Dry Rot Property Value

combwork

We will be putting our house on the market but discovered dry rot in the corner of the front room just before Christmas; the remains of a fruiting body hidden behind an old curtain. It has since been extensively treated (removing sections of the ceiling downstairs and removing half a dozen floorboards upstairs), drilling holes into the walls and injecting under high pressure chemicals designed to kill the stuff. The next stage is to erect scaffolding, lift slates and replace any wood as necessary. The slates are in good condition but as a precaution the valley gutters are being replaced.

I've taken before and after photos and asked the company to leave treated areas exposed so that potential buyers and their surveyors can see what's been done, why it's been done and how it's been done. Total cost for the work including VAT is around £12,000. The work carries a 30 year guarantee backed by independent insurers. The company that's doing the work are based in Perth (Scotland) and have a very good reputation.

It's a 4 bedroom town center (not Perth) detached Victorian house. In Scotland the seller must have a home survey report. In practice they have little value and have been scrapped in England. Before the rot was discovered an Estate agent assessed the sale value as "in the region of £180,000".

Taking account of the amount of work done and that it can be inspected by a potential buyers structural surveyor or engineer, can anyone give me an idea of to what extent the value of the house has been effected? Cosmetically it has not been well looked after (needs full redecorating and a new kitchen); two generations of children sliding down the stairs in sleeping bags rather than being glued to Play-stations.

I'm not a structural engineer but the house seems structurally sound. Solid floors, no give, dead straight roofline.

ontrack

I would just replace the flooring, plasterwork and decorate as required, if you have a guarantee and a record of whats been done you are only risking scaring buyers off by leaving exposed areas.
As long as you are not trying to deceive the buyers you should be fine.

G_M

If treated, repaired and guaranteed it should not affect value.

But leaving areas exposed will scare off FTB in particular. You need to firstly attract them to offer (and a half-finished look won't do that) and then convince their surveyor the place is sound (which the invoice and guarantee will do).

As a compromise you could leave a couple of places with loose carpet and floorboards not nailed/screwed down so surveyor can lift the floorboards and see the repair beneath.

DaftyDuck

It shouldn't really affect value, but it may affect wider desirability and, that in turn may knock a little off the value. Lack of competition, etc.

Since it's not in "showhome" state elsewhere, those buyers who want the pristine perfection and no worry house would look elsewhere anyway.

Yes, be honest upfront (no need to blurt it out each first viewing, but have all the paperwork (and other similar stuff like boiler service) available for any curious viewer.

Frankly, a problem well sorted (as this one appears to be) reassures me if I'm looking at a house - far more than the "cover-it-pretend-it-never-happened" or the "easily-fixed-by-a-mate" approach.

Lord_Baltimore

I think you're going to have to do everything you can to tart up the house to improve its saleability.

Frankly, I wouldn't touch dry rot with a bargepole (I wouldn't care how many guarantees it has) because in my experience, it is never, truly gone.

Sorry, this may seem harsh but I do think you're going to have to put some work in to make the place more than averagely appealing.

combwork

I understand what you're all saying; making it look like a "work in progress" could be counter-productive. Dry-rot is never good news; the best I can do is have before and after photos plus invoices showing how much has been spent on the job. Guarantees? Home reports advise potential buyers to make sure the work is guaranteed and I reckon mortgage companies would insist on it.

It's a strange house, large upstairs rooms with the walls angled up close to the beams under the slates. Bit of a time capsule. Sash windows, wooden window shutters, bell-pulls along with cranks and wires in the attic.

DaftyDuck wrote: »

It shouldn't really affect value, but it may affect wider desirability and, that in turn may knock a little off the value. Lack of competition, etc.

Since it's not in "showhome" state elsewhere, those buyers who want the pristine perfection and no worry house would look elsewhere anyway.

Yes, be honest upfront (no need to blurt it out each first viewing, but have all the paperwork (and other similar stuff like boiler service) available for any curious viewer.

Frankly, a problem well sorted (as this one appears to be) reassures me if I'm looking at a house - far more than the "cover-it-pretend-it-never-happened" or the "easily-fixed-by-a-mate" approach.