Bungalow we are currently in the process of buying has given me the ick!

[ErlingHaalandsManBun]

I have posted about this previously but the issues we are having with the bungalow we are buying continue to come in and it has now given me the 'property ick'

I'm not sure I can come back from it but DH is still really keen to buy. Although he won't make me feel bad if I decide I want to walk away.

Issues are:

Bungalow has no completion certificate from when it was built in 2004 (and it has already had a new roof which makes us nervous as to why it has needed one so soon)

Oil tank is knackered and needs replacing. Due to new legislation it can no longer go in the same place as the one already there meaning we need to move the shed losing a chunk of garden on the other side, and the tank itself will be further into an already small garden.

Boiler is knackered and needs replacing.

Searches have shown a drain under the property which is owned by the house next door and the title shows they have rights to come onto our land to maintain or repair this drain. We are also liable for 50% of any costs incurred for this drain.

Searches have shown the property is in a high risk area of both natural ground subsidence and radon.

All of the above have made me fall out of love with what should have been a 'dream relocation' by the sea. DH thinks everything above is fixable and doable and we need to crack on further and get some answers to our questions and have a proper think before we pull out but I feel just about ready to walk away.

We have put our concerns about the above to the sellers solicitors and have requested they get the build signed off retrospectively along with questions about the oil tank and the location of this drain so are waiting for those answers and having a few days to think and talk further.

I just think that when you are buying a property it should be an exciting experience and I am just worried we are buying something that is a potential money pit and it doesn't feel the same property that I thought we were buying and fell in love with.

Would all this put you off or is DH right?

Find another one.

We have recently moved into a bungalow that has a number of minor problems or inconveniences. Each is manageable but will need money that we have but would rather not spend at the moment.
That close to the sea you will be likely to have higher winds that will load your roof.
Subsidence is not to be taken lightly.
How close is the drain run to your house or shed or oil tank? Sod having to pay 50% of costs to repair it. Where does your drain go into that pipe?
I would have walked away by now unless offered a large discount. 30% say.
Certificate of completion; I would want that now before any more negotiation takes place.

do you need a tank?
could this be an opportunity to go fully electric with heat pump/solar?
expensive but might not be more expensive than relocating the tank plus new boiler.

but yes, if this is not reflected in price I would walk away.
the completion cert is red flag enough

From what we can see by the invoice provided it was a whole roof replacement. The invoice also says '10 year guarantee' but there is no actual paperwork for that. We googled the guy who did the roof in 2024 and he is out of business!! So the guarantee also is not worth the paper its written on. 🙄

I think we had this ideal in our head of being right by the sea front which is where this is. The others we like are about a 15-20 minute walk away and I guess, in the whole scheme of things, is not really a big deal.

We are waiting to get the house signed off retrospectively and then, as someone suggested, we are going to have a drain survey and also a full structural to check for signs of subsidence. I think if everything comes back as being okay we may well stick with this purchase.

Looking at the oil tank options there may be ways round where we can have it and it may not take up as much space as we initially thought.

So lots to still figure out and I feel slightly less concerned about it today.

Getting thoughts and opinions and other's similar experiences on here has been really eye opening.

This is exactly how I have been feeling about it. The subsidence risk would need investigating, and also the position of the drain as we have no idea exactly where this drain sits within the property. The 50% cost to repair the drain is in the deeds so when we buy the property, we take that on, no negotiating that.

However, nothing else will happen until they get a certificate of regularisation and get the property signed off retropectively first. We would need to see that before we did any other surveys etc.

The oil tank issue is also something we would need to figure out and its definitely not a cost that we didn't expect to have to spend and its not factored into the price of the property so we would also need to re-open negotiations too.

We are not quite ready to walk away but we are pretty damn close.

I feel slightly better about things today but I know this can only go ahead if we get the reassurance we need, certificates are produced, surveys check out okay and we get a re-negotiation on price.

So a lot to figure out and we still have yet to find out what our sellers think of our multiple issues, enquiries and requests. They may well tell us to sod off to the lot 😂

Thank you so much for this, its really useful info and definitely something we need to look more into and consider.

