Land / Garden survey due to slope?

dares_uk

Hi

We are currently going through the purchase process for our first house,
we have had several visits to the property, and we are not having a RICs survey due to them not being worth the paper they are written on and i am pretty confident in what to look for.
The property was previously rented too, so has electric and gas certificates.

One thing though, the property is an ex council house on a corner plot, so had a substantial garden in the past. something like 5-7 years ago a developer bought the property and split the garden and built 3 small houses at the bottom of the rear garden, the garden is on a hill, and there was a lane/access at the bottom for the new houses, no issues there.
As part of the development they dug into the hill, and build a retaining wall.
again no issues there.

How ever, on our land, at the rear of the house there is a path, and some drains exposed, path looks likes its moved/dropped a bit, because of the previous development.
No cracks etc... on house,

at the top of the retaining wall, they put a fence as our boundary, part of this fence has earth up against it, about a foot.

Obviously without pictures i know most people here wont understand.

but Who / what type of company could check this at a reasonable cost ?
a builder, engineer, surveyor ??
I haven't been able to find anything online about this sort of thing.

Cakeguts

So what is the survey going to tell you? It is going to tell you that the land at the back of the house is unstable and is on the move. So how long do you think it is going to be before the house starts to move as well? I can't understand why you have decided not to have a survey on the house because they are waste of money but you want a survey on the land behind the house to confirm what you already know that the land is slipping? Wouldn't that also be a waste of money because you can already see that there is movement? The land at the back of this house is unstable it is moving down the hill. The house is built on this land that is unstable and moving down the hill Why do you still want to buy this house so much when you already know that it has a major problem?

Find one that doesn't have a problem like this instead.

dares_uk

i think you have taken it to the extremes,

I said the path has moved, / drains are exposed.
proberly due to the work they done whilst building the 3 new properties below.

House surveys are a waste of money if you know what to look for / check your self,
i can see the wiring it not dated, i can see if there is damp or condensation,
i can check the roof for leaks, holes etc...

I cant check stability, safety of retaining walls / engineering of , etc...
i dont think the house is going to move/fall down!

i was after suggestions of companies that could check /survey the rear garden, because of the new builds, check the engineering is all adequate etc.. check if the retaining wall is high enough etc...

Mrs36

I think you mean "thank you", to Cakeguts, for replying.

I would be looking at a structural engineer for retaining walls.

neilio

dares_uk wrote: »

House surveys are a waste of money if you know what to look for / check your self,
i can see the wiring it not dated, i can see if there is damp or condensation,
i can check the roof for leaks, holes etc...

Are you an expert in property surveys? Are you chartered by RICS?

Cakeguts

Please explain how someone can install a fence with a foot of soil needing to be held back by it? The land has slipped since the fence was installed. Only you know when that was because you didn't say when the fence was installed. However it sounds as if the retaining wall was built to hold the soil back to make space for the new houses? Then a fence was installed after the wall? This means that if the fence has soil up against it the land has slipped since the fence was installed.

The path has moved and the drains have become exposed because the land is moving down hill. This is not a good house to buy because since the fence has been installed the soil from the garden that the house is built on has moved. The retaining wall is not stopping soil from slipping.