Home buyer report or a Full structural survey?

roastduck

We are in the procee of buying a house ...:rotfl:

... a 3 bedroom terrace house which was built in 1900, the previous owner bought it in january 06 but he is now selling the house because he is migrating back home with his family.

we had applied our mortgage with Nationwide today and we were to ask to choose which survey product we want from Countrywide suveyor.

Please advise if you can, which product should we go for ? a basic survey only with a full structural report ? or shall we just go for the homebuyer report alone & not bother with a full structural report?

what's the difference between the products? ( apart from cost? )

Has anyone got any recent experiences with Countrywide?

PLEASE HELP! we need to phone back the bank pretty soon if we change our mind!

Roastduck

icklejulez

countrywide offered us a few services as first time buyers and we presumed he'd worked in our interests it was only when a family member thought the quote's were unreasonable and paid for us to see a financial advisor we realised how bad countrywide's advice was. We have prob saved a third of what mortgage and insurance would of been with countrywide but again cant speak for all branches!

clutton_2

i would recommend you have the full structural survey on a property of this age. I know it will seem a lot of money, but terraced houses can be subject to a great many modern maintainance issues by the time they get to 100 years of age. Some of them can be very expensive.


bw

the_geary

For a house that age, you probably do need a full structural survey. You can save money by getting a different surveyor other than Countrywide. We're buying and have a mortgage with Nationwide and went with our own choice of surveyor, all you have to do is make sure they're on Countrywide's panel, then Nationwide will instruct them through countrywide. We had a homebuyer's report and valuation costing £400 instead of £495 because we used our own. What I did have to do though was make a few phone calls to get quotes (nake sure they're RCIS) and then check with Countrywide, then Nationwide. So it depends whether you've got enough time to ring round. HTH

lilyann1

I would also think that it is wise to get a full structural survey done.
I am afraid we steered clear of Countrywide because of adverse reports. I would ring around, but bear in mind Nationwide( or any mortgage provider) will charge you for a valuation fee also, so you may end up paying double the cost.

mi-key

I'd check the cost of the Countrywide survey - with our lender, their full survey was almost £1500, but out actual surveyor is charging less than half that. It works out much cheaper to get the lender to do just the basic valuation survey, then once that comes back, get the proper survey done.

With your own surveyor, check what the difference is between the homebuyers report and full survey - our surveyor told us he checks all the same things for both, but with the full survey you get photos and a different layout for the report, so advised us that it wasnt really worth paying the extra.