Pre-fab concrete house survey

sramdeen

Hi all

Turning to the MSE forums in desperation once again! Hoping someone here will have had experience with this before.
My parents have the option under right to buy to purchase their council home that they've been in for 40+ years. It was built in the 60's using the Bison Wall Frame system. I have been in contact with literally dozens of surveyors and structural engineers, trying to find someone with experience of this type of building, but nobody has been able to help. We really want to get a survey done before going ahead with the purchase and the offer to buy expires in early Jan.
This type of house was never classified as 'defective' like some were back in the 80's when a massive survey of the UK's social housing stock was undertaken. It's in good shape overall and obviously my parents know it quite well having lived in it for the past few decades. However, they just want some peace of mind but are hitting a brick wall down every avenue.

Could anyone please offer any advice? Please only recommend a surveyor if you know for certain that they have experience with concrete pre-fabs.

Many thanks

staffie1

Have you contacted RICS? They should be able to find you a chartered surveyor.

Post war concrete constructions were prone to deterioration due to metal fatigue and corrosion within the slabs - all the walls (internal and external) being load-bearing. If your property is constructed thus, you (might) have a challenge finding a competitive mortgage or buildings insurance quote.

enjoyyourshoes

Thinking longer term (when they want to sell) , the construction method makes finding lenders difficult (as both you and the above respondent have mentioned), so finding a buyer will be really difficult.

Thus the asking price will be under extreme pressure.

Why do they want to buy ?

sramdeen

staffie1 wrote: »

Have you contacted RICS? They should be able to find you a chartered surveyor.

Post war concrete constructions were prone to deterioration due to metal fatigue and corrosion within the slabs - all the walls (internal and external) being load-bearing. If your property is constructed thus, you (might) have a challenge finding a competitive mortgage or buildings insurance quote.

Thank you for your replies. I've phoned and emailed RICS but all the person on the phone did was use the same search feature on their website that I'd already tried. I contacted the surveyors that were returned but they weren't able to help.
It's a cash purchase, my siblings and I just want my parents to have some security and after the amount of time they have lived there, the discount is enormous and equates to a few years of rent. Seems silly to keep paying the council rent, especially when anytime something needs to be done to the house it takes them months or even years to get around to doing it properly (e.g waiting 4+ years for guttering to be sorted). If my parents owned it, they'd just pick up the yellow pages and get someone in to sort any issues. This is just one of the reasons.

Thinking longer term (when they want to sell) , the construction method makes finding lenders difficult (as both you and the above respondent have mentioned), so finding a buyer will be really difficult.

Thus the asking price will be under extreme pressure.

Why do they want to buy ?

We're not really concerned about having to find a buyer as it's likely my parents will live out their days here. Even once the house passes to the children we are not concerned about selling it on for maximum possible market value and making a quick buck. We know that the houses are difficult to sell compared to bricks and mortar, as we've seen numerous neighbours struggle to sell up over the years. However, in my humble opinion anything that doesn't sell is usually overpriced.

Thanks for any pointers.

stator

No idea where you are but I know of a structural engineer in Cornwall

sramdeen

stator wrote: »

No idea where you are but I know of a structural engineer in Cornwall

Sorry, probably should have mentioned the house is in London.
I'll be in Cornwall next week though!

Cheeky_Monkey

If you can't find a suitable surveyor, then presumably the only option they've got is to buy it without having a survey or don't buy it at all.

Afterall, they don't need to buy it for their security as they are already secure tenants and if, as you say, you are not bothered about selling it and making a huge profit on it, why bother?

stator

sramdeen wrote: »

Sorry, probably should have mentioned the house is in London.
I'll be in Cornwall next week though!

I'll PM you the details, they might be willing to come to London if you pay the costs, assuming you can't find anyone closer

kathrynha

Have any of the similar houses locally sold recently? Could you go round and ask them which surveyor they used?

diamond_dave

It's probably a Cornish Unit construction and we've got a lot of them here in SW. Many of them were rebuilt with standard construction ie blocks and rendered -but those bought privately can still be seen. The problem is "Spalling" in the concrete - and occurs when waterv seeps into the prestressed concrete and the steel starts to rust and splits or spalls the concrete thus allowing more water in. Here they were mostly built just post war and were supposed to have alivespan of about 50 years. They are now getting close to 70 years.

DREKLY

Hi Diamond Dave, and everyone, my first post, have been an avid reader of MSE a long time, but having read the thread about this "Bison" style property in London, thought I would sign up, and relate some information that I had great difficulty in finding myself, as I inherited a Cornish Unit bungalow, also in Cornwall.


I actually wrote a long description of both Cornish Units and "Woolaway" bungalows, as the method of construction appears similar, but after typing it all out - it disappeared ! so I will keep this short for my first post,