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Homebuyers Report - Scary!
LauraS12
Posts: 1 Newbie
Hello,
I have trawled through the forums and have seen some great advice about scary homebuyers reports. My husband and I are first time buyers and we just had the homebuyers report back it has flagged the following issues as the DREADED 3:
The walls are of cavity construction with a brick outer leaf. The walls contain a plastic damp proof course. The front bay window wall is partly rough cast rendered. The walls appear to have had cavity wall insulation installed. Internally, the external walls have been plastered.
High damp meter readings were recorded on the rear left hand side walls, which we believe is a result of penetrating damp. The mortar pointing around the damp proof course is also weathered and requires repointing.
It has also flagged:
The meter can be found in the garage. The consumer unit can be found in the ground floor W. C. The consumer unit contains RCDs (residual current devices) and MCBs (Miniature Circuit Breakers) to protect users should there be a defect with the installation. Where visible, the installation has been wired in plastic covered cable. There is no up-to-date test certificate for the electrical installation.
The conservatory light fittings are missing and the garage fitting is connected to a plug socket. Both should be properly installed.
And then additional 3's are because they didn't have gas or electric certificates (which we are chasing to see if the vendors do have them and just didn't show them to the surveyor). I am a first time buyer and utterly out of my depth when it comes to the entire home buying process. We are not handy people and have no idea how worried to be or what we should do next. Any advice would be so gratefully received
I have trawled through the forums and have seen some great advice about scary homebuyers reports. My husband and I are first time buyers and we just had the homebuyers report back it has flagged the following issues as the DREADED 3:
The walls are of cavity construction with a brick outer leaf. The walls contain a plastic damp proof course. The front bay window wall is partly rough cast rendered. The walls appear to have had cavity wall insulation installed. Internally, the external walls have been plastered.
High damp meter readings were recorded on the rear left hand side walls, which we believe is a result of penetrating damp. The mortar pointing around the damp proof course is also weathered and requires repointing.
It has also flagged:
The meter can be found in the garage. The consumer unit can be found in the ground floor W. C. The consumer unit contains RCDs (residual current devices) and MCBs (Miniature Circuit Breakers) to protect users should there be a defect with the installation. Where visible, the installation has been wired in plastic covered cable. There is no up-to-date test certificate for the electrical installation.
The conservatory light fittings are missing and the garage fitting is connected to a plug socket. Both should be properly installed.
And then additional 3's are because they didn't have gas or electric certificates (which we are chasing to see if the vendors do have them and just didn't show them to the surveyor). I am a first time buyer and utterly out of my depth when it comes to the entire home buying process. We are not handy people and have no idea how worried to be or what we should do next. Any advice would be so gratefully received
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Comments
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Sellers are not required to provide gas or electric certificates - and it's not law that they should have them (unless renting the property out).
The meter can be found in the garage. The consumer unit can be found in the ground floor W. C. The consumer unit contains RCDs (residual current devices) and MCBs (Miniature Circuit Breakers) to protect users should there be a defect with the installation. Where visible, the installation has been wired in plastic covered cable. There is no up-to-date test certificate for the electrical installation.
The conservatory light fittings are missing and the garage fitting is connected to a plug socket. Both should be properly installed.
And then additional 3's are because they didn't have gas or electric certificates (which we are chasing to see if the vendors do have them and just didn't show them to the surveyor). I am a first time buyer and utterly out of my depth when it comes to the entire home buying process. We are not handy people and have no idea how worried to be or what we should do next. Any advice would be so gratefully received
A surveyor will usually give them a 3 as they aren't electricians or gas engineers so it's just the usual @r$e-covering.
Might be worthwhile sending a simple email with numbered points to your solicitor - or arranging a short meeting to go through anything that's confusing you. And you can usually ring or contact the surveyor with any questions.2024 wins: *must start comping again!*0 -
As above.
A Surveyors default setting for Gas and Electrical Installations is always a 3 as they are not qualified to comment on the safety or suitability of the systems. Therefore they are effectively 'passing the buck' and saying 'get someone to check it who is appropriately qualified'.
Homeowners are not legally obliged to have their gas installations tested annually (unlike rental properties) or their electrical installations tested. Asking the homeowner for these is like asking for rocking horse poo!!Eat vegetables and fear no creditors, rather than eat duck and hide.0 -
The only thing that would get my attention here is the suspect cavity wall insulation. If it's faulty it can be removed, but you need to establish whether it is first and whether it was installed with any CIGA guarantee. You need to ask the surveyor if he/she thinks the insulation is to blame; they may be more forthcoming verbally.
You can do more reading-up on this here and maybe even check the address against their database:
https://ciga.co.uk/
Sorry, I don't know a lot about the subject. There were plenty of suspect things about our property, but the CWI was fine.0
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