Help with interpreting survey - FTB

mildredalien

My husband and I had an offer accepted on a house a few months back and have been proceeding with the purchase until we had a full building survey done last week. We are almost certain we are going to pull out on the basis of this but it would be useful to get some advice about what are the real problematic issues and what we might expect with an older home (and should plan to deal with in any other properties we might offer on). The house is approx 100 years old.

The key issues with the current house are:

- Rising damp penetrating all downstairs floors, suspected to be due to a lack of damp proof membrane during construction. Rising damp in walls, partly concealed by waterproof plaster - suspected that a physical DPC was in place when built but this has deteriorated and no chemical DPC in place. Rising and penetrating damp due to the ground level of house being less than current standard of 150mm above external ground level.

- Penetrating damp in upper wall of kitchen suspected due to inadequately sealed abutment between pitched and flat roof of extensions. Recommended stripping and re-sealing roof (possibly just in this area not whole roof) to allow adequate sealing. We were told by the sellers that they had repaired a leak in the kitchen roof last year when we queried visible water damage on viewing, but this indicates current damp suggesting it was not adequately repaired. They have been unable to provide any guarantee or warranty for the work as we requested on offering.

- Interstitial condensation in bathroom window, likely due to lack of extractor fan - recommending this would need replacing

- Windows have external beading indicating they have not been recently replaced, and may not be secure - surveyor suggested we 'set money aside' to replace these

- Lean to extension showing signs of timber decay - recommended demolishing this structure

- Timber fascias showing signs of decay

- Insulation way below current standards (and non existent in the extension)

- Deflection over the rear kitchen leading to the surveyor questioning the adequacy and structure of the rafters supporting the roof

- Deflection in the head over a set of double doors leading them to question existence or adequacy of supporting lintel

- Extension flat roof 'nearing the end of usable life'

The surveyor estimated costs of ~£7k for fixing the damp issue. We have been quoted ~£6k by a builder, but they would have to remove the kitchen and downstairs toilet to do the work. The kitchen is not in good condition (we anticipated replacing it in a year or so) and they mentioned that they cannot guarantee that the toilet fixtures would not be damaged, so we would likely have to replace both in this process, as well as fixing whatever roof issue is going on in the kitchen extension is causing further dampness.

Of these and the other issues, are these common in older houses and may be things we could address over a few years with a bit of regular maintenance and improvement? The damp issue requires such extensive work I can't see how we could live in the house while it was done, so I suspect we would have to do it straight away.

Unfortunately although we really like the house and were prepared for some updating and maintenance work we weren't anticipating costs of £10k upwards (I can see it being substantially more) immediately on moving in and don't have this money to hand.

suzialwaysbroke

Tricky one. We are in a similar situation to you, we met our surveyor on site after the survey and he talked about damp problems, electrics, roof etc with us and ended by saying he thought the house was good value for money even with these problems. Is it the house of your dreams and were you planning to do improvements anyway?
You could go back to the vendor and reduce your offer for the house. Our vendors had dropped quite a bit, so we are happily proceeding with our purchase. The surveyors written reports do tend to err on the dismal side, whereas an informal chat may well set your minds at rest that it is not as bad as it's painted.
Good luck with whatever you decide to do

[Deleted User]

I lived in a house like this with an uninsulated, unheated, kitchen in an extension on the back of the house.

It wasn't good, if the kitchen door was opened (we had dogs and children so this did happen), all the heat from the lounge went into the kitchen. I often wondered if there was any point in heating the entire downstairs. If it wasn't that, I was constantly opening and closing the darned kitchen door to preserve heat in the lounge.

The flat roof fell in, Took quite a while to get it repaired. When it was, it was discovered there were two layers of boards, both rotten, one lain on top of the other and covered with the usual bitumen covering.., both doomed to fail. This lead to progressive mould (that my 'lifestyle' was blamed for in spite of having a condenser dryer and leaving the window open constantly).

If the extension doesn't seem to have been well built, I'd advise you to check the electric wiring very carefully. We only had one working plug, they had all been drawn off the lighting ring. Any other plug if used would send trip the fuse box. We had electricians check the plug sockets and they couldn't see a problem, but this tripping was constant. After we moved out the kitchen was rewired so I wonder if the LL was refusing to acknowledge the problem til we moved out. It was a complete pain.

There was no heating (radiator) in the kitchen.

It was a rental so we couldn't sort it ourselves. But I'd run every check possible if you want to know how much this will cost you.

DRP

Give the surveyor a ring to get his informal views - i've always done this and you get much better information.

IF what he says still scares you then go back to the vendor with a revised offer - tell the EA what the surveyor has said - any subsequent buyer will get all the same problems reported to them.

mildredalien

We spoke to the surveyor after the survey - he said that he didn't think it was worth the price we were paying and that it could turn into a 'money pit' which is not great! We have pulled out of this purchase on the basis that we'd likely have to partly rebuild and/or reroof the extension area as well as all of the other damp and decorative works, and we just don't have that money even if they substantially reduced the asking price. It's now back on the market at 'offers over' 10k under they were originally asking, but still a couple of grand more than our offer!! Good luck to them

I was wondering about the insulation, timber decay, condensation, window issues etc. and whether those are rather par for the course on a house that age. I'm not averse to needing to do some maintenance and upkeep, and I wonder whether that house was just particularly poorly maintained.