Building Survey has come back - Arghhh! Need some advice please....

Dalmation

I'm in the process of buying a turn of the century Victorian house. As it's old (and been in the same family forever) I knew that there would be a few problems with it.
We are already stretching ourselves with the house price and have 7ish thousand to do the works.
This is the major things that were picked up:

1. Overhaul/repair chimneys and flashings;
2. Overhaul slate roof coverings and ridge tiles;
3. Overhaul/replace cast iron rainwater goods;
4. Overhaul external render finishes;
5. Repair/replace windows and doors;
6. Improve ventilation and insulation to rear loft/cover water tank to reduce condensation;
7. Combine heating systems to a single boiler;
8. Overhaul garages/car port, including removal of damage asbestos cement sheeting.

CRIKEY!!!!
Can someone shed some light on what all this actually means please?
Many Thanks

LandyAndy

It means the house is old and may need some work at some time. You probably realised that already.


Unless the survey says the work is URGENT then it is general a rse covering by the surveyor.


Have they agreed your offer price as the valuation?


You may want/have to do some or all of those things over the next 15/20 years.


I'm surprised they haven't said the wiring may need an overhaul too.

Dan-Dan

As Andy says , it will need doing , or attending to , bit by bit , but if its all marked as urgent 7k isnt going to go very far

Dalmation

LandyAndy wrote: »

It means the house is old and may need some work at some time. You probably realised that already.


Unless the survey says the work is URGENT then it is general a rse covering by the surveyor.


Have they agreed your offer price as the valuation?

Thanks, yes they have agreed the selling price.

Dalmation

Dan-Dan wrote: »

As Andy says , it will need doing , or attending to , bit by bit , but if its all marked as urgent 7k isnt going to go very far

Thanks for your reply, no, none of it is marked as urgent. So that's a good thing?

DigForVictory

Use this to lever the price down a bit?

Phone the surveyor & ask if the windows & doors as they are now will support house insurance - if not, then get estimates to sort that & talk to the vendors. You can't buy a house you can't insure unless you planned to knock it flat & rebuild & that doesn't sound like what you had in mind.

Is the dwelling Listed? As whilst cast iron is nice, unless it's Listed, you can get away with less expensive choices... (voice of nasty pain-in-the-wallet experience!)

DRP

that entire list is just stuff-that-house-owners-do.

Given it is an old house, in my view the expensive/urgent jobs are roof, electrics, boiler.

What does the surveyor say about the roof? can you get someone (roofer) to have a look?

By omission from the report I assume the surveyor thinks the electrics are up to spec? You could get these looked at to be sure.

I would be getting my own boiler assessment done as that is a big expensive job if you find the heating/water is knackered after a day of living there.

All in all that is a hundred or so quid that could save you thousands or give you leverage to negotiate.

Dalmation

DigForVictory wrote: »

Use this to lever the price down a bit?

Phone the surveyor & ask if the windows & doors as they are now will support house insurance - if not, then get estimates to sort that & talk to the vendors. You can't buy a house you can't insure unless you planned to knock it flat & rebuild & that doesn't sound like what you had in mind.

Is the dwelling Listed? As whilst cast iron is nice, unless it's Listed, you can get away with less expensive choices... (voice of nasty pain-in-the-wallet experience!)

Thanks, I'll phone the surveyor later - I think because none of it was 'urgent' they must be ok. It's not listed so I'll take a look at that.
How do you go about reducing the purchase price?

DRP

Dalmation wrote: »

Thanks, I'll phone the surveyor later - I think because none of it was 'urgent' they must be ok. It's not listed so I'll take a look at that.
How do you go about reducing the purchase price?

you could ring EA and say that we were happy with the agreed price assuming X, Y, Z was ok with the house , but now it looks like the boiler needs replacing so we need to reduce our offer by 3 grand.

Dalmation

DRP wrote: »

that entire list is just stuff-that-house-owners-do.

Given it is an old house, in my view the expensive/urgent jobs are roof, electrics, boiler.

What does the surveyor say about the roof? can you get someone (roofer) to have a look?

By omission from the report I assume the surveyor thinks the electrics are up to spec? You could get these looked at to be sure.

I would be getting my own boiler assessment done as that is a big expensive job if you find the heating/water is knackered after a day of living there.

All in all that is a hundred or so quid that could save you thousands or give you leverage to negotiate.

Thanks, the roof is ok - a few loose tiles. At the moment it has 2 boilers.... a newish one for the ground floor and a prehistoric one for the 1st & 2nd floors.

Dalmation

DRP wrote: »

you could ring EA and say that we were happy with the agreed price assuming X, Y, Z was ok with the house , but now it looks like the boiler needs replacing so we need to reduce our offer by 3 grand.

So I need to get some quotes for the potential work and then try to negotiate?