Are surveyors usually this dramatic or am I missing something?

Bossypants

ognum wrote: »

My gut tells me it's not an easy fix then! If the vendor owned both properties and new this would come up at survey why would they not have fixed it when the opportunity of two empty properties arose?

I think you may find its not an easy fix and a costly one!

Thanks, you may be right, I'll look into getting someone round to get a proper look and a quote. To be honest, I think it could go either way, but better to be safe than sorry!

moneyistooshorttomention

ognum wrote: »

I would be worried by the damp patch caused by another property, how will you get that fixed?

That list doesn't sound too bad to me per se. However, my thoughts would be focusing around that bit about damp coming in from someone else's property. That being...because you need the co-operation of the "someone else" in order to get that problem fixed.

My guess is that he isn't very optimistic about the "someone else" co-operating. I think, in those circumstances, I would be seeking to check out the neighbour concerned myself and see what I thought the chances were they would co-operate. Its not a major problem but, if that neighbour wont co-operate, then it could become one.

My own experience of trying to get neighbours to fix THEIR problem that was impacting on me was not a positive one on the several occasions that this sort of thing occurred. My experience was that some neighbours are quite capable of seeing the evidence of what their property is causing with their own eyes...and still not fixing it. Hence a large part of why I was so determined to move to a detached house.

Offering to pay for their work to be done for them might be one way forward and worth a try (though you darn well shouldn't have to....as its not your bill).

moneyistooshorttomention

I'm now wondering if a bit of lateral thinking is a possibility here or no??

I think I can picture what the problem is - as I had something that sounded pretty similar in my last house. Part of the house had a flat roof and, when I had it replaced, they didn't do a very good job of it. With that, the bit where that part of the house joined onto the rest of the house had a leak going on downwards into the join-on part of my house.

I had to have them back and they duly extended the roof covering a foot or so up the outside house wall and that solved the problem. It wasn't a big deal of a job at all - though, of course, they made out it was:cool:

I'm now wondering what the structure of my flat roof was like, ie whether there were large beams going across the ceiling of flat roofed part and, from that, whether a (normal size - rather than fat) workman could have managed to get up through between those beams from the room beneath and do the work that way (ie rather than doing it from being on the balcony above).

Hope I've explained it well enough to demonstrate what I am thinking of and wondering if its possible?

If it is possible, then the neighbour has to grant access by law for "necessary maintenance work" on your property and therefore cant refuse.

Failing that, then I guess you could put up scaffolding outside the properties concerned and your workmen could access their balcony from that and, again, they couldn't refuse access under the legal "necessary maintenance work" right of access.