FTB - Survey recommended further investigation. Who pays?

alicechristina92

Myself and my partner are in the process of buying our first home. 1910 end of terrace house. We had the results of our survey back (we went for full structural) and there has been a few issues that have come up which were recommended we investigate further.
- Roofer
- Structural engineer
- Damp expert

We have a couple of people coming out to expect external aspects of the property this week (roof cement, wall tie failures etc) but we also need a structural engineer to come and inspect the roof from the inside as it requires some extra support.

Our surveyor was unable to access the loft space to full inspect this during our full structural survey as the loft hatch is quite small. So the structural engineer will have to cut a larger hole into the ceiling to investigate, he said he will also bring a builder along to install a new loft hatch after the inspection. Costing £400ish in addition to the £440 we have already paid for the survey.

We are waiting to hear back from the estate agent (who annoyingly have been ignoring our calls and emails for the past week 😡) and obviously we will need to sellers permission to do these investigation works internally.

The house was originally on the market for £95k and in need of a new kitchen, bathroom and redecoration and they accepted our offer of £93k

However if the roof issues are more serious and the entire roof needs redoing we have been quoted around £7k to fix. Which is why we want to get these quotes sorted before we exchange so we have a better idea of the cost of repairs etc.

However my question is what the protocol is for this? Are we able to ask the seller to pay for or even pay towards the structural engineer coming to inspect and install a new loft hatch? 

D.L

You can certainly ask. But I would expect a no.

alicechristina92

D.L said:

No.

Thank you for that really insightful answer 

D.L

alicechristina92 said:

D.L said:

No.

Thank you for that really insightful answer 

I had actually expanded slightly right after but you replied too quick. But probably still not very insightful.

DCFC79

I agree with D.L.
What more would you like ?

alicechristina92

I just don't know how these things work and what the protocol is. This is the first house we have bought and my parents have never bought an older property so haven't been able to give advice on these types of situations 

AdrianC

You want satisfaction about the condition of what you're buying? You pay for it. Remember, anything on top of your lender's basic valuation is 100% your choice. You're perfectly free to decide you want no survey at all, or you're perfectly free to decide that you want every single trade in a 10 mile radius to come and investigate in depth. Such is your prerogative, and why would the seller object? Equally, why would the seller pay...?

Why would you believe somebody the vendor was paying, anyway?

FreeBear

alicechristina92 said: Our surveyor was unable to access the loft space to full inspect this during our full structural survey as the loft hatch is quite small. So the structural engineer will have to cut a larger hole into the ceiling to investigate, he said he will also bring a builder along to install a new loft hatch after the inspection.

Can't see the current owner agreeing to a hole being cut in the ceiling. The option is to either find a slimmer surveyor & SE, or wait until they have been on a diet.

In reality, if you want to knock a place around, you will have to wait until you've paid for the house.

leftism

alicechristina92 said:

Our surveyor was unable to access the loft space to full inspect this during our full structural survey as the loft hatch is quite small. 

You could try and find a qualified surveyor who is a toddler or squirrel? I think if you say you want to cut a hole in their ceiling to try and find something which might mean you can negotiate the price down, they will say no. 

alicechristina92

leftism said:

alicechristina92 said:

Our surveyor was unable to access the loft space to full inspect this during our full structural survey as the loft hatch is quite small. 

You could try and find a qualified surveyor who is a toddler or squirrel? I think if you say you want to cut a hole in their ceiling to try and find something which might mean you can negotiate the price down, they will say no. 

The loft hatch is weirdly small - the owner never used it for storage apparently.

I do agree that cutting a bigger hole to inspect the roof is unusual, my other half seems to think this won't be an issue. But I'm not so sure.

We have a roofer coming out to check out the outside aspect of the roof and it's condition to give us a better idea how how urgently this would need to be fixed and how much it would cost 

We might have to just accept the roof will need extra support at some point and budget accordingly. We do have savings left, but that was put aside for decoration which I guess might have to wait a bit longer than we originally planned 

leftism

I'm in a similar position to you. There have been things thrown up from the survey that require investigation, but we knew the house needed work and that's why we are getting it cheap. So we're not really investigating anything further before buying. That said, we only had a load of ambers on the HBR, no reds (apart from gas, elec etc - the standard reds).