House I'm buying is unmortgageable!!

Doozergirl

OP, if you are friendly with your vendors, I would ask if you can get someone to drill a hole into the wall to establish for sure. I presume there are no windows in the gable end?

I would be very surprised to see a genuine single leaf wall on a 1900 end terrace gable. It's not a common thing locally, if you are indeed Halesowen.

That is a big wall with a big job to do, it wouldn't calculate as standing up these days.

Is the gable wall rendered? I'm guessing there must be some layer of stretcher bond visible for both to be making deductions.

Doozergirl

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Errrrm.....am now puzzled as to why vendors would "have" to knock off YOUR "early repayment charge" if they want YOU to buy it.:cool:

In their position - I would be thinking "Why should we cover HER early repayment charge for her? That's nothing to do with us or our house". Add the fact that you say you tried to buy this same house a couple of years previously (errrrrm....so why didn't you proceed at that time? - given that you had a survey on the place). You also apparently want THEM to pay for YOUR re-survey of their place - huh???


If you try telling the vendors they must cover one of YOUR bills then be prepared for a "short sharp" answer back from them. In their position - any suggestions like that would have me refusing to sell the house to you anyway.

I thought the point you were trying to make from this earlier survey was that this single wall would appear to be a cavity wall after all (judging by the comment in it). In which case - check out that little point and maybe Virgin wont have anything to complain about anyway.

You'll find the only way to know the answer is to ask the vendor, not you.

Firstly, we need to establish what the true construction is. First things first.

Secondly, if it is single skin, it is the vendor's problem. If the OP is lucky enough to find someone willing to lend and still wants to buy, they would be sensible to grab the sale with both hands. A house with a mortgageable value of £0 is most definitely the vendor's problem.

edgex

Doozergirl wrote: »

Solid wall construction is different to a single leaf wall. You're getting mixed up. Single leaf is structurally unsound.

http://www.roymech.co.uk/Related/Construction/Masonry.html

"Single-leaf wall- defined as a wall without continuous vertical joint or cavity"




The standard Victorian/Edwardian house wall is a single-leaf two bricks thick, as per second image, which would be 9" thick

Doozergirl

edgex wrote: »

http://www.roymech.co.uk/Related/Construction/Masonry.html

"Single-leaf wall- defined as a wall without continuous vertical joint or cavity"




The standard Victorian/Edwardian house wall is a single-leaf two bricks thick, as per second image, which would be 9" thick

Erm, even your diagram shows 'single leaf' as what the potential problem is with the OP's purchase. A single leaf house is unmortgageable.

You haven't read the survey comment that you quoted clearly enough.

"The walls which are approximately 225mm (9') thick, are built of brick and are of solid construction. However, the gable wall appears to have been rebuilt in recent years and is possibly in cavity construction."

In over 15 years in the trade, what in your diagram is labelled 'single leaf full brick' is referred to as solid wall construction - even the surveyor does it in your quote.

It doesn't matter, though. He has seen that the wall is different to the 9" walls (I presume there is some stretcher bond present) and deduced a rebuild in cavity. It seems that the second surveyor has seen it and deduced an original single leaf wall.

It would be hugely odd for a single leaf gable going up near enough three storeys to withstand the pressure on it. Given that the OP mentions a history of resolved subsidence, my gut would tell me that a rebuild of a 9"gable to cavity in line with more modern building regs could have been a likely outcome.

My gut doesn't matter though, a drill through the wall should establish the construction if there are no window reveals to guide.

askandyeshallreceive

Hi all - thanks for the vibrant debate around wall construction!! The devil's certainly in the detail!!

Ok where to start. An update probably.

Virgin have initially come back to me (following me sending them the 2013 homebuyer's survey which said "It looks like it's cavity") and their response was: 'it's single leaf, go away, declined'. I've responded saying ok, you say that, tell me how your surveyor came to that conclusion, what did he do, what did he see, how did he determine that? I await their response.

