Timber & Damp Report options

Stocks17

Hi,

We are currently looking at buying our 2nd house and it requires a lot of refurbishment and we will be looking at extending it also.

As I am an electrician and my father-in-law & brother-in-law are builders we have the skills to be able to carry out the works.

My issue and question to all of you is our mortgage company surveyor requested a timber and damp report to be carried out on the property, fair enough.

We have had said report carried out by a timber and damp specialist and they have come back with the remedial works and a price of £3,000. The issue I have is the report isn't that bad and only a few timbers require replacing. We can do these works ourselves but then the company who carried out the report won't certificate the works! I can sort of understand this as I wouldn't want to certificate another electricians work but if we did carry out the works ourselves and then got another timber and damp specialist in would they say everything was ok or would they still request certificates from the recent works we had done!!!??

Help is needed as we could really do without starting off £3k light when we have tonnes to do!!

Thanks in advance, be kind it's my 1st time posting!!

SG27

Sometimes banks hold a retention of a certain amount bqck from your mortgage and pay it out once the work is competed. Maybe this could be an option?

The problem with doing the work before completion is no vendor in their right mind is going to allow someone to do work on their house when they could pull out at any time. Similarly why would you as a buyer pay £3000 for work to be done on a property you dont own and the vendor could also decide to pull out!?

Its a ridiculous thing for banks to be requiring imo

Stocks17

Hi,

sorry bit confusing in what I have said, I am expecting the mortgage company to put a retention on the property and release the rest of the money once we have carried out the works, which is fine.

What I am asking is if we carried out the works ourselves would the mortgage company want the certificates and if so can I get another company to certificate the works or am I going to have to employ the timber and damp company who did the report to do the works and certificate?

hope this makes sense!

kingstreet

Did you get a "free" report & inspection by a firm which does T&D work? Putting the rats i charge of the cheese store, you might say.

Had you come here first, you would have been advised to pay for an independent inspection by someone with no interest in the remedial work. That's a lot more objective.

http://www.independentdampsurveyors.co.uk/

G_M

Stocks17 wrote: »

Hi,

.....

We have had said report carried out by a timber and damp specialist and they have come back with the remedial works and a price of £3,000.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Well of course they did. They want tto sell you their services. Do you think they are going to tell you there's no work required..........?

Get a proper, independent, paid-for, survey done.

This may be a 'moneysaving' site, but getting a free[STRIKE] survey [/STRIKE]sales inspection done is not necessarly 'monesaving.

Stocks17

No we went for a paid one for that reason. We paid for a timber & damp survey including roof void and sub floor for £270.00

I would be willing to pay again after the works (carried out by us) had been done but don't know if any companies would be willing to do this if they hadn't carried the work out?

I just want to avoid paying the £3k for remedial works we can do ourselves.

kingstreet

Ah, understood.

Who is asking for a certificate? Does the request say it needs to be done by a PCA member and a thirty-year insurance backed guarantee obtained?

Have you forwarded the T&D report to the surveyor? Some lenders don't hold retentions and make such works an undertaking for the six months after completion.

Stocks17

We did pay for a survey it wasn't free!