Trussed roof structure lacks the cross bracing - should I worry?

garrapata

We're FTB and we've just received a copy of the Mortgage Valuation Survey, so bear with me.

Although the valuation went well (it matches our offer) and it doesn't need anything doing for mortgage purposes...

It says that: "The trussed rafter roof structure lacks the cross bracing required by current Building Regulations. The applicant should be advised to arrange for bracing pieces to be fitted to current standards to prevent possible future movement."

It doesn't sound good, but I want to know how bad is it... and how costly?
Should we ask the buyers to fix it before exchange or completion? Shall we do it?

We were also thinking (even before this) to have a Home Buyer Report done. At what stage should we do it? After we get the results of all the searches or straight away? We don't want to spend more money than required, but we also don't want to delay things...

Thanx for your advice.

Crispy697

I'm not an expert on roofing, but we had the same thing stated in our survey when we purchased our current house.

We arranged for a local roofing firm to inspect the roof before we exchaged contracts. They said that it was fine (i dealt with them directly), and that no additional bracing was required.

suki1964

Building regulations change all the time. Your roof is fine as it it but if you came to replace your roof in future you would have to bring it up to the new regulations standards

adr0ck

be quite easy to brace it yourself

just use 100 x 25

robnye

if in doubt get an independant structure survey done....

the fact that the valuation does value it enough for the mortgage company, it is always worth getting an independant homebuyers survey done (full structural survey is the tops)
just bear in mind that any survey will highlight warning points as per the current bulding regulations.
as mentioned, if you replace the roof, at some point then look at having the cross bracing put in place

we had a homebuyers report when we bought 6 years ago, but we have only just replaced some of the hings now.... ie lead guttering etc