Should a missing guarantee hold up our house purchase?

Broseley

Thanks for all the doom and gloom, Furt. That's really helped (not). The house is 1935 and modernist architect designed.

Furts

Broseley wrote: »

Thanks for all the doom and gloom, Furt. That's really helped (not). The house is 1935 and modernist architect designed.

But that is the point. House building standards hit rock bottom around 1935. Couple this with architects experimenting with concepts of fair faced concrete, others with reinforced concrete and others with extensive rendered facades and one has to be cautious when viewing such properties.

Add to this flat roofs that were also a part of this ethos and here I suggest you take Castle Drogo as a study point.

All round purchasing a 1935 art deco home with a 100% flat, replaced, grp roof with no valid guarantee on that 100% flat roof is a risky proposition for most people. Clearly you are happy with all this so that is fine with me.

Giving a balanced approach, one has to say some building crews and companies in the mid 1930s were excellent. But others were absolute dross. Only you know what standard exists with your potential home. I am confident you will have a full building survey covering all eventualities here so fingers crossed it will all work out OK.

EssexExile

I'm with Furts up to a point, pitched roofs have been around a very long time & work very well. Flat roofs come & go & invariably give problems sooner or later. Having said that, in your case I'd get a ballpark price for replacing the roof & see if you could live with that when the time comes. Or use it as a bargaining tool.

We had a 30's art deco house & it was great, it had a proper roof though, in green.

Furts

EssexExile wrote: »

I'm with Furts up to a point, pitched roofs have been around a very long time & work very well. Flat roofs come & go & invariably give problems sooner or later. Having said that, in your case I'd get a ballpark price for replacing the roof & see if you could live with that when the time comes. Or use it as a bargaining tool.

We had a 30's art deco house & it was great, it had a proper roof though, in green.

Chime in Swindon! A long time ago now but my recollection is Diana Dors had an Art Deco with a green glazed tile roof on a main road in Swindon.

Art Deco is great, and there is a gem of a community to wander around in New Zealand.

Even the green glazed tiles can look great, late Art Deco. I think WW2 put an end to their importing from Belgium so a short lived trend there.

System

Furts wrote: »

Don't shoot the messenger. I am simply stating what you already know. Nobody designs a grp roof for a new home and expects an easy ride with either the client or with accepted building practice.

Please enlighten us as to who has "banned" flat roofs on new houses?!
Absolute nonsense, when you don't understand something you make out that it doesn't comply with building regulations or that it's not nhbc approved or some other made up thing to try and spray your air or superiority over someone asking a fairly straightforward question.

Gloomendoom

genau wrote: »

So when was the art deco era would people say? Was this the era in the 60's when there was a trend for ripping down older buildings and replacing them with modern square structures using large amounts of concrete and flat roofs I believe. Particularly office blocks and tower blocks I believe

1920s - 1930s

We lived in flat roofed, steel windowed Art Deco house when I was a child.

It was blummin' freezing in the winter.

Wassa123

The guarantee probably isn't freely transferable anyway.

We bought a house and we were left all the guarantees (oven, front door, etc). They all say they are non transferable unless you call up and pay a fee anyway.

Broseley

It is transferable, the small print on the policy document says so. You have to do it within 30 days of completion and pay a fee, however you can't transfer it without the guarantee itself. We also phoned the insurance company to check. They said they would be quite happy with a simple email from the roofer to state that 1. there is a guarantee on the property and 2. that it is transferable. However he won't reply to any of our messages now after saying he hadn't got time to do it.

Broseley

We have looked into indemnity insurance and guarantees are not covered, it's just for legal stuff and building regs. We phoned a specialist insurance company to check. It seems silly that you can cover a missing FENSA certificate for one window but not a whole roof!

System

Broseley wrote: »

We have looked into indemnity insurance and guarantees are not covered, it's just for legal stuff and building regs. We phoned a specialist insurance company to check. It seems silly that you can cover a missing FENSA certificate for one window but not a whole roof!

the indemnity doesn't cover anything other than enforcement action from a local authority, it's zero risk for insurance companies to offer it - insuring workmanship or installations is a completely different thing and much more likely to be claimed on