Who should pay for a damp survey?

pixiepie99

We're in the process of buying a house and the building survey has come back saying there's areas of damp in the ground floor and has advised we commission a damp survey. We are planning to get an independent survey which will cost around £200. Question is, should we pay for this in full or is it common practice to ask the vendor to pay for it or contribute towards it?

motherofstudents

I think you should pay for it. Depending on the results you get from it, then you could approach the vendors and see if they will then contribute.

BitterAndTwisted

No, it isn't common practice, but it's not unknown to reduce your offer by whoever much it's going to cost to put right if they are asking top-dollar.

Just be careful about what sort of "damp specialist" you instruct. Those who sell damp-proofing can be almost guaranteed to find damp and a nice, expensive solution.

Has the surveyor suggested where this damp may be coming from or what the cause might be? Could be as simple as leaky guttering or down-pipes which need to be fixed/replaced.

pixiepie99

It's apparently a number of patches in the ground floor. No idea what the cause is. As I said in my original post, we're going to instruct an independent damp survey which we will be paying around £200 for. This means they don't do the remedial works so it is not in their interest to exaggerate the findings. We know a company that we recently used on our own house who we plan to use again.

picklepick

Excuse me if I've got this wrong, but aren't you in process of still trying to attract a buyer to your house? Or is this damp problem on a house you're buying regardless of selling yours?

If it's the former and this purchase hinges on selling yours first, I wouldn't be paying any more for anything until I'd accepted an offer.

pixiepie99

picklepick wrote: »

Excuse me if I've got this wrong, but aren't you in process of still trying to attract a buyer to your house? Or is this damp problem on a house you're buying regardless of selling yours?

If it's the former and this purchase hinges on selling yours first, I wouldn't be paying any more for anything until I'd accepted an offer.

Well spotted! It's the latter, i.e. buying the house is not dependent on selling our current house. In fact, we can't complete on the sale of our current house until November so we've got plenty of time to sell it.