Hello,
Bit of a long one so I ask you to bear with me for this but I'm after some advice. I'm hoping you guys will be able to help as I am exhausting myself with constantly trying to problem solve this. It lives in my head 24/7 going round and round.
So we are both in our 40's and looking to buy our first house. We currently rent and we are ready to go asap.
We started looking about 6 weeks ago and after about 5 unsuccessful viewings, we happened upon a house that we all instantly fell in love with. Second viewing done and lots of questions asked, we offered and our second offer was accepted.
So the house is a 4 storey victorian semi built late 1800's. The current owners bought it very run down three years ago and completely renovated it and it's now immaculate. They are looking for their next project.
On the second viewing we did have a concern with a small patch of wet concrete floor in the corner of the basement. It was about 6 inches in length and in the corner near the window. I should point out at this point that the vendors had taken the laminate floor up in the basement (which is decorated and used as a room) to install underfloor heating. I did ask them at the time if they knew where this wet was coming from and they didn't. But they made no attempts to try and hide it. There were no other signs of any damp in the basement which as a basement you would expect to smell fusty but it didn't at all.
In light of this we mentioned our concerns to a family friend who is a builder. He does insurance surveys so said he was happy to go around and take a look at the house and I've his professional opinion.
He came back with the news that he thought the wet in the basement was being caused by a crack in the outside path and surface water was draining down.
He said that he had detected damp in some of the rooms (not sure how he had found this as I had searched and SNIFFED everywhere for any signs of damp) but his main concern was the roof which was the original victorian roof and in his opinion needed replacing asap. He said the original chimneys looked unsafe and would need taking down completely and rebuilding. He advised that we should walk away from this property. The following day with very very heavy hearts, we withdrew our offer
So almost two weeks on and I can't get this house out of my mind. Initially we made the decision to withdraw thinking we were being very sensible and 'grown up' and the right house would come along, but I can't help shake this feeling that it might be worth investigating a little further to see if buying it is still an option.
Here is the issue we have though. We don't have any savings to be able to pay for these works to be carried out. In this day and age where it is nigh on impossible to rent and save for a deposit at the same time, we are in a position where we have had to borrow our 5% deposit from a lovely friend so the first year or so will be spent repaying that.
We had already offered 20k below the asking before we encountered ANY of these issues so I'm not sure how we stand with offering again and going lower, but then we would still be only able to have a mortgage for the value of the house and not be allowed to borrow any more for repairs... or would we?
With us being new to this whole house buying business, I am wondering if there is anything we can do? Is there something we are missing? A way to get around this? Or is the problem too big to get around and we do need to walk away from this house?
If you can think of anything you can suggest that we may not know about or have overlooked, please let me know. I don't feel like I can put this house to bed without having tried everything available to us.
Thank you so so much if you got this far, I already feel a little lighter for having shared with you.