Survey advice - worry or not?

dizziblonde

Surveyor rang us before doing his report - spoke to my husband and I assumed all was well. Just got the written report and, as semi-anticipated, it reads like an audition for that wretched Beenie woman.

Opinions please since I tend to panic anyway:

He's put the worst condition rating on the boiler/gas fire - but reading it it seems to be bottom-covering in case it hasn't been serviced soon. We know it was serviced last year (the next door neighbour's brother was the heating bloke who did it) so I assume that one is just a rear-covering exercise in case it hasn't been done?

Found holes indicating a previous wood munching infestation in the stairs, but nothing indicating it was active... about three paragraphs recommending various inspections and the like - again... is he just covering himself on that one?

Damp - when he spoke to us on the phone, he said he'd found damp on his meter but nothing perceptible by touch in the back bedroom and arch down in the lounge, but that he wasn't unduly concerned about it and reckoned the shower had leaked slightly, plus the place has been stood empty for pushing 2 years. Now we get the report and there's tonnes of damp issues brought up - surprise surprise backing onto the shower in the bedroom, and below that in the lounge... and the mortgage company have whacked 2 grand off the valuation because of these when we've got a pretty good clue what they are. OH's parents are prepared to add the bit we're going to need as a result onto our deposit - but I'm distinctly wobbly about that one.

Windows - basically he seems to be obsessed with UPVC... I hate UPVC as a general rule - but he's absolutely hammered our windows (not literally) and it seems to be just because they're timber. Again - not sure if that's a genuine issue (we know we have two single glazed ones in there - one that does need replacing on the landing, and one we've got no chance in hell of replacing because it's octagonal (and I'm not making it a boring rectangular window because it looks cute)... we'd prodded the other frames and they seem solid, and they're stained, not painted so we know that the guy can't have pulled the trick my parents had pulled on them of jamming rotten frames full of filler and painting over the top of them.

The other thing he's really gone on about is the parking and how we need to inspect the street at various times of the day for congestion (it's a dead end - you only come here if your sat nav's really borked) and we live three doors down... reckon we've inspected it enough?!

The roof which we were expecting as the biggie - flashings around the chinmney stack might need looking at, nails holding some of the slates on are starting to go so there's some slates slipping (we knew that one) and verbally on the phone he's told us he reckons there's another decade in it max (we knew that - we're watching houses gradually get re-roofed on the street atm)... of course written down that looks much more prophed of doomey as well - but he has said in the report that it's interim-fixable.

The mortgage company have whacked 2 grand off the formal offer because of all that so we're left with a 2k shortfall now - it looks like bank of mum and dad are going to sort that one out for us, which I really don't like having to do. I'm not sure quite how to proceed for that because I'm not prepared to lose this one and don't want to push things (yes that allergic to haggling advert is so massively right in my case). Hubby wants to go back to the vendor and request the roof's sorted (apparently it's not a big job - surveyor informally said looking at a morning's work for a roofer to do it) and that they look into the damp for us (personally I think that it's just the fact the house has been stood empty with the heating on absolutely minimal for 2 years, plus some leaks from the shower cubicle which we'd already spotted needed re-sealing anyway)... I'm not sure how much I want to push it since the vendors appear to have so much spare cash they can buy houses for their daughter wherever she decides to go live and leave them on the market unsold for 2 years - they're quite liable to tell us to get stuffed. Alternatively we try to get them to drop the asking price to what the mortgage bods are prepared to loan... which is 1k above an offer that got pretty quickly rejected and I don't think they'll go to (was on the market for 95k after various reductions - house prices round here took a bit of a dip when the proposed tram extension began to be uncertain with the change of Govt... something we're more than prepared to wait out - we like the area and want to live here for a good long time and the trams will come in eventually when we'll be 5 minutes walk away from the network - but we're buying this as a long-term home - not a massive investment, we offered 85, then 87, settled at 90 - valuation's come in at 90 but mortgage company will only lend 88 because of the apocalyptic sounding damp issues on the survey).

This is definitely the house we want though - the area, the neighbours, the transport links (current and proposed) really are ones that work for us and there's not likely to be another house come up in the street that we're going to want for a long time since everyone's long-termers around here and the only other one up for sale is next to the only annoying neighbours in the street that I don't want to share a wall with.

Janie2008

Ring up the estate agent and explain that the mortgage lender will only lend you £88,000 and see what they say. The sellers might be willing to reduce the price or at least meet you half way. Its worth a try anyway.

joy.moore111

hi guys survey offer is not to worry.Because of survey you get information & also get knowledge about the properties.

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