Loft not shown

User4search

Thanks all , this is 1930 build and got boiler behind chimney- fireplace in reception room and water tank in bed room . Survey is booked next week and I have emailed Surveyor to check loft specifically,  let see what happens next. Owner has been living there for 20 years so not sure if it would have been lasted with leaking problem in loft so long. But u will get this checked before contract exchange 

Octothorpe

We are viewing loft now offer accepted.  Made sure they knew in advance we wanted to view it so they couldn't make excuses. 

Even if full I'd still be going up there.

Irishpearce26

Disjoint said:

You are about to make the biggest purchase of your life and you are worried to inconvenience the seller? F^&% them. And that's coming from someone who is on the selling side a lot those past few years. You want to be going into this having all the info you need without bad surprises. Seriously. You have a doubt about the south west corner of the house having a leak under the carpet. LIFT THAT CARPET UP! He accepted your offer, so he want to sell. Don't be scared.

Oh you want to lift the carpet up? Ok but ill need a deposit to ensure its put back by a qualified carpet fitter. Terrible advice, you cant just start ripping peoples houses apart for your own justification.

Redwino222

Disjoint said:

You are about to make the biggest purchase of your life and you are worried to inconvenience the seller? F^&% them. And that's coming from someone who is on the selling side a lot those past few years. You want to be going into this having all the info you need without bad surprises. Seriously. You have a doubt about the south west corner of the house having a leak under the carpet. LIFT THAT CARPET UP! He accepted your offer, so he want to sell. Don't be scared.

Please don’t be this disrespectful to the owner.  If someone came into my house demanding to lift the carpets up i would politely decline. 

Yes your offer has been accepted, but he house isn’t yours yet and it could fall through at at stage.  Yes you should be able to investigate concerns within reason, but always ask first before you do anything that could cause damage and always ensure the house is restored.

lifting a Fitted carpet Could cause damage to the carpet.

youth_leader

@hazyjo thanks, made me feel better, I didn't have the £250 for the leak repair at the time and had to borrow it, I'd already spent my last £300 on the buyer's useless damp/timber report.    

iampetesmith

We didn't look at the loft when we viewed, it didn't have ladders and I didn't really think about it anyway. The roof was only 10 years old and it didn't have a water tank up there, so I just figured there wouldn't be much to see and let the surveyor deal with it. When we got the keys, I found that it had lights but they were awful and really dull. No boards either, just flattened cardboard boxes where the previous owner had rested stuff.

That was my first project, I fitted ladders, boarded it all out and replaced the lights with 2 LED bulbs at either end and an LED strip all along the top. Now you need sunglasses when you're up there and there's loads of proper storage space. If we ever sell and people want to have a look on a viewing, I'll just pull the ladders down and let them go right in.

Sandtree

Only sold one property with a loft, and it had two (over the house and over the single story extension) and cannot remember anyone asking to see either. 

If I were buying a house then I might consider it... we did look at a flat that had access to the roof space but the estate agent had photos of the space on the listing. We didn't make a viewing in the end as it was out of our budget. 

phoebe1989seb

We've never asked to look in a loft when buying any of the properties we've viewed/purchased over the years. These have all been Victorian or older houses.

Our last house (1854 build with 1923 extension) had three attic separate spaces all accessed via their own hatch and none of our potential buyers asked to look in any of them. Our buyer's surveyor didn't look either 😮

MobileSaver

hazyjo said:

youth_leader said:

...apparently the leak was like a tear drop, the joint would have been good for many years. Do take the surveyor's report with a pinch of salt, in a perfect world and all that.

Don't be too sure on that. My hot water tank in the bathroom had the same thing and it brought my kitchen ceiling down. I couldn't believe it. I would have thought it would've just evaporated it was so tiny, but nah, it had apparently all built up.

^ This!  Exactly the same thing happened to me (twice!)

Never underestimate the power of water as even the tiniest leak dripping constantly drop by drop, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, can if circumstances conspire build up to a catastrophic failure.

Marvel1

If I want to see the loft, I will, I'm paying for the house! 

Refuse = something to hide, oh well still plenty of other houses up for sale.