Bought a house with lots of issues. Now what?

Greenlady

Yes, we are idiots and probably deserve all we're getting, etc.

Basically, we lifted the carpets upstairs to replace and found rotten floors and several planks of chipboard of all shapes and sizes. It's obvious they tried to hide this. They moved the boiler to the loft in 2005 and had the property re-wired as well. Something bad happened then and they've just lived with it.

We don't know yet if joists are affected (probably are). Finding a joiner has been a journey in itself.

No, we did not get a survey (slap!). After reading several reviews we decided that unless we were going for a structural one, there'd be no point. And should there be any jobs needed doing, the price of the survey should cover them (ha! - right!!!!).

It's a 30 year old, or thereabouts, so we foolishly thought there'd be no major issues.

So, here we are...

Just wondering if you guys have been as naive as we have been.

Would this been an issue that owners should have disclosed? They certainly know about it bcause that awful job was done by them. It's not the original floorboards. Came across this article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/house-prices/10864514/Failed-property-survey-Now-sellers-must-disclose-all.html

NicNicP

Surveyors don't check under carpets so a survey wouldn't have picked this up anyway. My old neighbour also moved recently and they've found a problem which was also hidden by their seller. They're talking of trying to sue him so I'll let you know how they go on.

cashbackproblems

well if you have exchanged and didn't do a full survey/checks, there is nothing you can do apart from call a builder and see how much it will cost to fix and start saving

jimmy_cricket

Same thing happened to us but it was the downstairs floor. Completely rotten and had to be all replaced. We couldn't afford it, young family at the time and ended up living in one of the upstairs bedrooms for about six weeks whilst we got on and replaced.

We do though, however, have a full survey. And guess what, they just said, so sue us.

20 odd years down the road we are still here and enjoying the home we have made. So I guess my advice is to just deal with it and move on, it won't seem like a big issue looking back. It could also be worse, at least it isn't subsidence so can be relatively easy to put right.

Clutterfree

Surely having a carpet on the floor is usual so it's hardly been deliberately hidden.
How do you know that the carpet wasn't there when they bought it so were unaware of the problem themselves?
As another poster said, it would not have been picked up in a survey anyway.
I'm afraid you'll just have to chalk it up to experience, get it fixed and enjoy living in your new home.

Cakeguts

It isn't as bad as it seems. At least when you get the issues sorted you will know that they have been repaired properly and there isn't something nasty waiting for you to find.

Bossypants

I know this feels like a huge blow right now, but honestly it doesn't sound that bad to me? You need to get the rot sorted asap, both removing the currently rotting boards and dealing with any active sources of damp which could have been the root cause, but for that it's unlikely that you'll be looking at really big sums (unless you're really unlucky and the joists are badly affected, but one thing at a time).

If it helps, try to focus on the basic stuff first, i.e. the house needs to be made safe and liveable. If you can't afford to do that and also get the carpets/flooring/whatever other new things you wanted right now, that's okay, those things can come later. Whatever you put down now doesn't have to be permanent, just workable for the time being.

Greenlady

They lived here for 17 years. New boiler and re-wiring done in 2005. The floorboards are not the original. One of the rooms has the original ones. They told us they had just put new carpets when we came to view.

Greenlady

I feel more positive reading these posts. Thank you.

We have a few joiners coming to have a look this week.

Money_saving_maniac

Greenlady wrote: »

They lived here for 17 years. New boiler and re-wiring done in 2005. The floorboards are not the original. One of the rooms has the original ones. They told us they had just put new carpets when we came to view.

It's really not that much of a problem unless the joists are rotten or still damp.
The rewire was worth around 4k so that's something you dont have to worry about!