Homebuyer's Report Mortgage Retention

davidmcn

The survey does not say that any remedial work is actually needed in relation to the structure, merely that as a first step you get a structural survey - so you do that first. It may reveal that actually the original surveyor is a structural amateur and there's nothing to worry about - in which case the property is worth £150k (less anything you want to deduct for the outhouse roof, though I'm not sure whether that's worth quibbling about).

alumende27

Note that you'll need a structural engineers report from a qualified structural engineer. They'll need to have suitable indemnity insurance. Unlike a RICS surveyor, they can (and are!) held to account for what they write in a report. https://www.istructe.org/finding-a-structural-engineer

We needed to commission a structural engineers report for our current house after the lenders valuation came back requiring one and managed to get the current owners to pay for the remedial work (although we paid for the structural engineers site visits and to sign off on the work). Mind you, it had been on the market for 3 years by that point so I think they were rather desperate to sell.

wantonnoodle

We had near enough the same issue when we had the survey done on our house. The valuation came back questioning subsidence and cavity wall tie failure. We also had spotted a little bit of sagging above a couple of windows and the patio doors so we were concerned about lintels failing.

The mortgage company put a full retention on pending cavity wall tie inspection and structural survey report. These cost about £500 all in - £360 for the structural survey report, and £125 for the cavity wall ties (and we got the cavity wall tie surveyor to check the lintels based on our suspicions). Thankfully we are not in a mining area so this was not an issue.

The reports came back stating there was no subsidence; it was long standing settlement (the house was built in 1929), but the wall ties were close to failure. The lintels did indeed need replacing.

The mortgage lender (the West Brom) revised the retention to £5000. We put this to the vendor, and he, surprisingly, agreed to get it done in line with the requirements of the West Brom, and obtained 25 year insurance backed transferable warranties for the work. I guess he accepted that this would be an issue for anyone buying the house so it was prudent to get it done. The quote we had received from the surveyors was that the works would cost around £3000.

This remedial work was completed in December, and we began the legal side of the purchase in January. We are due to exchange this week with a completion date of the end of next week pencilled in.

I would get the surveys done and see what the deal is, it may not be as bad as expected. We were fully prepared to walk away had the vendor not agreed to remedy the problems.