Bad survey - but how bad is it? Some advice please!

vorneus

Hi everyone,

My wife and I recently put an offer in on a Victorian property. We got an offer agreed at just over £10k under the asking price - which was a little more than we wanted to pay as the property looked like it needed a lot of TLC.

We love the place - the location, the garden, the layout, etc. - but to be safe conducted a full building (level 3) survey. The results came back yesterday and oh boy, that's a lot of urgent defects.

It hasn't completely put us off, but the only estimate of costs we have are £30k-£50k, which is really too broad a range for us (I think at least?) to go back to the vendor and say we want it off. The advice of the survey is basically to get every specialist contractor under the sun out to see what they think of the roof, walls/timber, floors, electrics, plumbing and gas, etc. - but I'm unwilling to part with all that cost if the vendor is unwilling to budge on price.

Not really sure where to start. Given this is the first building survey we've done, I'm also not 100% sure how serious everything is, though there's a traffic light system where basically everything but two items are in the most urgent category and nothing is "green".

Would anyone more savvy / experienced be able to advise us? I can anonymise the summary and upload it if helpful.

Thanks very much,

-Ed

sparky130a

Sounds like a massively over zealous survey.

It's a victorian property. Of course it needs work. What's urgent is another matter...

Browntoa

If there's no certificate's for gas and electric then that's classed as a fail

Old roof , fail , although might not need work for years

Damp , no damp warranty then they fail . Old house will always have some damp but might just be gutters blocked or leaking or poor ventilation .

They fail everything that's got doubts to cover themselves

parking_question_chap

Most surveys are not worth the paper they are written these days. In our compensation society surveyors will just write worst case scenarios and advise you to seek advice from "specialists", they are s**t scared of somebody suing them for missing something, so they cover every possibility under the sun, even if they are not issues.

You are better off taking the issues mentioned, researching them, and going back to the property for an hour or so and use your own eyes and instincts.

Thrugelmir

vorneus wrote: »

but the only estimate of costs we have are £30k-£50k, which is really too broad a range for us (I think at least?) to go back to the vendor and say we want it off.

If you intend employing contractors to do all the work. Then costs can easily mount. 20% goes in VAT alone.

walwyn1978

Stick up the salient points on here if you like, but Victorian property (with the defects you'd expect from a property of that type) will no doubt have lots of 3's just because the surveyor will have wanted to cover himself so will hedge negatively due to age.

One example - we bought a 1860's terrace house 11 years ago. Survey had a number of 3's - one of which was they condemned the roof and said it was in urgent need of replacement due to missing slates and attendant leakage.

None of the slates were missing when we offered. We went back. Two slates had slipped (not gone totally). That was it. We exchanged, went up on the roof, put the slates back into position with the intention of doing a proper replacement later on.

We sold the house 7 years later having not replaced any slates. The new owner also hasn't replaced any slates or had his roof done (still in touch wit the neighbours).


In other words, our surveyor was cautious. Fair enough - it's probably not a bad position in that industry. Yours probably was too.

Good luck

Silverbeard50

We bought a big Georgian (1780) house with out buildings and two acres of ground two years ago and paid for a full survey. it ran to thirty five pages and had five items requiring urgent attention, one being the main roof which had two ridges with a lead valley between the two sections. Ball park quote for this alone was £20K.
There was also the usual caveat about damp, some of the single storey roofs with lots of frost damaged tiles and no safety device on the electric gates to prevent them closing on vehicles and pedestrians.
Like you, we wondered whether we should walk away. We had been looking for the right house for well over a year and had moved into rented having sold our own house.
We wanted the property as it ticked all the boxes, so we met with the vendors having provided them with a copy of the report and talked through the various issues. They had documentation to support the work that had been done but the main roof, damaged tiles and safety issue with the gates were agreed as needing attention. We left it to them to decide on a price reduction. They did reduce the price slightly but not enough to cover the potential costs. Having said that, the house was exactly what we wanted and would still have bought it even if they hadn't moved on price.
Subsequent costs to put right the main roof was £550 plus VAT by a specialist roofer who also gave a report on the overall condition (good for another twenty years at least). The safety system for the gates was around £500. the tiles were all ground floor roofs and to reroof two sides of separate buildings cost around £1K.
Two years on from moving in, no sign of damp or any of the other caveats in the report but at least we went into it with open eyes. Older properties always need more TLC than a modern box but I know which I prefer.
Only you can make the decision.

JigglyPug

Do you have the details of the surveyor? If so, i'd contact them and ask to speak to them about the survey to get some more insight into their findings. Ask them what they think the most pressing issues are and what needs doing immediately. It may also then be worthwhile going back for a 2nd viewing and looking at the issues brought up in the survey to see what you think.

It's worth remembering that even if the survey is a bit scary, you most likely won't need to fix everything straight away. I just bought a Victorian property that had a bad survey but only a few things mentioned needed fixing as soon as we moved in - as long as the property is structurally sound then most other stuff can be fixed a bit at a time as and when you have the money available.

vorneus

Thank you everyone for your replies - really helpful.

The survey does indeed mostly highlight worst case, advise that a "programme of repair" should be embarked on and suggests another report from a specialist and "all advice be followed".

As per JigglyPug's suggestion I have compiled a detailed list of clarification questions that I'm sending back to the surveyor to discuss.

Silverbeard50 - interesting that you were able to directly negotiate with the vendors. Is that normal?

Thanks again everyone,

-Ed

ThePants999

Our building survey recommended sending sixteen further specialists round, from a wall tie specialist to an arboriculturist. We... didn't. The house is fine.

sparky130a

vorneus wrote: »

The survey does indeed mostly highlight worst case, advise that a "programme of repair" should be embarked on and suggests another report from a specialist and "all advice be followed".

Or what? The world ends? The place falls down?

Buy a shovel, you'll need one for the amount of salt that survey deserves...