I think your vendor is a 24carat dyed in the wool chancer offering a house at average rate for the area. It should be discounted. It has a number of serious problems which have been discussed already up-thread. This drain needs further consideration.
If there was a problem the cost and the nuisance value could vary,
If they had to dig up some of your garden: . A nuisance
If they need to get under your new shed . . .A real nuisance
If they needed to get under your Oil Tank that had to be disturbed. . It would be a pain in the arse.
If however it runs under your house. They would probably block it off. Reroute the pipe around your house and make a new connection wherever. You would be living in a building site
It is unlikely that you will have a problem, maybe there has never been one so far, but that clause was put in for a reason. Why accept someone else's risk?
My scenario is dramatic but I usually assume that if it can go wrong. It probably will.
Gardens that close to the sea and in a windy position restrict the choice of plants that will tolerate salty air. So it would not suit us at all.

Those questions and the remedies will all have to go through your solicitor and will bump up the bill. They will be looking at luxury cruises already.

Definitely not with the oil tank/boiler. They are a nightmare now due to new legislation and to knowingly buy a house with one is asking for trouble.

I see you've added subsidence into the mix too.

Do you know how much noise a bungalow that's subsiding makes in the middle of the night when everyone's asleep? It sounds like someone's walking around in it, and it never ceases to alarm a sleepy brain.

Source: I live in a (thankfully rented) subsiding bungalow (on a river)

You know what to do, otherwise this post wouldn't exist - off you toddle

Far too many things.

I have also come to loathe the light levels in here. The OH looked it up and apparently bungalows can only have x watts or something? I didn't pay much attention. I cannot read in any room in my house during winter.

We found it all quite straightforward, you just have to make sure the fitter is qualified to do it properly.

Well practically everyone we have spoken to (friends/family) has said they would advise us to walk away from this due to all the issues.

Mentioned in one of my updates, we have also discovered that the 10 year guarantee for the roof replacement done in 2024 is not worth the paper its written on. Its just scribbled in writing on an invoice, there is no formal paperwork for this, and the guy who did the work has now gone out of business!! 🙄

Another red flag. It just seems to get worse.

And just when I had started to relax about it all and was looking into ASHP's and wondering if I was being a bit too hasty and anxious! 😂

We looked at properties with both septic tank and oil, neither were wildly expensive, even now online says in the SE UK,new oil tank is between £1 and £4k. Heat pumps are very expensive average £12k to £15, you don't just have the unit outside,you need a lot of space inside, plus normally bigger radiators and larger bore pipework. I just watched Guy Martin and a program about retro fitting an older property. The insulation etc came to an eye watering £100k. Obviously this is extreme and you probably wouldn't go for triple glazing in the UK..

We walked away from a property with very similar issues (if you hadn’t mentioned how close to the sea yours was, I’d have thought it was the same house)!
the final straw for me was realising that the sewage pipe that ran through the property from next door (that we would have been 50% responsible for) was not in the garden as per the plans we were given, but actually ran underneath the kitchen extension they had added on at the back, that wasn’t shown on the plans….
never picked up the phone so quickly in my life to say - no thanks, we’re out!

Thanks for sharing this.

We have a horrible feeling that ours runs under the house, or at least close to it. It concerns me because if there is an issue, on the title deeds, the owners of next door have access rights to come onto our property to fix the issue and we are 50% liable for any costs incurred!!

So not only might we have the garden/driveway (or wherever it is located) dug up to fix the issue, but we would have to pay for half the costs!

DH and I are taking the weekend to think and talk things through because we don't want to make any hasty decisions but every time we have spoken so far we both feel we need to pull out.

I have a feeling I will be on the phone first thing Monday morning and we have to go find something else. 😕

I know it’s hard, we had totally fallen in love with the house/location etc. and 8 years later, I still think about that house every now and then and wonder what would have happened if we had gone ahead. But at the same time, I simply did not want to be at the mercy of the potential for someone else’s shit leaking under my kitchen, the disruption of building work to remediate it - AND having to pay for 50% of the costs for the privilege of it!
I hope you and DH can come to a decision together on this

My experience @ErlingHaalandsManBun -

We bought a house with both an oil tank (rural area with just two nearish neighbours, no gas available) and a septic (not shared) in 2018.

