L3 Building survery report

[ReginaPhalang]

We recently got the survey of a property done. It's a 100 year old semi-detached house. We liked the property during viewing and didn't find any issues. After receiving the survey report, we started to think if we need to go for it or find a relatively newer houses since we don't want to spend too much money/energy on the repairs if they keep on occuring.

I understand that all surveys will come up with issues and want to know if this is something we can go ahead with or not.

Survey conclusion: "The general condition of the property appears consistent with its age and type of construction with no evidence of structural movement associated with ground instability.
However further investigations are required, regarding some stepped diagonal cracking and bow evident to the brickwork above the rear doors.
The property suffers from several wants of repair and improvement. Provided you are prepared to accept the cost and inconvenience of dealing with various repair and improvement works reported, and that the necessary works are carried out to a satisfactory standard, we can see no reason why there would be any special difficulty on resale, in normal market conditions."

They gave cost estimates of about 25k (attaching the pictures) and the owners are ready to reduce about 15k. Please share advice if we can go for it. My main concerns are with damp(survey mentioned at several places to take care of something to avoid the damp). We have a small child and I don't want any health problems due to the state of the house.

Well if you don't want a damp house due to a small child (wise: I got M.E. after being exposed to mould) I don't see how you can buy it without them getting it fixed in advance, unless you can afford two homes at once.

Getting tradesmen is an absolute nightmare at the moment. How long would you be prepared for the child to be exposed while you wait? Three months? Six? None? Six month waits is something I see crop up often here for tradesman these days.

However further investigations are required, regarding some stepped diagonal cracking and bow evident to the brickwork above the rear doors.

This could be concerning - I'm confused why they aren't giving a reason for the cracking, if you've had a structural engineer around for the survey, surely they're there to diagnose? 'Further investigations' would be themselves, surely?

It appears to be a homebuyers survey with costs against stuff that needs doing.

Eg replacing bathroom mastic, at a cost of £300? Have a word. You can dig it out and do it yourself for £20.

Thermal jacket for water tank £150 - errr, well, they're £30, so sure, if you want to employ someone do that for £120, go for it.

Very odd survey. Never see a survey that tells you to replace mastic. Kinda looks like they're just looking for faults to justify the price OP paid.

I'm not exactly sure if the house has damp. The survey report mentioned at several places to extend the damp proof course, do so and so to prevent future damp etc and I started to think if this can be avoided if we try and find a newer house.

Very basic question as we are FTB, how do we identify damp? survey mostly talked about doing immediate repairs for preventing future damp. Do we need a tradesmen to do the damp proofing?

Yes this is a home buyers survey. We are interested in buying a property and got it surveyed. We are not present at the property during the survey and so are not sure about details of if structural engineer is present

Yes this is a home buyers survey and we chose someone by searching the internet. We are FTBs and this is the first time we got a survey done, so we don't have any references to check :)

Then you didn't have a L3 survey.

You need a full structural survey, basic home buyers survey are pretty crap to be honest.

I think OP is getting confused with the names. If she's calling it a L3, it's probably a L3. That what should be called an L2 is actually called a homebuyers' survey more often than not, which is essentially what an L3 is but in more detail, just confuses everyone, especially FTBs.

So we don't have any references to check

I don't understand what you mean, OP.

Then it doesn't really sound as though it does have damp. I suggest you phone the surveyor and ask.

Buying a new build is not exactly a great idea at the moment, if that's what you are thinking. They are often overpriced and lose value pretty quickly.

If you mean NEWER, i.e. a house that's younger than 40 but not newer than 10 years old, that's also a reasonable plan. But even houses in that age bracket require maintenance and can have things fall apart on them.

May I ask what % deposit you are putting down and how long you intend to stay in the house for?

Do the mortgage lenders not appoint their own surveyors anymore? (Asking for s friend 🤔)

This survey on a 100yr old house wouldn't worry me tbh, although I might get an electrician in to check things.

However you should be aware that an older house will need constant maintenance simply due to age. Pointing, insulation, electrics, plumbing, condensation...

Yes, we are thinking if newer houses(<50 yr old for ex) are better wrt maintaining and lesser repairs. We plan to put down 15% deposit and intend to stay around at least 7 years (mostly for primary schooling).

Survey doesn't say that the house has damp, it mentions several repairs to prevent future damp. We liked the property(mainly due to proximity of primary schools) We didn't like any other property in the area yet and want to know if these issues are not blockers to go ahead with the purchase

yes survey mentioned about pointing, DPC etc. What age houses will have less maintenance issues like this? (< 50 yr old are better?)

Sorry for my ignorance :D (I thought home buyers survey = survey done by home buyers) We actually did get L3 survey which did full structural survey. No structural issues were identified. Most issues are around ventilation, repointing, DPC etc.

They wouldn't be for me. With a higher level survey, surveyors are legally responsible if they don't follow a 'trail of suspicion' ie. if they see something and don't give a likely reason/potential repair cost for it.

We used our survey as a jobs guide for the first year or so.

On damp - they should have taken damp readings. It sounds like they aren't detecting damp atm but they will identify areas where damp could occur. For example, if guttering is blocked/sash windows etc.

They have given you a report with costs of rectification at trade prices, so you can negotiate with the vendor. It sounds like that has worked exactly as it should, and there is a lot of information about how the survey is carried out on the RICS and other websites.

Ultimately it can only be your decision based on what you want to do or could do yourself, but you asked how other people would see it, and it sounds pretty normal to me.

You have paid for the full fireworks then, and the expectations of the surveyor are correspondingly high. If they are mentioning maybe damp course but not current clear damp it wouldn't worry me - but then, I am raising three pre-schoolers in a house basically made of mud 😄

£300 for some to re mastic the bath !!!!!! When would you like me to start🤣.

do not think buying a house 40-50 years old will necessarily mean it’s in good condition, our house was 39 years old when we got it and it was in dire need of renovation.

You are at pretty low risk of negative equity if you have a 15% deposit and are intending to stay for 7 years, so if you're happy that nothing else is too much of a problem, it sounds like a sensible purchase.

Do you have savings, aside from any deposit, to pay for the more urgent items (bowed wall and lintel, windows, repointing)?

We bought a similar sounding house, a little younger than yours, and had to immediately repoint the entire house as it rained inside the walls when it was raining outside! That plus a few other urgent repairs listed on our survey wiped out our existing savings for a while.

yes I hope our savings would be enough for the repairs. How much time & cost does it take for repointing the house? And did it fix the issue with walls during rain?

haha, thanks for the reassurance :)

The repointing absolutely was worth the cost, completely stopped the water ingress. It needed scaffolding, was noisy and took a little while but I'm very glad we did it. New windows helped lots with reducing drafts and reducing heating costs.