Survey results and advice

aprilkm

Hello everyone,

I would appreciate the community's help with getting a rough estimate of costs related to roof and floor repairs.

Long story short, we are purchasing a 1930s detached house, and the building survey has revealed a couple of issues with the state of the tiles for part of the roof, and the floor in two of the ground floor rooms.

Specifically (bear with me as i am not an expert!), in the roof we will need to replace the tiles and add sarking felt to around 50sqm of the original roof, repoint some bricks to the chimney breasts, and re-bed some ridge tiles in a few places. To our non-expert eye, the roof seemed fine when looking from below, but the issues were visible from inside the loft. Our offer for the property did not take into consideration extensive work on the roof.

The issue with the floor is a bit less straightforward, as unless we can lift the floorboards we cannot know what's underneath. It seems that in a few places, the floor is bouncing when you walk on it which indicates timber decay. We will therefore need to lift the floorboards, replace damaged joists and treat the wood if needed, and make sure there is appropriate ventilation before we lay the floorboards down. The affected area is around 45sqm.

I haven't had luck receiving quotes from professionals as I will need to arrange them to view the property; that's a bit difficult as i am living in a different part of the country. Has anyone done any work similar to this lately, and you kindly provide a rough estimate of costs? I just need a figure that I can use to negotiate with the vendor. Any advice on how to negotiate a price reduction would be welcome as well.

Thank you very much in advance!

need_an_answer

How far adrift is your offer to the valuation of the property?

bigisi

As above, what has the surveyor valued the property at?

I had similar reported on my roof when I bought my '30s semi, just means it's an old roof, I wouldn't class what you mention as "extensive". No reduction required as far as I'm concerned. The flooring I'm not so sure about but if the valuation has come back the same as the purchase price expect any attempt at renegotiation with you being told to jog on.

spadoosh

See withthe vendor, id work on the basis that they probably live in the property and as such are aware of any issues that need sorting. AS they are aware of those issues i would expect them to have priced the property accordingly.

That said, what reports have you had done?

It sounds like youre having to reroof because the roof doesnt meet the current standards that require it to have sarking felt. From that, id work on the basis that if the inside of the roof is dry, it doesnt actually need doing as the roof tiles are oing their job. Sarking flt prevents water ingress from driven rain betwen the tiles (and damaged tiles). My Chimney apparently needed repointing when i bought my house, according to a roofer friend i had look at it, its fine. Incidentally its a council estate and all the HA owned houses had their roofs replaced a couple of years ago. Those of us who are spending our own money are looking at getting another 20+ years out of our roofs with a bit of minor maintenance over that time as opposed to £4k+ in having a roof refitted.

Id say scrap the idea of the floor joists. The seller isnt going to let you do that until you buy. They arent going to offer you a discount unless you can prove it needs doing.


These things are part and parcel of home ownership. Theyre essentially maintenance. Its not unheard of for reports to essentially cover their backsides. So the bit of brickwork that need repointing and the lack of felt suggest to the reporter that they should recommend getting reroofed. When in all likelihood it will be perfectly suitable for a good number of years before replacing the roof should b entertained.

Of course ive not seen the house, the person who did the report might be 100% accurate. Probelm is they rarely are and tend to either over compensate (ie reroof when you could replace a few tiles, not your example) or abstain any kind of decisison (Cant see underneath floorboards, it could be rotted or contain dead bodies).

Sorry im not actually helping.

aprilkm

It’s 4% below the asking price. If I am estimating correctly based on a £3,000 cost for the roof and £2,000-5,000 (depending on severity of timber decay), the total will be 2% of the agreed price.

AdrianC

aprilkm wrote: »

Specifically (bear with me as i am not an expert!), in the roof we will need to replace the tiles and add sarking felt to around 50sqm of the original roof

NEED to? Or just "Well, this is a bit less than ideal"?

