Home buyers Survey advice

Sareteegee

Hi All,

I'm a first time buyer and recently had a home buyers survey done on the house we want to purchase. The survey has come back with some issues and am not sure whether to negotiate with the seller to bring the house price down/pay for the things that need to be fixed, or whether to just pay to get the issues resolved ourselves once we are moved in. Also, do some of these issues even need to be fixed at all?

3 - Urgent:

- The property has no carbon monoxide alarm to the kitchen. Condition rating 3. This is considered a safety risk. Suitable alarms (preferably mains operated) should be installed at appropriate locations to give early warning. There is a gas hob in the kitchen

- The bathroom spotlights are is located in a hazardous position. This is a safety risk and needs urgent attention - The house had a full rewire in 2014

2 - Less urgent:

- There is no extractor fan to the bathroom. This situation should be improved to remove as much water vapour as possible and minimise the risk of condensation occurring

- Defects to the garage were noted including disrepair to the roof and defective electrics. There may be an asbestos content to the roof. This is in satisfactory condition and presents no health risk unless it is disturbed

- Some of the fencing is significantly decayed and repair or replacement is needed.

- Some of the paths and some surfaces are out of level, cracked and damaged and repair or replacement is needed

- The concrete driveway is damaged. Replacement is needed. This will be costly

- The young tree to the rear garden should be removed


Many thanks in advance!

Browntoa

Nothing major there , backside covering by surveyor

Carbon monoxide alarm not compulsory , even in a room with a boiler , just advisable.

Worse case bathroom spotlight could be swapped for a zone 1 rated modern light with minimal expense .

Bathroom fan would need a live feed from the lighting circuit so can be fitted at the same time , more involved unless good access above bathroom ceiling (loft ? ) . These are not a compulsory back fit though , again advisory.

All the rest is wear and tear and not urgent

KL0001

You can pick up a carbon monoxide detector for £20 and get an intergrated shower light/extractor fan for around £50 obviously there will also be some labour costs but your looking at a couple hundred £ to fix the !!!8220;urgent!!!8221; things, which aren!!!8217;t compulsory anyway.

It all sounds like wear and tear and just part of owning a home, As a seller, I wouldn!!!8217;t be willing to negotiate on price for these things.

SG27

Theres nothing there you can renegotiate on. Just a few jobs to do as and when.

Lauralou79

Very minor and mainly maintenance jobs. I'd have been more than happy to have read that if it was mine. It was rewired in 2014, take it they have certificates involved?

Sareteegee

Lauralou79 wrote: »

Very minor and mainly maintenance jobs. I'd have been more than happy to have read that if it was mine. It was rewired in 2014, take it they have certificates involved?

Yes, they have the certificate for the checks when the property was rewired. The only thing that worries me is that I can't see that the garage electrics are included with the checks and the survey mentioned that the garage electrics are defective.

walwyn1978

'Defective electrics in garage' - if it's an electric door then it's probably a £200-£300 fix assuming you need to replace the mechanism. If it's the light fitting best case is that when he pressed the switch the bulb didn't turn on as it was blown, very cheap fix if so.

As already said nothing that dramatic there to worry about :-) Good luck with your purchase.

bigisi

Sareteegee wrote: »

Yes, they have the certificate for the checks when the property was rewired. The only thing that worries me is that I can't see that the garage electrics are included with the checks and the survey mentioned that the garage electrics are defective.

So arrange an electrical report on the garage electrics. Don't expect the vendor to pay this, it's you who wants to know if they're safe so you pay. Fully expect it to come back with a lot of @rse covering saying it's not up to current regs but that means nothing if the main jist of the report is that they're otherwise safe.

Please don't annoy the vendor by trying to get money off for these very minor things.

pinklady21

If you are concerned about the cost of fixing the electrics, then get an electrician to do you a report on the current condition and the cost to fix. There will be a cost for the report, and then you need to decide whether the owner will renegotiate or not.

The things that might worry me are the concrete driveway and the other paths and fences. Repairing these might be costly, depends on what is needed and how much is there.
If may be that the price already takes account of these defects.
Best of luck.

Sareteegee

bigisi wrote: »

So arrange an electrical report on the garage electrics. Don't expect the vendor to pay this, it's you who wants to know if they're safe so you pay. Fully expect it to come back with a lot of @rse covering saying it's not up to current regs but that means nothing if the main jist of the report is that they're otherwise safe.

Please don't annoy the vendor by trying to get money off for these very minor things.

This is the reason why I am trying to find out if the issues are minor or major as I don't want to be moving in to a house with thousands of pounds worth of repairs that need doing. As a first time buyer, reading a homebuyers report is pretty daunting.

Lauralou79

As a first time buyer last year, our survey was worse and yep daunting! but basic things like the roof/pointing etc as it's a 1930/s house. We are slowly having the jobs done that were needed. But we didn't ask for any reduction.

However no matter what the survey shows things in houses do go wrong, there was a good thread the other day with people sharing unexpected issues they had with there new houses.

Houses do throw unexpected costs up and you should be prepared for it financially no matter what the survey says.

Driveways/paths/fences? Did you notice a massive issue? Driveways can be costly but it may be that you can save up for it before having it done. Our fences aren't amazing but are doing the job!