Is a survey necessary?

[westcountrywoman]

Purchasing a 15 year old property (semi detached 2 up, 2 down). Bank are happy to lend (85% purchase price as we only have 15% deposit) based on 'desktop valuation survey'. No requirement for further survey.

Would you still get a homebuyer survey? Given the age of the property, I'm not sure it's worth paying for.

We’ve bought 2 properties without a survey. If you have £ to fix any issues then no, don’t bother.

Alternatively, if something comes up in the survey, you could use it as a bargaining tool for a price drop? For example, years ago I bought a house which the survey threw up woodworm. I bargained with the vendor who dropped the price which in turn paid for it to be treated.

@PashaMinaMio Thanks. If it was an older property then absolutely I'd consider a survey worthwhile but for such a new place, I'm wondering if things like damp, woodworm etc. are really likely. There's certainly no evidence to my (untrained) eye when we viewed.

You can eyeball most issues which are likely to come up in a survey, roof, damp, movement etc. I say most, there's always a chance something unexpected might come up.

Question is, would an issue raised on the survey make a difference to you buying the House?

We've purchased 2X houses without surveys, no issues. One was a 30s semi the other house a 1990s new build. We have a really good root around on second viewing and we're confident any issues we could fix.

The one house we did have a survey on, the results were.so overblown and wordy it was a bit ridiculous. " Roof might need repairing in the next decade...." well roofs last around 25 years so could be said about any house. "No sign of damp but has cause to believe rear structural walls are at risk...." so no damp.

Ita purely personal, some folk will say have a level 3 survey always on evry house and others don't feel the need at all.

Good luck whichever you decide!

That's good to know @Gamergirl86 . I really feel that it would be highly unlikely that they'd find anything significant enough for us to negotiate on the agreed price for the property, therefore is it just an additional expense that we don't need at the moment.

This is the extreme. If you can afford this type of loss then don't worry about a survey.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/article/2024/jul/13/new-build-home-barratt-house