HELP! - terrified by findings on Buildings Survey!

ToasterScheme

Chanes wrote: »

Yes, I do know Victorian houses are a bit pants now. Would have been useful to know that before we bought ours years ago as FTBs who were a bit skint and fed that rubbish line "they knew how to build them back them" because they really didn't!

Yep - we're re-fitting the bathroom in our 1880 house. There's a chimney wall, with a long-bricked-up fireplace opening in it. There must have been some sort of hearth in front of it back in the day. There's a half-row of bricks which are properly built into the chimney wall (phew! - these now hold up the floorboard ends), but in front of that there is a second row of bricks running parallel to the wall. These must have been to support the old hearth too, but are held up by what I can only describe as twigs! (Really narrow and thin flat strips of wood).

PrincessJR

fezster wrote: »

It's almost certain the surveyor is giving you worst case scenario, to cover him/herself. Without removing the ceiling or lifting floorboards, they would not know for certain. It's definitely worth having a conversation with them before spending any more money, to gauge their thoughts. Surveyors are often willing to give far more information verbally than in their report, as there's no comeback on their verbal comments!

Personally, if you like the house enough, then I would just assume the work needs doing and use this as an opportunity to negotiate a discount. You'll then be adding value to the house too. Just negotiate a bigger discount than you estimate the work to cost to take account of the time and inconvenience as well as additional risk.

Thanks. We do love the house, and the location and have even enquired with the primary school who have now offered my Daughter a place so we are very much hoping we can work through the issues.

It all comes down to cost I guess. The inconvenience, while a pain, is manageable. Of course though 1 job turns into several and if we're going to have to have a new ceiling, we feel we may as well knock the old 1960s fireplace out at the same time to get the chimney breast re-plastered at the same time. We already negotiated a £15k reduction initially (was advertised at £295k we got it for £280k) so I doubt the sellers will come down any further, however from our point of view, our offer of £280k was on the basis that no structural work was needed. We knew the place needed to be updated throughout but weren't expected such a serious issue. I say serious as on the buildings survey it is noted under 'serious defects' meaning it requires immediate attention as poses a risk to safety.

martinthebandit

PrincessJR wrote: »

I say serious as on the buildings survey it is noted under 'serious defects' meaning it requires immediate attention as poses a risk to safety.

Although the immediate attention it needs is to check if the work is required.

phoebe1989seb

PrincessJR wrote: »

Thanks. We do love the house, and the location and have even enquired with the primary school who have now offered my Daughter a place so we are very much hoping we can work through the issues.

It all comes down to cost I guess. The inconvenience, while a pain, is manageable. Of course though 1 job turns into several and if we're going to have to have a new ceiling, we feel we may as well knock the old 1960s fireplace out at the same time to get the chimney breast re-plastered at the same time. We already negotiated a £15k reduction initially (was advertised at £295k we got it for £280k) so I doubt the sellers will come down any further, however from our point of view, our offer of £280k was on the basis that no structural work was needed. We knew the place needed to be updated throughout but weren't expected such a serious issue. I say serious as on the buildings survey it is noted under 'serious defects' meaning it requires immediate attention as poses a risk to safety.

Apologies if I've missed this and you already mentioned it upthread, but did your surveyor value the house at your agreed purchase price?

I certainly wouldn't be put off by the issues you've mentioned, but we tend to buy rather unique 'fixer upper' type houses that are a minimum of 150 years old so have come up against all sorts over the years IMHO, it depends how much you want the house and how likely you are to find another you like as much.......

PrincessJR

phoebe1989seb wrote: »

Apologies if I've missed this and you already mentioned it upthread, but did your surveyor value the house at your agreed purchase price?

I certainly wouldn't be put off by the issues you've mentioned, but we tend to buy rather unique 'fixer upper' type houses that are a minimum of 150 years old so have come up against all sorts over the years IMHO, it depends how much you want the house and how likely you are to find another you like as much.......

