FTB- survey results and thinking of pulling out

torapoole

Hi All,
Just after a bit of advice and what you would do if you were me. My OH and I are FTB and had an offer accepted on a house. We've had our mortgage offer and the valuation mentioned damp. A Homebuyers Survey has shown the extent of this and it seems to be in every room in the house.
Even if we could get the sellers to knock the cost of putting it right off the purchase price, we are now balking at the thought of taking on a house with a damp problem so bad that affects every room. It would require the kitchen units to come out and possibly the bathroom floor. From speaking to people it seems that damp is often recurring and hard to get rid of, and I'm not sure we want to take on that risk. My OH and I are quite comfortable with losing the £700 we've paid so far for survey and mortgage valuation (luckily a family friend's done our conveyancing for free), so my question is: if it was you, would you cut your losses and pull out?
Thanks in advance for the help:)

motherofstudents

The problem with damp is that you need to identify the cause. If you are really keen to get this house you need to get someone who is independant to have a look. If you get someone round who is selling dpc's you might spend a lot of money unnecessarily. £700 is a lot to lose but if you are not sure about the house it may be better to pull out. If you can get someone to tell you exactly what is causing the damp then you will be able to find out how much it is likely to cost and negotiate with the vendor. Hope it works out for the best whatever you decide.:)

Cannon_Fodder

I'd leave it to be the vendor's problem to deal with the damp, or risk never selling. Why on earth do people go on the market with such severe issues as this?

An occasional wall, it happens. But every room. Madness.

I suppose if they dropped the price by double or triple the amount needed, and you were a confident DIYer, or knew a decent builder/dampproofer, you might see an opportunity to snap up a bargain. But this could be the start of so many issues - rotten joists, mouldy plaster, who knows what else.

torapoole

Thanks for the advice- I'm a big believer in following your gut instinct and mine is telling me not to go ahead, but I wanted to check that it wasn't my inexperience as a FTB causing my doubts!

bryanb

Did you see signs of damp when you viewed? Hard to imagine you could miss it if it's bad enough to think of pulling out.

Quiet_Life

I used to be the case that a mortgage provider would withhold the mortgage until certain 'faults' uncovered by the survey were rectified or the asking price dropped by the amount necessary to fix the problems with a condition that they had to be fixed within 6mths of the purchase. Is this no longer the case?

torapoole

bryanb wrote: »

Did you see signs of damp when you viewed? Hard to imagine you could miss it if it's bad enough to think of pulling out.

We saw it in one room, but not in the others- the patches where it is clearly visible had furniture against it unfortunately.

poppysarah

Were there a lot of airfresheners in the house? Sometimes people have these to hide damp.

What sort of house is it?
What damp is under the bathroom floor that could possibly be minor?

torapoole

Quiet_Life wrote: »

I used to be the case that a mortgage provider would withhold the mortgage until certain 'faults' uncovered by the survey were rectified or the asking price dropped by the amount necessary to fix the problems with a condition that they had to be fixed within 6mths of the purchase. Is this no longer the case?

I'm pretty sure that the mortgage provider hasn't imposed any conditions like this so maybe not, but as this is my first experience buying I could well be wrong!

torapoole

poppysarah wrote: »

Were there a lot of airfresheners in the house? Sometimes people have these to hide damp.

What sort of house is it?
What damp is under the bathroom floor that could possibly be minor?

Not that I noticed. It's a 2 bed terraced house. I'm not sure about the damp under the bathroom floor. The survey said something about the membrane not being protected so it might have to come up but obviously a specialist could advise on this. We're going to ask for quotes to get their opinion on the extent of the problem. But yes- doesn't really sound minor if it's got under the floor?!

poppysarah

under an upstairs floor ...?

Damp is expected in virtually all properties humans are in. We breathe out water vapour all the time... we cook, we wash, we create steam etc... You can open windows/use dehumidifiers etc for this ...

But it'll show itself as a prblem on walls if it's outside water coming in... and that'll be the really expensive stuff. If there's dodgy gutters, or leaky pipes then some serious damage might be needing repairing.

You might just have had an over cautious surveyor who had his "damp everywhere" head on. (Like the all do most of the time)

Next time you view somewhere (I'd run from this screaming unless it's the only terraced house for miles ... ;-) .. think about that...)
look at outside roof, gutters, downspouts,
inside walls, windows, ceilings etc
SNIFF AND SMELL your way round the house.

Don't feel you've wasted your 700 quid - you could spend more finding out more about the damp problem - but before you do
ASK THE VENDORS via EA whether they are willing to renogiate heavily on price if damp survey comes back with serious issues.

If they won't reduce price then don't waste more money.
Don't pay top buck for a dead duck!