buying an 18yr old newish house without survey

bs0u0128

would you or would you not get a survey on a house thats only 18yrs old, with nothing obvious wrong with it?

[Deleted User]

You might not but your mortgage company would probably like a survey doing

mi-key

Only if I was a complete muppet ;0)

An 18 year old house is far from new ( in fact, around this age is when problems can occur like roofs sagging, wood rotting through etc... ), and who knows what potential problems are lurking or have been covered over with decorating or bad repairs.

I imagine this house is costing over £100,000 ? in which case spending around 0.5% or less on a homebuyers survey isnt exactly a bad investment.

I wouldnt spend £10,000 on a car without getting it properly checked ( even if it looked nice and shiny and wasnt obviously leaking puddles of oil ) so spending 10 or 20 times that on a house without getting a survey is madness.

littlemissfrugal

my house is only 12 years old and tbh if i knew then what i know now even with a survey i wouldn't have bought it

Chris4817

littlemissfrugal wrote:

my house is only 12 years old and tbh if i knew then what i know now even with a survey i wouldn't have bought it

Tell us more please. My house is only 12 years old too and seems pretty sound.

mi-key

As an example, one of the houses we viewed was around 5 years old, and the wooden windows which had been fitted from new were rotting around the sides of the frames, as was part of the porch. From the look of it the windows hadnt been fitted that well, and water had been getting into the gap between the frame and the brick.

If the owners had rcently slapped a couple of coats of gloss over them, then it wouldnt have been obvious until a few months later when it would start peeling off, and we'd have found out we needed to spend thousands replacing all the windows.

So just because a house cosmetically looks good, dont assume that the structure is sound.

lynzpower

i certainly would get a survey. For a few hundred quid surely the peace of mind is worth it.

Particulalry if you get the survey back & theres shed loads of problems that will cost you a fortune to rectify

Debt_Free_Chick

A survey should tell you if there anything that is likely to need replacing/updating/repairing now or in the near future.

You may not see anything obviously wrong, but are you able to assess whether the electrical wiring is still satisfactory? Whether any boiler or heating system is on its last legs? Whether there are signs of movement which might indicate subsidence or another structural problem? Whether any home improvements are to a satisfactory standard?

I don't know how much you're paying for the property, but let's assume £150k. Are you happy to sink that amount into a pile of bricks and mortar that might costs thousands of pounds over the next five years? Would you like to pay £500(ish) to find out now - or just let any problems emerge over time?

HTH

mustrum_ridcully

You'd be insane not to. Even if a house is practically brand new (2-3yrs) don't assume everything is ok, just ask some of the people who've had problems with their new build homes.

An 18yr old house would of been built during the property boom of the mid-late 80's so was quite possibly built to maximise the builders profit margins. I know of houses that were built around this time using nice architectural features such as wooden panels on the top half of the house to save on bricks, the treated panels look fine but underneath you find rotting wood.

I don't know why you don't want to pay for a survey but if it's because you can't afford it then should you even be considering buying the property? £500ish is small money in the big scheme of things.

Norma_Desmond

Agree with Mustrum - my parent's 15 year old bungalow had a terrible survey; much worse in fact than my 200 year old house!