What survey on a 1700s house?

Curiouspidge

Hi, we're planning to buy a late 1700s stone house in the north west. To the massively untrained eye it looks like it's in reasonable nick but the seller did quite a lot of work on it around 20 years ago and it's that rather than the age of the house that's making me nervous - after all it's stayed up for 200 years already.

Has anyone bought a house of this age and can offer any advice? In my situation what survey would you get? Thanks in advance

theartfullodger

Well, obvs, get a report from the builder :rotfl:

AdrianC

Get a specialist builder - or a surveyor with a clue - to go over it properly, rather than a generic tickbox survey from a generic tickbox surveyor.


Your mortgage lender may well need to do a valuation as well, but that's a small issue compared to how an old house can break the heads of people who don't know what they're talking about.

SG27

Make sure you get a surveyor experienced in old properties. They have veey different needs to newer ones. For example there will almost certainly be high damp levels but you dont want a surveyor recommending injected dpcs and sealing up when all it needs is ventilation or lowering ground levels!

TamsinC

Agee with all of these make sure the surveyor understands old buildings = have a look at this website https://www.heritage-house.org/building-surveys/the-stupidity-of-rics-chartered-surveyors.html

Mrs36

I second the link posted by TamsinC. There is a wealth of info for period houses.

I live in a late 1700 stone built house, and we had a survey by a local surveyor experienced in local buildings (so he had looked at stone houses here before). I would say it is as important as being local as it is having experience with period buildings.

Before selecting him, I spoke to 3 local surveyors, one was going to take 3 days and cost twice as much as the one I went with in the end, who took half a day. The third I ruled out as he didn't seem to be as familiar with the location as the others.

Our surveyor also used a drone, to check the roof and chimneys and I would strongly suggest you consider this, as the bits you can't see are often overlooked.