Advice following valuation report

Orpheo

evoke wrote: »

Walk. End of.

Advice that is concise and correct.

jaffs

kingstreet wrote: »

http://www.property-care.org/

Use the search facility in the above to find independent surveyors in your area. Don't use firms who get work out of quoting as you'll never know if it was truly required.

Surveyors when valuing property recommend additional reports because they aren't specialists in the fields they uncover on a visit. There could be few problems which require little or no remedial action, or there could be serious issues with high costs.

The other thing to bear in mind is that despite the surveyor wanting reports ignoring any existing guarantees, if the vendors have had work done, they may be able to claim on their guarantees to get any remedial works done and this costs you nothing.

Until you get the reports, you don't know which are which. I'd suggest asking the vendor to go halves on the cost. In that way, if you do pull out, they get a copy they can use with future buyers.

If you are looking to buy an older property "oozing character from all the period features" you have every chance of coming up against the timber and damp report requirements in many cases.

Thank you. I think i'm gonna contact the estate agent and see what the vendor says, i cant afford to get a load of specialists in, especially if i'm going to end up walking away. Guess it's a lot to think about.

kingstreet

olibrofiz wrote: »

Beware of existing guarantees - there was one for damp proofing and woodworm treatment on the house I was looking at, 13 years into a 30 year guarantee

The guarantees are those belonging to the vendor, and if they didn't get work done with a thirty year insurance backed guarantee then yes, the guarantee is worthless.

While obtaining the requested reports, the purchaser should ask their solicitor to investigate the nature of any guarantees to see if there is a possibility cost could be avoided.

muskoka

I got an independant damp/woodworm specialist in when I bought my house few months ago. What I thoght was damp was only condensation, but we found some woodworm,which the guy really helped us with. He could have arranged to have it treated for us, but instead to be moneysaving he advised us what to buy and told me exactly how to do it ourselves. Cost us £60 for the treatment & the cost of a couple of new joists & multiple floorboards. It was hard work though - we had to take up two floorboards, every 4th board & spray every bit of timber in the house. We''re pretty sure though that we've certainly done it as thoroughly as any specialist would, if not better. and luckily we were able to replace affected joists/boards ourselves so only cost of timber on top of the treatment.

Sorry - specialist cost us £144. Money well spent

jaffs

Well the homebuyers report is back, damp in attic, may be caused by bit of damage to brickwork of chimney, otherwise its damp showing up on downstairs walls of house with damp meter, there is a damp course, no sign of condensation. Wood beetle signs in timbers in cellar. possible movement to property, to be fair we saw a crack when we viewed but it looked like a crack in render from work moving heating to attic (evidence of removal of vent in middle of crack), guess we'd better get someone to take a look at that.

Other than that only other thing on survey is to get someone to look at wiring, no idea about that.

Is it too much to hope that the damp is nothing, just slightly high meter reading, beetles can be solved easily and cheaply, electricity is just a precaution, and crack is just cracked render.....guess so, and i doubt there is an easy and cheap way to find out.

The stresses of house buying!

katie128

we've just got a mortgage with HSBC and had a choice of 3 valuations (ranging in price). There was a standard (for the lenders benefit), a homebuyers report (slightly more in depth) and a building survey. It sounds like you require a building survey although we opted for this as we were buying an old house and some areas were still not covered because it all depended on access to certain parts of the house and restrictions (obviously a surveyor can't just go in and start pulling floors up etc). We passed the survey to the solicitor and they decided from this if any extra surveys were required and they have asked the vendor to cover the cost although they have said if they refuse we should fund it and have it done prior to signing contracts.

katie128

P.S were in same position. The survey showed up that the house suffered secondary flooding (we live in Hull) so the solicitor has suggested a damp and timber survey to be done but like i say they have requested that the vendor funds it, although our solicitor did advise theor usually not that expensive. And if work needs doing you may be able to renegotiate on the offer you originally put in or request they do the repair before you sign contracts.

gambit27

I would personally walk away from this, it seems like you'd have a lot of work to do if you bought it. I had a flat years ago with dry rot and damp, someone did buy it from us, but the quote average from a few companies to repair was in the region of £2k, so we had to knock that off the sale price. If you do buy, bare in mind you'll need people in to rectify all these problems, and then no doubt need to redecorate on top of that!