Additional conveyancing searches & damp on survey

Nadeshkarine

Hi there – first time poster but I’ve been lurking this board for many months as we progress through the stages of buying our first house.
Thanks for all the useful advice so far! I’d like to get some more regarding conveyancing searches...

My solicitor initiated the searches yesterday (apparently Environmental and drainage surveys) and the company executing the searches came back directly to me with a suggested list of additional searches which are listed below.
Now I know they probably just want to make as much money but I’m a very, very cautious FTB (their ideal target!)
I checked with my solicitor and he suggested we wait to see what the initial ones throw up before commissioning any more. As we’re not in a rush, this is advice I am following.

In the mean time I wanted to ask if anyone had any experience with these and whether they view them as essential/a waste of money?
My thoughts on our particular case: we’re buying in South East London purposefully close to a train station (<5 min walk) and a 20 min walk to tube – what additional info could that £90 Underground report give?!
I’ve already scanned the council’s planning permission requests and flood risk assessments (there’s a river in the borough which was near an earlier house we looked at) – do these sorts of surveys have access to additional, i.e. non-public, info?

Email:
The following reports have been recommended due to the property being within an area that could be affected.

• Mineral Extraction Report – £60.00
  The property has been shown to be at potential risk from sinkholes and ground instability
• Ground Stability Report - £22.80
  Shows risk of manmade and natural subsidence in the area
• Flood Report - £30.00
  Shows flood risk to the area
• Energy & Infrastructure Report (Inc Highspeed 2) - £30.00
  Shows location information of energy sites (fracking, oil extraction, solar and wind farms) as well as HS2 route
• Underground Report - £90.00
  Information on London Rail, Tube lines & Crossrail
• Radon Report - £5.00
  Shows risk of radon in the area
• Plansearch Plus - £37.20
  Provides simplified planning application info based on type, scale, distance use class in close proximity and wider area

Thanks

messes

I can't say I'd bother with most of them, although if I lived in an area that had a history of mining I might be a little more interested in the first two.

Still in the interests of saving money, if you feel you want any of these reports.

You can get a Flood Risk report from the Land Registry site for £9.

Radeon information can be found online too, for £4
http://www.ukradon.org/services/address_search

But you can also use the free map to see if your area is even worth getting a full report on.

Thrugelmir

Nadeshkarine wrote: »

I checked with my solicitor and he suggested we wait to see what the initial ones throw up before commissioning any more.

Your solicitor also works for your mortgage lender. They'll have their own requirements that will need to be fulfilled.

bouicca21

Surprisingly here are parts of north west kent that are now in south east London that genuinely are a risk for radon. You can put the post code into the search engine and if anyone has actually carried out a test you will get a result you can trust. Chances are that no one will have done such a test, because us Londoners don't really think about that sort of thing. So all you will actually find out is that there is (or isn't) some sort of risk. I doubt it's worth a fiver to find out. I actually did do the full test (takes a couple of months, dead easy). No problem at all.

I am intrigued at the 90 quid underground test - is that some kind of fancy tube map that they will offer you? Not a lot of tubes in south east London ...

Subsidence risk is surely something you'd be asking your surveyor about?

I wasn't aware that HS2 was coming south of the River, seeing as it starts at Euston and goes north. Fracking and oil extraction? Someone is having a laugh.

Be guided by your solicitor and what the mortgage lender requires.

ThePants999

Underground Report - £90.00
Information on London Rail, Tube lines & Crossrail

What the actual... Has anyone in history ever benefited from this search!?

Nadeshkarine

Thanks for the quick replies, your sentiments all seem to be the same as mine.
My initial gut was Flood & Ground stability were ones I might want, but then I got paranoid about skipping something.

messes wrote: »

Still in the interests of saving money, if you feel you want any of these reports.
You can get a Flood Risk report from the Land Registry site for £9.
Radeon information can be found online too, for £4
But you can also use the free map to see if your area is even worth getting a full report on.