I agree, central to all of this is what type of wall construction is it, actually. Not what do we think. Which requires a drill and removal of some plaster or render presumably, to see what's what. I am concerned though about having to get another expensive survey done just to look at this one thing - what might that cost / is that what I need or do I just need a surveyor or a structural engineer or a builder??? Can anyone give advice on this???

In the interim, the estate agent and their vendors are putting the property back on the market (!).

Moneyistooshorttomention: Why I didn't buy it the first time round is actually completely irrelevant to this time around as it had absolutely nothing to do with wall construction at all. I think the vendor wants to bear in mind (which seems to be going over his head completely) that at this current time, he can only sell it to someone who is a cash buyer. If I have to go to another lender that will cost me over two grand in early repayment fees - as Doozergirl says, the problem resides with the vendor if they genuinely do want to sell it. Undoubtedly they bought it without a survey since which they've rented it out and done absolutely nothing to maintain any aspect of the fabric of the building. It's now coming to bite them (and me) right in the rear! They could of course offer to demolish and rebuild the side wall for me if they wanted, that would sort the problem (be a bit more costly I'd imagine though). If I had to pay over £2k in early repayment fees to go to another lender just in order to buy this otherwise unmortgageable property, I'd then struggle to find the several thousand for removals, solicitors and estate agent fees that I also have to pay - I've not got endless pots of money sitting around to splash out to put other people's issues right so I don't think it's unfair to ask for some consideration around that. If they say no, which they are fully at liberty to do, I will just have to figure out how I could manage to buy it and find all the fees as well as pay the early repayment. Just so you know, there's no Machiavellian, backhanded, sly mischief going on at the back of this attempt to purchase on my part, nor was there on the first attempt either. These vendors are really quite deluded about the state of the property already - they must be yet more deluded when you bear in mind they think that they think that putting it back on the market as it is is actually getting them anywhere.

I just hope the agent is honest enough to tell people when they view that it's unlikely to get a mortgage!

Doozergirl

I think that a builder will suffice - take photographs that show the evidence if it is not single leaf - be guided by the builder to show exactly how and why.

A structural engineer could write something professionally backed though - it would carry more weight if your complaint landed with someone that didn't understand building properly.

Are you actually in Halesowen? I could definitely recommend an SE if so. You could explain to him and see how much he'd charge.

halesowenmum

Doozergirl wrote: »

I think that a builder will suffice - take photographs that show the evidence if it is not single leaf - be guided by the builder to show exactly how and why.

A structural engineer could write something professionally backed though - it would carry more weight if your complaint landed with someone that didn't understand building properly.

Are you actually in Halesowen? I could definitely recommend an SE if so. You could explain to him and see how much he'd charge.

Yes I am in Halesowen. I agree that whilst I'm totally confident that a builder would know straight away, I'm not sure that the lender would feel it was valid to accept their opinion (wrongly I'd say but that's not the point).

I feel this whole thing is slipping away from me. I can't go to another lender, they won't lend to me. The vendors are wallies and I don't even know if they'll agree to an investigatory survey but I'll have to ask and see if they will. They honestly think they can whack it back on the market and it will sell to someone else. I guess it might, if they happen to be with a lender that doesn't care about single leaf.

Thank you for this suggestion.

cattermole

Or as you say sell it to a cash buyer for BTL who isn't bothered.

I think only when you establish whether there really is a problem or not are you able to move forward as you know.

So I guess it comes down to is it worth spending further money on investigating a property that you may not be able to mortgage anyway?

Only you can really decide that and how much the property means to you.

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

askandyeshallreceive wrote: »

Virgin have initially come back to me (following me sending them the 2013 homebuyer's survey which said "It looks like it's cavity") and their response was: 'it's single leaf, go away, declined'. I've responded saying ok, you say that, tell me how your surveyor came to that conclusion, what did he do, what did he see, how did he determine that? I await their response.

They don't care. He said it, and that's enough. If he's wrong, so what? Your business is entirely insignificant to them.

patchwork_cat

Can you look on old maps and see if the terrace has shortened, it maybe that it was a longer terrace and the others have gone and only a single skin has been put up. As Doozer has said only way to be sure is a borescope survey