Survey has just come back and it's not good

Alexaftb

My partner and I are in the process of buying a house. It's a small 1930s semi and we got an offer accepted at £270,000, about £20,000 below asking price. We knew when we viewed the house that it would need a bit of TLC as it clearly hadn't been looked after for a few years but we were fine with that. We saw the potential to make it ours and love the location and the size of the garden. 

The homebuyer's report has just come back and although I was expecting issues due to the age of the house it is worse than what I was expecting. Part of it is not knowing how much everything would cost to fix and not wanting to pay for lots and lots of different engineers to come and incur more expenses.

Main worries are
- the property had a tapering stepped crack where the extension wall (there is a ground floor kitchen extension at the rear of the property) adjoins the original walls. The crack is deep and may be a result of subsidence as deep cracking was also evident in the kitchen, rear (upstairs) bedroom window reveal and at the top of the landing. Ground movement may be possible due to defective drains washing away the substructure as a gully was noted at the rear.

- the chimney breasts in the lounge and rear have been removed with the remaining stack in the loft supported on a timber beam and not supported below. The full chimney stack above must be supported on a rolled steel joist spanning between two load bearing walls

- very high damp readings in the meter cupboard and kitchen around external door

There are about five more items in the red category. We're not experts and have no idea how serious some of this is. Having to do work on an old house is of course to be expected but we have no idea how much this would all be or whether it is indeed feasible at all. It was the only house we viewed we agreed on straight away but we are starting to wonder whether we should pull out.

Any help or comments gratefully received. Thanks for reading!

cooltt

Alexaftb said:

My partner and I are in the process of buying a house. It's a small 1930s semi and we got an offer accepted at £270,000, about £20,000 below asking price. We knew when we viewed the house that it would need a bit of TLC as it clearly hadn't been looked after for a few years but we were fine with that. We saw the potential to make it ours and love the location and the size of the garden. 

The homebuyer's report has just come back and although I was expecting issues due to the age of the house it is worse than what I was expecting. Part of it is not knowing how much everything would cost to fix and not wanting to pay for lots and lots of different engineers to come and incur more expenses.

Main worries are
- the property had a tapering stepped crack where the extension wall (there is a ground floor kitchen extension at the rear of the property) adjoins the original walls. The crack is deep and may be a result of subsidence as deep cracking was also evident in the kitchen, rear (upstairs) bedroom window reveal and at the top of the landing. Ground movement may be possible due to defective drains washing away the substructure as a gully was noted at the rear.

- the chimney breasts in the lounge and rear have been removed with the remaining stack in the loft supported on a timber beam and not supported below. The full chimney stack above must be supported on a rolled steel joist spanning between two load bearing walls

- very high damp readings in the meter cupboard and kitchen around external door

There are about five more items in the red category. We're not experts and have no idea how serious some of this is. Having to do work on an old house is of course to be expected but we have no idea how much this would all be or whether it is indeed feasible at all. It was the only house we viewed we agreed on straight away but we are starting to wonder whether we should pull out.

Any help or comments gratefully received. Thanks for reading!

Only you know what you are willing to proceed on and how much remedial work you can afford. The next logical step (if you really want the house) is to show the report to a builder (or better still) have them visit the property so they can give you a repair quote on the critical issues. I say critical because some of the things in the red can probably wait, surveys reports can always be a little hysterical.

Then armed with the facts you can confidently attempt to renegotiate the price even further and go from there. The alternative is to buy a house without knowing what any repair costs are going to be and having lots of sleepless nights. Also be prepared for the vendor to say thanks but no thanks.

NameUnavailable

The crack would be my main concern. I have seen a small crack in a wall develop into a gap wide enough to put your hand into within a few months. The other issues seem relatively minor.

Jeepers_Creepers

Yes, the crack is the most significant issue, as it's an unknown situation at present. As said above, get a local recommended builder in to have a look - hopefully he'll know the area, understand the ground conditions, and will also be able to suggest how old or recent the crack is. It might be 'nothing' - ie there will be no more movement, so filling the crack is all that's needed - or it could be significant - subsidence or poor founds. It's all fixable, but obviously the latter will cost significantly more. If it's worst case scenario, then you may need to renegotiate your offer. 

The chimney breasts should be supported by either steel joists or 'gallow' brackets, but it's been like that for a good while with no issues so ain't going to fall down tomorrow. There will, of course, be a cost to doing this properly, but it's everyday stuff for builders so shouldn't be prohibitive. Or, you could consider removing the rest of the stacks and closing over the roof covering which would reduce long-term maintenance, and also give you a little more space in the upstairs rooms!