Thanks - that's the sort of thing I was looking for - whether these reports are really MSE. The Radon map you linked to said 1%-3% chance of being elevated and given it sounds like we'd need to get a proper in-house test to be sure I might skip the search.
If we don't have to get the flood risk one by our lender I may order this one for my own peace of mind.

bouicca21 wrote: »

I am intrigued at the 90 quid underground test - is that some kind of fancy tube map that they will offer you? Not a lot of tubes in south east London ...

Subsidence risk is surely something you'd be asking your surveyor about?

On the subsidence I guess a surveyor would only be able to comment on our house specifically showing signs, but I wondered if the search may through up a historical reason the area is prone or neighbouring incidences?

ThePants999 wrote: »

Underground Report - £90.00
Information on London Rail, Tube lines & Crossrail
What the actual... Has anyone in history ever benefited from this search!?

That was pretty much my thinking - don't want to pay £90 to be told how close I am to public transport, when that's why we're forking out so much for the location!

Silly FTB follow up question regarding the lender's role - we've already had the valutation survey and offer - does this mean they can still demand extra searches we would have to pay for, and potentially pull out if they don't like the results?

Thrugelmir

Something may even come to light that you don't like, and results in you pulling out of the purchase. Let due process takes it's course. Little point in over thinking matters. House purchase is stressful enough as it is.

Richard_Webster

Silly FTB follow up question regarding the lender's role - we've already had the valutation survey and offer - does this mean they can still demand extra searches we would have to pay for, and potentially pull out if they don't like the results?

Yes, the solicitors appointed by them have to check everything and if anything comes up which could be adverse to the lender they have to tell them and the lender can then decide to pull out or request more information.

Nadeshkarine

Thanks for all the replies - initial searches came back with no major issue except a medium risk of ground movement, which I understand is likely due to London clay soil. We'll probably get the additional Ground Stability Report to confirm that is the cause, especially as it's only ~£20. So thanks to your reassurance we saved a couple of hundred on those.:beer:

Now I have an additional question after having had the building survey done & noting the one house = one thread discussion, I'll put it here.

The house has been completely refurbed by the current owners - they bought a year ago and did a loft extension, rewire, new windows - the works. Inside it looks like a new build.
So the survey has come back remarkably clean, except for "Rising damp". :eek: This was based on readings he took on pretty much every wall on the ground floor. It's a Victorian terrace.

This is where I get a little unsure, as I've done a lot of internet research but still not gotten to a conclusion.
The sellers said they had damp proof and timber protection done, and correctly plastered this afterwards. This was conveyed to our surveyor as apparently being done 18 months ago. He said given that time frame it shouldn't still be registering high reading of moisture as the wall is only 9 inches thick and should have dried out by now, so he doesn't think the work was done correctly or they bodged the plaster. He says they should recall the people who installed it.

However sellers dispute they said 18 months ago to him (!) and provided me with the certificate showing it was done this Jan, with plastering after. Also they only bought it 12 months ago! When I conveyed this to the surveyor he's not changed his finding - says it's still rising damp and not just it "drying out".

Now I'm not sure who to trust/ what to do. Is the surveyor just covering his behind and it is just drying out, or did they cut a corner with the plaster or contractor?

This is made a little more frustrating as apparently the surveyor was quite abrupt and upset the owner whilst he was there, which included slating their railings as dangerous (he's told us we should get them removed....). So I feel like they won't want to recall the damp specialist at their cost based on his report.

Surveyor suggested getting a damp specialist out to check it, but surely they'll just get high readings too? How can anyone confirm it has been properly treated?

How bad would it be to go ahead and purchase regardless (and wait for our ground floor to become a swimming pool...)? We saw no signs of any issues when we checked at our viewing, but I know it's not often visible till it's too late. My gut also wonders why they would go to so much effort on the refurb to cut a corner there?

Essentially not sure what we should do to progress - ignore the survey or demand further reassurance from seller ...