Roofs in the 30s didn't have felt. That roof has worked fine for the thick end of a century without. Are there many broken tiles? You say you didn't see any...

repoint some bricks to the chimney breasts, and re-bed some ridge tiles in a few places.

A half-day or so for a bloke with a big ladder...

The issue with the floor is a bit less straightforward, as unless we can lift the floorboards we cannot know what's underneath.

Nor can the surveyor.

It seems that in a few places, the floor is bouncing when you walk on it which indicates timber decay.

It might. Or it might not. It might just be that when a board was lifted to install central heating or whatever, it wasn't put down quite right.

It sounds a lot like you've been scared by the usual backside-covering, tbh.

Mutton_Geoff

How many other houses in the road have been re-roofed? That's usually a giveaway.

aprilkm

Thank you everyone for the responses.

To answer a few of the questions, we did a full building survey and the report is written in a clear way that stirs away from all the “dooming” conclusions that I have seen in other reports. We are not easily scared of the minor issues noted, and we are more than happy to not mention any other issues and just budget for fixing when we move in. Oh the joys of homeownership!!!

The pictures I have seen in the report of the building survey clearly show that the majority of the tiles on the roof are not in place and are in a bad condition, although from the outside they seem fine and we assumed that the roof was in good condition. The surveyor did not say that we need to replace the roof due to the absence of sarking felt, but said that we need to be aware that the roof needs retiling in the immediate future (the seller must know this as a waterproof cover was placed under the roof in places which indicates leaking), and when this works takes place we will need to budget for adding the sarking felt. This seems to be around £5k-8k worth of work we were not expecting. The issue with the floor is worrying more as I have no idea what the state is below the floorboards, and will need fixing before we move in as we do not want to have both reception rooms out of use while we are doing the work. For this, worse case scenario quote that assumes replacement of all joists is around two weeks of work and a rough cost of £10k. Again, a cost we were not expecting...

The surveyor has not provided a valuation figure for the property, but the separate valuation from the bank has valued at the agreed price (a second surveyor has actually visited the property and found no obvious issues but did not go to the loft). Based on the findings of the building survey, the surveyor strongly suggested that we ask for a £10k reduction in price.

We are not trying to reduce the price based on insignificant findings, and to be honest, even if we reduce the mortgage, we still need to find cash to fund the remedial works... our solicitor is acting on behalf of the lender and has a copy of the survey as well. Is there a chance that they will want to get these issues fixed before releasing the funds? Our offer does not have any conditions at the moment.

Thank you!

FreeBear

AdrianC wrote: »

Roofs in the 30s didn't have felt. That roof has worked fine for the thick end of a century without. Are there many broken tiles? You say you didn't see any...

My roof, a late 1920 original, has no felt. Instead, it has reed, most of which has disappeared. Looking at the roof from outside, there are one or two tiles that look a little skewed, and from inside, daylight is visible under most of them. However, the roof keeps even the worst of the rain out and there is zero evidence of rot in the timbers. Does it meet current building regs, hell no. And if a surveyor came to have a look at it, he'd probably say "it needs replacing"....


Floorboards & joists are fine here. But for the OP, a few notes.. The boards on the ground floor are probably tongue & groove, so lifting any without damage is not going to be easy. Skirting boards will need to come off, and you'll damage the plaster in the process. Whilst the floors are up, rewiring and/or adding extra sockets makes sense - You may well be replastering after doing the floor, so it makes sense to do any electrical work at the same time.
Also worth looking at under floor ventilation and consider adding an extra air brick or to if required.

AdrianC

FreeBear wrote: »

The boards on the ground floor are probably tongue & groove, so lifting any without damage is not going to be easy. Skirting boards will need to come off, and you'll damage the plaster in the process.

They've almost certainly been lifted in the past - cutting them shy of the edges, and cutting the tongues off. We do tend to insist on things like wiring and central heating being modernised from the standards of 90 years ago...

And that's why they often move a bit.