Damp is a pain, but it should be easily sortable once the source has been identified - and the door frame looks a likely candidate. Peasy if it is. Does the door possibly need replacing anyway? If so, consider a composite door complete with surround frame - double job sorted.  

Good luck, and please let us know what the builder reports back. :-)

FreeBear

Jeepers_Creepers said: The chimney breasts should be supported by either steel joists or 'gallow' brackets,

Gallow brackets are not accepted by most building control depts. now - A steel beam is about the only acceptable method. If you consider that a typical chimney stack will be several tonnes of masonry, you really do need some proper support and the load transferred in to a suitable wall.

Davesnave

This doesn't sound 'hysterical' at all. There has been movement and most likely, subsidence. The cause might be drains, so to proceed further you'd need a drain survey. The cracking might be ongoing, but only a structural engineer would be professionally qualified to report on that, not your local builder. Either way the house sounds as if it needs some underpinning now.

Given that 1930s houses may have foundations of less than 0.3m, none of this is terribly unusual or scary, but you may not wish to become involved with it without adequate financial allowance and your lender may have an issue too.

The chimney problem is easily rectifiable with a steel beam specified by a structural engineer and probably installed in a day or so.

Bear in mind that when selling, underpinning has to be declared and houses which have had it done carry a stigma.

blue_max_3

Underpinning has to be declared to insurance companies and usually carries a premium.
I don't know what your plans for the house are, or if you have any spare cash, but consider rebuilding the extension. You could even consider making it double height. But that would remove the problem and not have the stigma of underpinning and gain you a (perhaps larger) and more fashionable extension.

Alexaftb

Thanks everyone for taking the time to comment on the issues. Sounds like the chimney stack and the damp aren't deal-breakers but subsidence definitely would be. 

We will get a structural engineer to come in and look at the house. Would he be able to give us a definite answer about the possible subsidence? How common is it for extensions to have this type of movement happen? The kitchen extension was done in 2005.

@blue_max_3 thanks for the idea. We set aside £10,000 for house renovations so not enough to take on this sort of project. Agree that we definitely don't want the stigma of underpinning and if that's the only fix then sadly we'll have to walk away.

snowcat75

FreeBear said:

Jeepers_Creepers said: The chimney breasts should be supported by either steel joists or 'gallow' brackets,

Gallow brackets are not accepted by most building control depts. now - A steel beam is about the only acceptable method. If you consider that a typical chimney stack will be several tonnes of masonry, you really do need some proper support and the load transferred in to a suitable wall.

depends on the application perfectly fine in some circumstances as equally there could be the best part of !!!!!! all being held if its keyed and cranked, and all your doing is stopping the bottom sections from drooping away. if your holding much weight its often better to just get on and remove the entire stack if its disused....

Id be more worried about a professional report that used the term RSJ, haven't been a common section to use since flares went out of fashion, they should really know much better. 

snowcat75

Alexaftb said:

Thanks everyone for taking the time to comment on the issues. Sounds like the chimney stack and the damp aren't deal-breakers but subsidence definitely would be. 

We will get a structural engineer to come in and look at the house. Would he be able to give us a definite answer about the possible subsidence? How common is it for extensions to have this type of movement happen? The kitchen extension was done in 2005.

@blue_max_3 thanks for the idea. We set aside £10,000 for house renovations so not enough to take on this sort of project. Agree that we definitely don't want the stigma of underpinning and if that's the only fix then sadly we'll have to walk away.

Maybe maybe not, Most county's in the UK have had a dry 12 months (water deficit) here in the SE we have had 3 dry years, this creates all sorts of soil structuring as you could be looking at a sub 2m water table..... All buildings move the  important thing is how its moving and by how much and sometimes only time and monitoring can tell you that.... new extensions are more likely to move as settlement will occur although this tends to just stop, although thermal expansion often makes these cracks open and close forever but they tend to stay <3mm.....  even above and it may not be a problem a cracked corner for example may just require a few tie bars (virtually competent DIY job)..... but only you can decide if the place is worth the punt.

LadyDee

The cost of any works associated with subsidence would surely be covered by the seller's insurance, and the seller should be reporting the damage to their insurers for them to investigate.  I had subsidence work done on a house and it was a condition of the sale that my insurance company continued cover for the new owner.  The work obviously held up my sale but all was well in the end.