Spooked by survey! Advice please.

[TwinklyPlumHedgehog]

We are in the process of buying a house. It’s a great size, lovely garden, excellent location. However, we’ve just had the survey back and finding it quite scary - would really appreciate an outside/ more experienced perspective!

The house is an old stable block that was renovated in the 1970s. It’s basically a large L-shaped bungalow with a loft conversion which includes a couple of bedrooms and a bathroom. The house was advertised as being ‘recently renovated’ and they’ve done a lot of cosmetic work but, as the survey says, haven’t done much to address some of the larger issues.

The main things we’re worried about are the roof and the damp. The slate roof has already been patched up many times and the surveyor said a neighbour ‘regularly’ has slates from the roof falling into his garden. The survey suggests that the whole roof needs to be re-slated in the near future which, given the shape of the property, would be a big job. The surveyor couldn’t check the state of roof timbers as the ceilings are pitched but there is rot to timbers visible externally (behind falling apart fascias).

There is damp along the back and front walls of the property. This is likely due to failing gutters (presumably not too expensive to replace?) and a higher ground level along the bottom of the property. The surveyor was particularly concerned that the vendors might have covered up damp as they’ve added lots of new plasterboard in the recent cosmetic refurbishment.

Other concerns are how much it would be to heat as it’s a single brick construction (and likely no insulation in the roof) and the upstairs bathroom only has a macerating toilet which isn’t ideal.

We are up for doing some work, but don’t have much wiggle room in the budget once we’ve bought the house. We also have two young children so didn’t really want to take on too much of a project.

Does this list sound horrendous? Reasonable? Should we try and renegotiate or run??

Thank you!

Have you maxed out your budget with your offer? A lot of it will come down to how much spare money you have and are willing to spend and how much disruption you’re willing to put up with. Will you have to be living there while things are sorted?

I think it sounds fine if you’re prepared for work. Roof is fixable at a cost. Gutters are easy.
It’s the single skin that would bother me the most, cold in winter possibly too hot when it’s sunny. Find out if there’s any way of insulating it easily. Insulation can be put on internally or externally depending on the building.
I think you’re in for a slow long project.
They definitely need to negotiate on price. Internal paint work doesn’t make up for no insulation

Single brick sounds horrendous, without everything else. Our utility room is a single brick add on, as is the garage the last owners converted. Both suffered freezing cold and with damp. We had to pay £££’s to have the converted garage knocked back to brick, specially insulated and replastered. The utility is like a freezer in winter, despite having a radiator, being clad with thick insulating polystyrene sheets 2”thick and wooden cladding. We are constantly wiping mould off the upvc and sealant of the door and window. Awful but can’t afford to sort atm.

Thanks for your reply! We are pretty much at maximum budget. We did keep a small amount back in case of unexpected costs but I don’t think it would come close to covering the work needed. We would need to live in the house while all work was done.

Thanks for your message, and sorry to hear about your heating woes.

Your post made me think I must have misunderstood the survey so I’ve gone back to look at it again. It’s a solid brick wall (not a single brick wall, phew!). Think I was thrown by it not being a cavity wall. No idea how warm a solid brick wall is!

If they have covered up an old solid brick wall with modern plasterboard that may be creating the damp. Tbh you may be paying to completely undo most of their "renovations". Concrete repairs or concrete slabs near an old stable block,where the original building materials might be lime mortar or lime based is surely not a good idea?

Insulating the roof space might actually increase the likelhood of rotten timbers if ventilation is not there. The same with insulating by modern methods like kingspan - the old bits of the house cannot breathe and you create condensation and damp unless it's to passive house standards,which is unlikely in a 70s renovation.

Thanks @Nettleskeins! Is there a type of loft/ roof insulation that would be appropriate for this kind of house?

Im not a surveyor or building specialist or a roofer!

I suppose my experience is that paying through the nose for heating is better than dealing with the damp and condensation that can sometimes follow the wrong insulation methods, (IE spray foam insulation in roof spaces)useless damp proof courses or uPVC double glazing without trickle vents.

https://historicengland.org.uk/advice/technical-advice/retrofit-and-energy-efficiency-in-historic-buildings/upgrading-thermal-elements-installing-insulation/insulating-roofs-in-historic-buildings/

Advice like this?

Thank you! Very helpful and lots of food for thought. I appreciate it!

It sounds like a money pit. What if it needs a proper new roof, timbers etc? As a stable block it could have had leaks for a hundred or so years, before it was made habitable.
Also the 1970’s were not the peak of building regulations, the floor is most likely solid concrete with no insulation. Couple that with no wall insulation and the lack of insulation in the loft (though a new roof will resolve that) then you’ll spend a fortune on heating.
Speaking of which, what is the heating?

@HellsBalls The roof timbers are a real worry. There’s no way to see what state they’re in. And yes, concrete floors throughout the downstairs. The more we think about it, the more this doesn’t seem like the right house for us - unless the vendors are willing to drop the price quite considerably (unlikely).

It is central heating - a gas boiler.

I just reread your original post. Personally I wouldn’t risk it. Replacing plasterboard without saying why or that they have completed extensive damp remediation is a huge red flag.
It sounds like at a minimum the slate roof needs striping off, and any rotten rafters replaced. That in turn damages the ceilings. You’d also need to insulate, and in reality it really needs a ‘warm roof’ to bring it up to anything resembling modern standards. Solid walls are a heat sink. Turn off the CH and the heat will be gone. You can obviously deal with that, but it’s expensive and disruptive.
If should be priced as a renovation project.

I wouldn't take this property as a gift.

Run.

You could go back to the estate agent / vendor and ask for a reduction based on the survey. They might offer a decent amount.

Without a massive reduction in price, and I do mean massive - enough to replace roof then some, I'd run. Actually, I'd just run now because once you start work you'll find more horrors.

Sounds like a nice Summer holiday let, not a year-round home.

IMO, houses like this, which have the potential to be amazing, quirky, beautiful homes, are best bought by tradies, who will do it up properly themselves, using mates rates in the trade and getting cost price materials.

it’s not for the faint hearted or those without skills or money to sort the issues.

Calculate the costs of the potential works and revise your offer. The sellers are probably expecting it.

This is all a bit scared mongering. People have lived in this property, happily, we assume, for years. Rot on the outside doesnt necessarily means all the roof timbers are shot inside. Guttering issues and no recent maintenance to fascias are straightforward. External levels too high; causing damp to build up again that's a straightforward thing to put in a french drain with pebbles round raised parts and take off the plasterboard and replaster affected walls. House will dry out if given chance.
Insulation is not necessarily the cost here nor may it be necessary. Not a single wall in this solid brick Edwardian house is insulated. We are fine. We have no damp. We don't have damp in the roof either or loft insulation besides boarding and "boxes" of stuff. We do have a french drain round house where earth patio was built too high and we DO need to/paint fix our external decorative timber. Our house is not going to fall down and we have lived here comfortably since the kids were born, 25 years and counting.
If someone was to buy the house I would expect them to factor in that it was an old house and might require considerable ongoing maintenance but its other virtues would mean the price would remain at a certain point give or take 20k!!!

It's almost certainly been priced for what it is....an old house. Why do people expect everything to be perfect when the price will reflect that it's not! If it WAS perfect maybe the price would reflect that and it would have been out of range.

It wasn’t built as a dwelling, OP, and it doesn’t sound as if the original conversion addressed this basic disjunct. Why doesn’t the upstairs toilet connect to the soil pipe ? Presumably because that would be too much trouble or expense.

We had a building like this in our village. It was a nightmare ( except for the local builders merchant who got to know the owners very well).