Survey back, house is in a terrible state.

Pandilex

I got in contact with the engineer at last!

His feedback was basically:

Serious damp problem, estimated cost to fix, £3-4k
Leak or damp issue in the roof, cost to fix, few £hundred
Rotten timber in the roof, cost to fix, trivial
Crack in the back wall, probably nothing, maybe check the drain is connected properly by digging it up otherwise it's probably fine

The other issues related to building regulations. It looks someone in the past (before the current seller) basically altered a couple of walls without any planning permission. He said this was common and didn't seem overly concerned with the beams used, he said I could spend money if the seller agreed to figure out if it's all been done correctly but didn't *seem* to think it was worth it.

They also removed a chimney breast or two, one of which if there is no building regulations he strongly recommended installation of an RSJ i.e. big steel bar, cost of £1-2k as it looked a bit awkward.

I don't know much about how building regulations work. I think I am going to get a quote for the roof, get a quote for the damp proof course, and get a quote for a builder to put in something to support the chimney breast. I don't know how easy it is to tell the modifications to the walls (i.e. making the dining room living room open plan with a big archway) are structurally OK or not, if anyone has any thoughts on that it'd be appreciated, if it's just a few hundred, probably worth doing, but if it involves ripping up half the building the seller may not agree.

I'm gonna run this through the solicitor first (and wait to see if any building regs actually do come through, however unlikely), then attempt to negotiate with the vendor. This might be a separate question, but how do you negotiate? Do you discuss it with the estate agent? Do you get the solicitor to do it? Do you think I should simply e-mail them the entire structural report?

There is still hope... I hope

londonlydia

Just to say we had to have an RSJ put in to resupport our chimney (our house was built in 1903)...it was surprisingly cheap! We ha dto pay for the certification from the council, but the actual steel beam and labour was less than £500. Admittedly though my bloke got his mates round to personally lift the RSJ into the roof void through the loft hatch...if your access isn't as easy you may have to go in from the outside which is tricky.


Edit: Also, the cost of the beam will increase if it needs to be spliced...

ClareTeaches

Pandilex wrote: »

I got in contact with the engineer at last!

His feedback was basically:

(Snip)
There is still hope... I hope

Huzzah! Glad you managed to get hold of the engineer and that it all sounds much less scary than it did in the initial report.

Good luck!

millysg1

Sounds very similar to when I bought my FTB house 3.5 years ago. It was a semi, Victorian house that had been rented out for 8 years and we knew it needed some TLC but when we got the full survey report back I wanted to cry. It sounded so severe and we felt we were going to have to pull out. It recommended some structural work to the chimney, Damp proof course, re plastering, additional air bricks, some mould in the bedroom etc. etc.

I got a specialist damp guy in and he quoted up the work for me and it came out at around £10k. We did not have this money just to get the house up to scratch. But when we sat down and discussed it all with surveyor and damp man we realized which parts were important and which were there to cover themselves and probably weren't a real problem.

We realized we would only need to do about half the work. We didn't tell the seller this and I called EA saying I was really concerned at the amount of work and the cost. None of the stuff is something we could know from viewing the property so our price didn't reflect this amount of work. They requested a copy of the report which I emailed through to the EA with highlights on the worse parts of it. We were able to get £5k off what we had previously agreed. In the end we did a lot of the work ourselves, or with people we knew (builders and plasterers) so only cost us £2k in the end.

Therefore, my advice is don't over worry too much, get your head around what really needs doing, get quotes and send the full report to the EA as part of your negotiating. DONT tell them how much of the work you actually plan to do. Try to come up with a figure for doing everything in the report and a figure for the work you want to do. When negotiating start by asking the full amount and try to negotiate to a place that covers the work you want to do. If you don't get the money off you need then pull out. A house will come up eventually. My sister bought a house last year in Bristol and she had similar problems finding something like you but In the end they got the perfect house, still needed a lot of work, but 1 year on they are really happy and doing a room at a time.

Good luck!

Downsizing__for_sanity

We have had a similar issue with our new house, built in 1860. We paid for a Structural Survey, which found damp in the front wall. The Home Report only showed a few Cat 1 repairs (which our surveyor said, informally, was "tantamount to misrepresentation). Luckily the sellers had had work done in the past and have the damp proof course guaranteed, so they are claiming on this. We have agreed to pay for other work which needs doing upstairs which is not guaranteed (and is not urgent).

We've had old houses before so we expected some things to come out of the Structural Survey and we were using it as a heads-up for the future, as well as a negotiating tool. Apparently due to the build structure of older houses and breathable materials like lime plaster, modern damp meters will easily detect "damp" even when it is not significant. Our "new" house has been there for more than 150 years and whilst it will require on-going attention, it will probably be there for the foreseeable future.

DFS

Pandilex

Thanks for your responses!!! I really really appreciate it.

I've spoken to the solicitor and either the solicitor or myself is going to convey the issues to the estate agent.

The only thing I am not sure about is what to do when there are no building regulations, I might start a new thread about this.

Basically they knocked a wall through and built a small extension and took out a chimney breast. The chimney breast I am not budging on, I want an RSJ installed as per the guidelines.

However the other work is probably fine but without building regs who knows if it will collapse on my head? The structural engineer didn't seem fussed, neither did the solicitor, since it was done yearssssss ago before the current owner of the house moved in (which was in 2007 I think).

I'm wondering if I should just accept that it's probably fine. I don't want to kick up a fuss with the seller about it if they're just going to think 'huh what? it's fine...'.

Thoughts?