As there was actually no water supply to the property (historically it had come from a shared well, but the farmer whose land it was on fell out with the neighbours), we also had to have a borehole drilled (cost us 11k in 2018). I didn't mind the oil and lack of bills for water/sewage was great, but the septic tank was a source of worry.

We sold in 2024 and all three (oil, septic, borehole) caused numerous concerns for our buyers and their conveyancing solicitor (septic too close to house plus it was found to be collapsing/potential lead in water supply/issues with - new - oil-fired boiler etc). They raised 50+ enquiries and very nearly pulled out, so we had to reduce the price at the last minute, having already accepted an offer under asking. No way would we consider buying a property with oil, septic or borehole ever again....

But, our new home is a cottage two minutes from the sea 🙄

The completion certificate (building regs you mean?) is a non issue, they didn't issue them back then, the requirement to do so came in in an act around 2012. If it has planning permission and a building regs acknowledgement of the plans that is all that is needed.

It is a difficult decision to make because no-one knows if it will even happen but for me I think the niggle will always be there and I want to relax and enjoy my home not worry about sewerage!

We have had other houses fall through in the past and it was heartbreaking at the time but we always managed to find something else so I know that we will be okay and that this one possibly just wasn't meant to be.

Someone else will come along and buy it that will take it with all the risks involved and it may well be amazing for them. I am just not sure that its for us.

Thanks xx

These are absolutely red flags that should change your mind about buying the property. If you discover big costs or problems during discovery, you should absolutely pull out.

Unfortunately we think that it is, and so does our Solicitor and so did our Surveyor.

This isn't part of a development of similar builds, or in a terrace etc, its a one off unique build. So we have no idea if the builder followed the plans that were submitted to the council, if he cut corners with the build or anything? The fact the roof needed replacing completely after 20 years rings alarm bells as to why. Questions we have raised but for us, we feel uneasy about buying a house that could have been built by Mr Blobby for all we know!

The lack of a builders guarantee can be a huge issue. In 2005 I was trying to buy a one-off new build house and we couldn't get a mortgage on it because it didn't have a completion certificate or any builders guarantee. They should have had it checked at various stages and signed off , but they didn't. Mortgage companies said once it had been standing for 3 years, you could get an indemnity policy on it. It had only been standing for 1 year at that point. We were advised that insurance wouldn't cover it for subsidence. We did walk away from it. (20 years on it is still standing, but it never did get sold they rented it out).

I think in your case, I would walk away from it. If not then they need to reduce the price to cover the cost of the things that need doing if they haven't already. I have been advised that my oil tank is too close to the property under current guidelines so that could cause a problem for me if I ever sell.

The trouble is, the guidelines change over the years and what was acceptable then isn't acceptable now.

It is really hard when your heart is fighting your head, but I do really think that you need to walk away from this one.

I was heartbroken walking away from the new build, but we ended up with a lovely place that was much better when we had DC. The other place was right on a road opposite a school and we ended up in a lovely cul-de-sac where DC could play in the street with their friends.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

Thank you. x

Both our solicitor and the surveyor who attended said that they wouldn't advise we proceed without a certificate. If they don't have one then they will need to get it signed off retrospectively. Both for our own peace of mind but for the mortgage lender and the insurance company.

This, along with the oil tank, the drain that we have no idea where it is located on the property which we would be liable for 50% of the cost of repairs, the high radon and natural ground subsidence risk has really put a dampener on the whole thing. Added to which we have also asked if the windows at the property are the original ones, as they may also need replacing.

At the very least we would have to renegotiate on the price to cover these unexpected costs that have come up.

We have yet to hear what our sellers are going to do but they may say no to all our requests but even if they don't, I just have such a bad feeling and my gut instinct is warning me not to go ahead.

I think if the solicitor and surveyor are both saying walk away, then you need to listen.

Something better will come along.

They are not saying to walk away as such. They have both flagged the issue and both have said they advise us not to proceed if our sellers refuse to get a certificate of regularisation.

We are still waiting to hear back as to whether they are willing to do this or if they say they won't. If they won't then we definitely will take our solicitors/surveyors advise and not take this further.

There are so many pieces that will need to come together for us to carry on with this sale. So its looking unlikely that it will happen.