Our survey didn't include a valuation (doesn't come as standard with a buildings survey as far as I'm aware although could be wrong)
He did state that there was no reason the house shouldn't "demonstrate a sound future investment" which I'm not sure he'd have said if he felt it overpriced. We will still try to renegotiate a little I think.
How much do we want the house? = very much.
Will we find one we like as much? = unlikely.

We always knew that for our budget, to get a good plot of land (just under 0.5 acres) in a rural location we would be buying a fixer upper so can't grumble really. We just expected more the new kitchen, new bathroom and modernisation rater than structural fun and games, but I guess now the initial shock has worn off, it's not too big a job.

I'm still wondering if a competent builder could deal with it from start to finish, or would we definitely need a structural engineer first then a builder?

martinthebandit

PrincessJR wrote: »

I'm still wondering if a competent builder could deal with it from start to finish, or would we definitely need a structural engineer first then a builder?

A competent builder will know a decent structural engineer that he has used before so should be able to deal with it from start to finish.

The drawback is that most, if not all, are generally booked up several months (or years) in advance.

phoebe1989seb

PrincessJR wrote: »

Our survey didn't include a valuation (doesn't come as standard with a buildings survey as far as I'm aware although could be wrong)
He did state that there was no reason the house shouldn't "demonstrate a sound future investment" which I'm not sure he'd have said if he felt it overpriced. We will still try to renegotiate a little I think.
How much do we want the house? = very much.
Will we find one we like as much? = unlikely.

We always knew that for our budget, to get a good plot of land (just under 0.5 acres) in a rural location we would be buying a fixer upper so can't grumble really. We just expected more the new kitchen, new bathroom and modernisation rater than structural fun and games, but I guess now the initial shock has worn off, it's not too big a job.

I'm still wondering if a competent builder could deal with it from start to finish, or would we definitely need a structural engineer first then a builder?

Apologies - last three houses we paid cash and chose not to have any kind of survey :eek: Agree that the surveyor saying that, sounds as though he thinks it's worth the price you're paying, but it can't hurt to try to get a little more off........

It sounds as though you're a bit like us - our most recent purchases have included a detached Tudor house that was dismantled and rebuilt elsewhere in the 1930s and an 1850s detached cottage with arts & crafts extension, lol - so your chosen house is probably one of a kind and you'd struggle to find something comparable within budget.

I'd get a structural engineer in, but I certainly wouldn't be put off buying based upon what you've said here!

Good luck

bris

The report mentions the 1960's so if the ceiling was going to fall down it would have happened a lot quicker than the 56 years it's been so far.


Surveyor sees a bump and the sky is falling, typical worst case scenario so he can't be sued.

PrincessJR

phoebe1989seb wrote: »

Apologies - last three houses we paid cash and chose not to have any kind of survey :eek: Agree that the surveyor saying that, sounds as though he thinks it's worth the price you're paying, but it can't hurt to try to get a little more off........

It sounds as though you're a bit like us - our most recent purchases have included a detached Tudor house that was dismantled and rebuilt elsewhere in the 1930s and an 1850s detached cottage with arts & crafts extension, lol - so your chosen house is probably one of a kind and you'd struggle to find something comparable within budget.

I'd get a structural engineer in, but I certainly wouldn't be put off buying based upon what you've said here!

Good luck

Thanks very much! - yes we always knew we couldn't live in a modern box with no garden (although for comparative purposes we did view some) so somewhere along the line we expected hard work. At least we now know it's not a huge issue to replace an RSJ if needed

Does anyone know how long this kind of job would take as presumably we'd need it done before we could move in?
- Remove ceiling
- Replace RSJ
- Re-plasterboard and skim ceiling

Would a week cover it?

PrincessJR

bris wrote: »

The report mentions the 1960's so if the ceiling was going to fall down it would have happened a lot quicker than the 56 years it's been so far.


Surveyor sees a bump and the sky is falling, typical worst case scenario so he can't be sued.

Our thoughts exactly! Although it does seem coincidental if not, that the ceiling issue is in line with where the old external wall would have been