look!

Thanks @Diymesss yes our initial plan was the same. I have some DIY experience. So the plan is to replace the bathroom, carpet, boiler, and radiator, leave the rest of the part as it was and renovate at a slower phase. We consulted one of the builder he suggested the same his estimation was something around 30K and added another 10K as a buffer.

But with this renovation + legal (limited title, extension certificate issue ) we don't know whether we can take a such risk as first-time buyer. This is making me stress about whether to take a call to pull or take a risk to proceed.

Limited title means ? Owner didn't live there? You get more house for your money? You need to spend an hour or two in the house checking things for yourself ?

@zomoxos I know nothing about this limited title legal issue sorry. Can your solicitor give you an overview of the potential risks and if they feel it is safe enough with the indemnity certificate?

Otherwise the house sounds like a good price for London, if the area is ok and suits you.

You can arrange an electricial survey before and sounds like it would be a good idea to do so if you want to go ahead.

Which area is it in?

Op have you compared the price of the house with others more done up houses to work out if the work is worth it?

i would say that all surveyors exaggerate what needs doing because they don’t want to be sued for missing something so perhaps you could differentiate between what needs to be done and what you want to be done. There will always be house maintenance irrespective of the condition when you bought it. For example I have had to replace a boiler in a 30 year old house and a 20 year old house. I also had to replace some blown windows in my 20 year old house and it didn’t cost much as I wasn’t replacing the frames. You want to replace the windows to make them energy efficient, but have you worked out the saving you’d get for replacing windows and how many years to pay it back? Is this really essential? Likewise with radiators, I have never replaced a radiator, how bad are they? How long are you going to live in the house? If it’s only for 5 years then just prioritise the jobs. Is it possible to look at the roof with a drone? I think surveyors always put on a standard sentence about a new roof on every survey, but few actually need it.

For the extension can you get another surveyor to check it out and make sure no load bearing beams were removed when installing it.

Speaking of electrics, were there enough sockets in the rooms?
If it hasn’t been rewired in the last 30 to 35 years, then it’s unlikely you can just extend it, you’d have to do a full rewire plus new consumer unit.

and coming back to the windows, are they uPVC double glazed, but old? Or single glazed wooden?

The extension, if it looks sound is most likely fine. It it’s knackered, like moved away from the main house, damp, old felt roof, sticking door, it’s more of an issue. A builder could give a good opinion.

@C4tastrophe Sockets are there but we are unsure about how old the wiring was and also we are unsure whether this needs rewiring and potentially need an electrical engineer's suggestion.

Windows are double-glazed with an Aluminium frame.

The extension is 30 years old as per the survey report the extension is standard construction with solid flooring. There was damping but seems work has been carried out to fix it.

Yes, properties around with fit and finish cost around 70K more than this property. This property has additional ground floor room + a big garden + driveway. Our initial thought was comparing other properties, this has a lot of potential and it is 70K less than similar size property so we thought this good buy. But don't know whether our judgment is correct. The surveyor said the property is structurally sound but needs refurb of the interior + exterior.

Thanks. The area is Harrow.

Thanks @Diymesss yes might be an option. I have to check that as well.

Limited title means ? Owner didn't live there? - yes selling her mom's property and she has no knowledge about the title, finance, or any thing about it.

You get more house for your money? - don't know :-)

Thanks @Whyohwhyohwhy123

It depends if you want to do work to a house. If you don’t buy a new one. Any older property can have hidden issues no matter how good it looks on the surface. - agreed.

Carpets always need replacing so you can’t count those. - +1

If the windows are wind and water tight and are secure they don’t need replacing. - Surveyor suggested one or two windows blows off and its aluminium may be around 40 years old.

the rads maybe old and fine or may need replacing. You can leave them until they leak.

The boiler is a good idea to replace sooner than later. - boiler is very old may be 25 or 30 years old.

if you are not moving any pipe work replacing boiler and rads is not a difficult job. - Yes I won't be moving any pipe.

A new tank for the loft isn’t expensive and that system of plumbing is fine although more unusual now

-Suggestion was to remove that.

the roof what is the roofing material. If it’s tiles and the felt is old it probably will need attention

-pitched tile roof

I would t worry about the gas and electrical certs. If the wiring is post 1970s it’s probably just a few upgrades needed.
you want the gas checking yourself anyway

-Sure

30-40k probably isn’t enough to do everything. So can you live with most things for the location is the question you need to answer?

• I have to think about this . Thanks for your feedback.

is the extension quite old. If it is building regs are less of an issue. - yes was constructed 1996.

Regarding the roof - we bought an edwardian house 30 years ago and survey said it would need new roof soon - although we had to get a small area fixed when some tiles had moved same roof is still goung strong - hasnt even got roofing felt under the tiles.

sounds like a good long term buy to me and you seem to know what to expect. Getting electrics and gas checked for safety would sensible.

An extension built in 1996 should not have damp.
I’d want an explanation for that.

To be honest, it sounds like you are taking a risk. It could be they had regular maintenance and flushed the heating system every year, or it could be furred up. Removing the tank in the loft could turn into 3x more expense than you think.

That 40k will go quite quickly. There have been threads on the poor value of fixer-uppers.

I think 30-40K would be an underestimate for that even in the NW, where I live, though if you plan to reuse the kitchen units, and are handy yourself, you might squeeze it in. If it coming out a good 20k more than that would be a problem for you, I think you will need more specific quotations for some items so you know what you're getting into; maybe you could postpone some things until you have saved up a bit? And an electrical report- I really would get on. If you end up needing a rewire, that's messy and expensive. It may still not be a deal-breaker, but you do need to know to budget sensibly. If a rewire is desirable but not essential for safety, maybe postpone things like decorating until you have saved up and got it done- saves doing things twice.