Have I bought a house of horrors?

[Wanderinstar80]

Moved on Friday into a new house, noticed almost right away that the tap in the bath was running and had an elastic hand round it to hold two parts together or in place. Maybe just a washer replacement, fair enough.

Saturday afternoon we noticed the overflow pipe up near the roof was running a bit, this seems to be intermittent however and we've not identified a cause as yet.

Today, we spotted a damp patch above our bedroom window. It's been very heavy rain and winds today, DH looked outside and there appears to be a bit of broken render and an issue with the window frame.

Then, a couple of hours ago, we found water dripping in another window. It seems to be coming through the frame itself, where holes have been drilled for the blinds. So tomorrow morning we will be calling our window guy, a roughcaster and a plumber!

I feel gutted tbh. We spent 18 months trying to move and both feeling like we regret it, all the spare cash we had aside to buy new furniture will be going on house repairs most likely. If the house needs re-rendering we'll have no choice but to cancel this year's holiday, kids will be upset but no other choice I guess.

Anyone else been in this situation? Did it work out in the end?

Did your survey not identify any of these issues?

The tap, windows and pipe no, all seemed OK with the survey. Weathering was noted to parts of the render but no other issues

Didn't you have a survey done?

If you only moved in on Friday and the survey didn't note any of these issues, you must immediately take note of them all and take photographs and call your solicitor immediately who will raise it will the seller's solicitor. There is a 14 day period (in Scotland anyway) where these issues can be raised and money can be recovered.

Thanks anon yes I'm in Scotland. My regular window guy is married to the legal secretary who works with my solicitor, I've sent her a message to ask for his help, so I'll see what she thinks as she'll have a good idea of these things no doubt

What you've described don't sound like very big jobs really. Hopefully the render can be patched, rather than having to have it all redone. The leaking window from drilled holes can also have the holes plugged/patched. A tap isn't expensive or difficult to replace.
How are you at DIY? It'd be cheaper if you could do the work yourselves.

Yeah we're pretty crap at DIY tbh. If it's just a patch job for render to fix then great, can hope that's all it needs. The holes in the frame don't go right through to the outside, they're on the underside of the upper part of the frame to hold up the blinds IYSWIM?
This has all been a stressful process, 18 months, two lost houses and four lost buyers prior to this. Plus I'm peri so it's just all been a bit much - with any luck these are just blips we can overcome easily and will love the house eventually

Did you have a proper (structural) survey, or just a "look around" one for the mortgage supplier?

Just the regular survey, wish we had done the full one now

None of them sound like big jobs to be honest. I read a lot worse on here before.

@chickpea I hope not, a full re-render is the worst case scenario and it would completely obliterate our savings at a minimum.

Don’t beat yourself up, a full survey is a waste of money. It picks up nothing but just says “All looks fine but we recommend you seek advice from a drainage/electrical/central heating etc specialist”. We had a full survey and just been told we need a new roof (£30K’s worth) two years after moving in. The roofers say it’s been a problem since the house was built 10 years ago. We also had to pay £10K last year for new bifold doors as we couldn’t open them because they’d fall out. We’ve got damp patches everywhere from the dodgy roof. The irony is that we moved to a new house from our gorgeous old Victorian house because we were fed up with the constant maintenance and just wanted somewhere that didn’t need any work.