Steel Frame and Concrete House

ahll

Hi all,
This morning I went with my sister to view a house. The EA told us that the house was built by using a steel frame with concrete slabs. Apparently some mortage companies will not lend on this type of house. Can anyone tell me why this would be ?

Maybe I should have said it is an ex-council house and was built just after the war.

Is it a problem having this kind of structure for a house and is it easy to maintain ?

any comments welcome as my sister is deciding whether she wants to put in an offer or not.

MortgageMamma

ahll wrote:

Hi all,
This morning I went with my sister to view a house. The EA told us that the house was built by using a steel frame with concrete slabs. Apparently some mortage companies will not lend on this type of house. Can anyone tell me why this would be ?

Maybe I should have said it is an ex-council house and was built just after the war.

Is it a problem having this kind of structure for a house and is it easy to maintain ?

any comments welcome as my sister is deciding whether she wants to put in an offer or not.

The majority of lenders will not lend on this type of property due to the construction and complications that can arise with the concrete slabs damaging the fram. There are lender which will lend on them but your sisters major consideration should be the saleability of the property should she decide to move on in the future as this construction will undoubtedly restrict buyers.

ahll

Yes you are right about the price it seems as they are asking for offers over 65,000 for this house. It is a 3 bed, 2 recp semi with a largest garden and parking and by miles the cheapest house in the area.Because of this there is lots of interest in it.

I was thinking this morning that maybe we should just walk away from it but my sister can just about afford this. I didnt tell the EA that I was concerned about what would happen in years to come if the slabs started to fall off or break.

AndrewSmith

The steel has been known to rust inside the concrete slabs causing the concrete structure to fail. Otherwise known as 'concrete cancer'.

To determine exactly it's mortgageability you need to find out the precise construction ie: Reema, or Willoway etc.

Andy

angeleyes

AndrewSmith wrote:

The steel has been known to rust inside the concrete slabs causing the concrete structure to fail. Otherwise known as 'concrete cancer'.

To determine exactly it's mortgageability you need to find out the precise construction ie: Reema, or Willoway etc.

Andy

we are in the process of buying one of these in liverpool, they are called bisf buildings or something like that we have had to have a larger depoist and I know the halifax will lend on them. i know we have had to pay an extra £100 to have a structal survey on which was done on friday i think so still waiting to hear

clutton_2

there are many different types of metal-framed-concrete houses, and some are fine (wimpey-no-fines is one which is Ok) but as Andrew said some suffered from concrete cancer. Find out the exact name of the build-type from the local authority and then your mortgage broker will be in a better position to tell you if a lender will charge a premium interest rate or not.

buxtonrabbitgreen

ahll wrote:

Hi all,
This morning I went with my sister to view a house. The EA told us that the house was built by using a steel frame with concrete slabs. Apparently some mortage companies will not lend on this type of house. Can anyone tell me why this would be ?

Maybe I should have said it is an ex-council house and was built just after the war.

Is it a problem having this kind of structure for a house and is it easy to maintain ?

any comments welcome as my sister is deciding whether she wants to put in an offer or not.

my sister bought one of these, a Waites house against my advice 20 years ago. As the other posters have said, some of these houses are prone to the steel frame giving up. They can have a new shell built round them with briicks. My sister bought hers for cash and later got into fincancial difficulties and had to sell it. Because no one would give a mortgage on it she only got £3000 for it. A loss of £6000. So I would advise your sister to be very careful about buying this style of house unless she can afford to get enough on the mortgage to have it bricked up and made subsequently saleable.

seven-day-weekend

My husband inherited a bungalow made of this construction and we were told it was unmortgageable as properties in the SE had proven to be substandard build; however it did point out that no problems had occured with those in the Midlands (which covered our property.)

However, it was still deemed unmortgageable, but as it was an inherited property, we sold it at a much ower price than you would expect for a two bedroom detached bungalow for cash (35000 in 2003).

I would not buy one if I intended selling it in the future and buy into the open maeket.

seven-day-weekend

Forgot to say: Ours was also a post-war 'temporary' dwelling.

ahll

Surely if the council knew these type of houses can suffer from 'concrete cancer' they would have had to do something about it ! There are quite a few of these houses around the one for sale.

seven-day-weekend

ahll wrote:

Surely if the council knew these type of houses can suffer from 'concrete cancer' they would have had to do something about it ! There are quite a few of these houses around the one for sale.

Only if they are Council houses!

Our bungalow was bought as a RTB initially by my MIL post-1990 when it was known that the ones in London were 'substandard'. She was told it was unmortgageable when she bought it. But hey, after her discount it was only £5000 and she didn't intend selling it.

Others that were still council properties were given the brick 'skin' and then the concrete panels taken down.

Also those bought pre-1990 as it wasn't then known about the ones in London...they were given a grant to have them bricked.

But MIL's was bought in full knowledge of the problems and we inherited it with the problems.