Survey advice when selling & buying property

16bithack · 13 March 2018 at 6:31PM

Hello

I was wondering if I could get some advice. I am selling my property (a flat) and buying a property (a house).

So far, the conveyancing on both appears to be going smoothly. I have just been quoted for a full structural survey on the house I want to buy, which I am happy with. But the question I have is, before I hand over the money (£840) for a survey, should I wait to see if any questions arise over my flat first?

I am just worried about being in the position where I have paid for a survey, then my buyers decide to pull out for some random reason, forcing me to lose out on my purchase and lose the money I spent on the survey.

What would people do in this case? Wait a week or so, or just pay now? The buyers of my place now have all of the documents they would need to start reviewing the property (Leasehold/management pack and LPE1, sellers questionnaire, etc and have arranged for valuation survey). So I would expect them to be contacting us further in about a 1-2 weeks' time.

fromtheshires · 13 March 2018 at 6:44PM

Someone has to make the first move somewhere or the chain stalls and collapses. If you wait for your buyers to do an action and then your seller waits for you to do it before they do and so on and so on for every part of the process I can guarantee that no one will get anywhere - it takes long enough as it is.

If you want the house, you have to take some risk as anyone in the chain can cause it to collapse right up to the point of exchange. £840 whilst annoying if you lose it isnt really that much in the grand scheme.

I had my solicitors and mortgage in place beforehand and survery booked the day after my offer was accepted. My sale and purchase still took over 5 months. You need to be on the ball and not flaky when purchasing property. It also shows to your seller you are serious about purchaisng the property

16bithack · 13 March 2018 at 6:57PM

Thanks very much for your advice! That's really good to hear. I think you're right; and if I show I am serious enough to get the survey in quick order, it's possible (though maybe a forlorn hope) that if my sale falls through the seller of the house will wait for another sale to go through.

kinger101 · 13 March 2018 at 7:19PM

You buyers might think you're flaky if you delay things. I'd put the house back on the market if a survey hadn't been arranged within a reasonable amount of time. Of course, this assumes the chain is complete.

victoriavictorious · 13 March 2018 at 9:19PM

I don't know if this still happens, but it used to be the case that if a purchase fell through for any reason and the buyer had recently had a survey done (I don't mean the basic mortgage valuation), the original buyer's solicitor would offer to sell it (and the searches) to the next buyer at a discounted price, via their solicitor.
That way, it was win-win. The original buyer would at least be able to recoup some of their abortive fees, and the new buyer would make a big saving. As far as I know, there shouldn't be any conflict of interest there.
Does anyone know if this still happens?
If so, OP might want to look into that possibility just in case the worst happens.

16bithack · 14 March 2018 at 6:49PM

Thanks everyone for your replies. They have been really useful.

We are still waiting for the valuation survey to be conducted, which will take another week or so to happen, so we have been advised to wait until we get that back to do it. So we have some time. It's possible that by that time, the buyers of our place will have inspected our documentation and made any further queries, so we may be on slightly firmer ground, anyway.

Also, thanks to victoriavictorius for your comment, I will look into the possibility of selling any full building survey.

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Survey advice when selling & buying property

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