Buy house w/ damp or walk away?

bodderz

Hi there,

Interested to hear people's opinons on this please. We offered on a house 6 weeks ago for £195k (it was marketed as offers in excess of £190k). The chain is now complete - there are 4 houses in front of us. Having had 2 damp reports, they both come out at just over £4k each. Both reports provide an estimate on the cost to repair the damp - it would be great to have a destructive survey but that's a definite no-no as we don't own the property.

The house was built in 1906 and has concrete floors so there's hopefully little worry of problems with the floor. The contract for the property we're selling has been sent to the buyer's solicitors so we need to get a move on.

As it's damp, if a damp-proof course (DPC) is carried out, it'll have to be done just as we move in - they say that there must be no furnishings in the area that the DPC work is done. That means that there's a good chance that we have to put furniture into storage.

So the things I'm unsure about are:

1. The cost for sorting the damp could be more than £4k, as they are only estimates.
2. If we are likely to exchange before hand, is it fair to factor in a cost for furniture storage or what it might cost for us to go into a short-term let?
3. One of the reports also commented on a crack in the render on an external wall - there was no value to have this fixed but it's another cost to consider.
4. When we offered £195k, that was on the assumption that the house was in good working order, so is it expected that we will revise our offer to something significantly less?

I have no idea what would be a 'reasonable' amount to haggle? I'm seriously thinking about walking away and going into rented accommodation. The damp estimates are much more than I had thought and while I love the house, I'm trying to stay as objective as possible.

When the offer was made, I think £195k was a reasonable price. If we want, say, £6k off, the vendors could quite easily say "fine, the market has increased over the last 2 months so you can stick it and we'll make up the cost of the DPC by putting it back on the market and getting closer to £200k now".

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Matt

pboae

What is the house built of? What sort of pointing does it have? How is it plastered internally? It's over a 100 years old and houses were built to breathe then. Modern equipment will register damp in the walls, without taking itno account that the moisture is meant to be there. The last thing you want to do in those circumstances is stick a DPC or other impermeable fixture in. That will just trap the water in the walls, and then you really will have a problem.

bodderz

Hi Pboae,

Really appreciate your thoughts. The house is brick built - I'm afraid I don't know what type of pointing is has, all of the exterior walls have rendering on them. I think the plaster internally was put on by a builder who bought it in 2000 to redevelop i.e. a bit of a cheap job. There was a DPC put in in 2001, the same time as the builder was there but it wasn't done very effectively. The builder did his own plastering so he probably didn't use the right mix.

If the house was built in 1906, isn't it a little strange that neither of the two damp surveyors mentioned that the house is meant to breathe and therefore will retain moisture? That just looks like they're out to make money - not very good business ethics IMHO.

pboae

Never get a damp report off a company that sells damp solutions, you won't get an unbiased answer.

Also, many surveyors don't have enough specialist knowledge of old buildings (as we found to our cost with our house). My house is stone built and lime pointed, the damp readings are off the scale and our surveyor warned us it was going to be a huge problem. But the only places we have damp problems is where the lime plaster has been replaced with modern plaster. Eventually I want the whole place replastered with lime, but there's other work needs doing first.

The best thing I can suggest is to try the forums at http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/. Tell them everything you can about the house and they will tell you how worried you need to be, and also whether it is the modernisation that is causing problems. Someone there will probably also be able to recommend a local surveyor that understands old buildings, who can give you some reliable advice.

Good luck :-)

roswell

Number 1) dont get a damp report from a company that sells damp proffing.
Number 2) Its been there over 100 years im sure if it was a really big problem it would have fallen down on its own accord before now.

are you sure it has a damp problem or are you going on the reports you have recieved, can you see any signes of water on the interior walls, have you looked externaly to see if the ground level is above the damp course??

bodderz

From roswell:

Number 1) dont get a damp report from a company that sells damp proffing.

Both companies were damp-proofing companies.

are you sure it has a damp problem or are you going on the reports you have recieved, can you see any signes of water on the interior walls, have you looked externaly to see if the ground level is above the damp course??

There is definitely damp. One of the floor boards in the dining area is rotten through - it disintegrated as you pushed against it.

From Pboae:

The best thing I can suggest is to try the forums at http://www.periodproperty.co.uk/. Tell them everything you can about the house and they will tell you how worried you need to be

Thanks again. I'll have a look now - I see what you mean about the modernisation being detrimental to the old building methods.

Fingers crossed.