House I'm buying is unmortgageable!!

Upsidedown_Bear

patchwork_cat wrote: »

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

Good thinking

halesowenmum - have a look at this old map and see if you can find the house you are interested in (Halesowen is in the bottom right of the map).

http://maps.nls.uk/view/101597681

halesowenmum

Upsidedown_Bear wrote: »

Good thinking

halesowenmum - have a look at this old map and see if you can find the house you are interested in (Halesowen is in the bottom right of the map).

http://maps.nls.uk/view/101597681

Thanks for finding this!

I've had a look and compared it to a current map of the same streets and it's difficult to tell... On the map you referenced I'm not sure how you tell what's a house, whats a driveway, what's possibly a garage or something - so I can't tell if there's a dwelling on the relevant spot, or what else it could be.

Now, it's what would be a driveway, and now has a double garage on it - whether there was a house on there before is unclear (from the maps).

However, on the negative, on that street the house numbers go 39, gap (that's the gap next to the one I'm looking to buy on which there is a double garage), then 43 (the one I'm looking to buy), then 45, 47 etc.

So it looks like it could indeed have been a building of some sort demolished on what would have been number 41.

At the end of the day, it still comes down to, we need to find out the actual structure of the wall - for definite - and the only way is an investigation of the way it's been built and the materials and which one it actually is.

Very useful looking on the maps though, thank you very much.

halesowenmum

Ok, so current plan of action:

1. Find out cost of structural survey just of the appropriate number of areas of the wall that would determine without doubt, how the wall was constructed

2. If not single leaf, inform my lender, hope they don't ask for a further survey, then proceed as before and get vendors to take the property OFF the market

3. If single leaf, speak to mortgage advisor who can find a lender who will a. lend on a single leaf b. lend to someone who has only just started working as a contractor in the form of a limited company and who does not have 2 years of accounts to show to them.

4. If no. 4 proves to be a non-starter, find another property even though none of them are in the location required (which is extremely restricted due to schools, walking distances to schools, wanting to not be on a main road ever again, and there being very few 3 beds in that narrow location (so further survey costs and additional solicitor costs if it's a case of swapping to a different property to purchase)

Or:

5. Pull out of my sale, incur £800 estate agent fees and solicitors fees for their services to this point, p** off the agent who's sold my house for me so quickly, and distress the purchasers who are trying to purchase in good faith from me. Not an option that sits well with me AT ALL but then neither does moving to a house that I don't actually want, like, and that's in the wrong place.

I still wonder, if it does turn out to be single leaf, there must be remedial works that can be done - does anyone know what that would involve? It could be a full demolish and rebuild - or something clever but less extensive - I suppose that would be something to ask a structural engineer type person, when they did the proper investigation of that wall, to find out what reinforcement or whatever, they would feel it needed.

Feeling properly under pressure since the vendors have put it back on the market - should they get a lucky soul who happens to have a lender who would lend on the house, that'd be the house gone. I am also concerned that the agent won't mention the issue with the gable end wall to potential vendors - but there'll be no way of finding that out. I suppose it's something they'd mention verbally, rather than there being a requirement for them to put it in the property details.

Doozergirl

Is there a streetview picture of the gable?

I'm minded to go and drive and look at the thing myself now.

halesowenmum

Doozergirl wrote: »

Is there a streetview picture of the gable?

I'm minded to go and drive and look at the thing myself now.

If you PM me I think I can attach an image if that would work?

patchwork_cat

The demolished neighbour was my husband's , a civil engineer, first opinion on what might have happened. If it is single leaf then any other potential buyer would have problems, also as this has come to light if the vendors didn't make any future purchaser aware of the problem I would have thought they would be on sticky ground legally.


I wouldn't worry about anyone else buying it and I wouldn't let them push me into a decision, if it genuinely is single leaf I wouldn't be buying that house for the price you offered believing it was sound.


Take your time and weigh up your options.

SG27

So what is actually the problem with single leaf? Is it that it's new single leaf? Surely if single leaf were a problem then no house before 1920ish would ever be bought or sold? Next door to me are a couple of late 19th C cottages which have both been sold over the last couple of years and my house itself is early 18th C with lath and plaster walls. Surely even worse than single skin bricks?

When_the_going_gets_tough

A gable wall only half a brick thick ie. Only the width of a brick rather than the length as in a normal solid wall built before the advent of cavity walls - this would worry me because it might not be strong enough to support the end of the house. If the property had originally been a mid terraced house then the houses would have supported each other. In addition solid walls are porous and a wall half a brick thick could easily be the source of penetrating damp. Tbh I would walk away from this property, I think it needs serious money spending on it.

halesowenmum

patchwork_cat wrote: »

The demolished neighbour was my husband's , a civil engineer, first opinion on what might have happened. If it is single leaf then any other potential buyer would have problems, also as this has come to light if the vendors didn't make any future purchaser aware of the problem I would have thought they would be on sticky ground legally.


I wouldn't worry about anyone else buying it and I wouldn't let them push me into a decision, if it genuinely is single leaf I wouldn't be buying that house for the price you offered believing it was sound.


Take your time and weigh up your options.

Yes, I am going to do my investigations and hope that no one else will buy it - it would come down to cash buyer who never wanted to sell the property on ever, or someone who just happens to have a mortgage company that doesn't mind single leaf over two storeys - hopefully pretty unlikely.

I've already made a pretty pointed comment to the agents that I trust they will make the people going out to view it aware that they might not be able to get a mortgage on it. Not sure that went down well with them but that's their problem and not mine.

If it were my house and I was trying to sell it and my purchaser came back and said to me it's failed, they've valued it at £0, it would be me out looking for someone to come and fully inspect that wall and make a definitive diagnosis - so I could reassure my purchaser and get the sale progressed. But their response is put it back on the market - barmy really.

halesowenmum

When_the_going_gets_tough wrote: »

iA gable wall only half a brick thick ie. Only the width of a brick rather than the length as in a normal solid wall built before the advent of cavity walls - this would worry me because it might not be strong enough to support the end of the House. If the property h.ad originally been a mid terraced house then the houses would have supported each other. In addition solid walls are porous and a wall half a brick thick could easily be the source of penetrating damp. Tbh I would walk away from this property, I think it needs serious money spending on it.

In terms of the structural question, if there were actually a problem with it, it has stood through subsidence and weather and wind and there is no bowing, no cracks, nothing to indicate that that gable end wall is struggling with the loads placed on it, nor that it ever has, and it looks like the house would have become an end terrace some time around 1988 so it was going to show signs, it surely would have done by now.

Yes, penetrating damp would be an issue, but surely that is something that could be rectified?

It all hinges on the "is it or isn't it single leaf" question really - so I'm going to look at getting a boroscope survey done and that'll answer the question straight away. Then I can make properly informed decisions.

I do agree, if it is structurally unsound that's a no no. But two surveys on that property and neither have stated "this property is structurally unsound".... Obviously, I don't want my house to fall down so I've got to be sensible about it, but I would have thought if it's such a danger, the surveyor(s) would have clearly stated that if for no other reason than to cover their behinds, you know?