Buying a house for the first time & need help! Searches & Reports

cheme7676

Hi,

Please bare with me as I explain which point I'm at for visibility...

This is my first ever house and I've had an offer accepted - filling out all the paperwork provided by the solicitor etc.

For context, I read that it's good practice to get a RICS L2 Survey on a property before purchasing. Initially I was going to do this, but decided not to because the property was built in 2013 and is relatively new.

Some of the searches came back. I'm now looking at an Enviro-All-in-One (Homecheck) report by Landmark. The house is in Swansea, South Wales. As such, it is notorious for underground coal-mines. It is also a coastal city.

On the report, it states that the house is within 25-250m of coastal and surface water flooding (as there is a very large lake fed by a canal around 100m away). The lake has a 1/1000 return for coastal flooding but 1/75 year surface flooding. Firstly I was wondering if this seems to be a concern?

Secondly, and probably most importantly is to do with the coal mines themselves. For the question "Is the property within 25m of a Coal Mining Affected Area?" the report states "yes". Also, when asking "What is the potential for natural ground instability in the area within 50m of the property?", the report states "high".

The problem is, this coal problem has me a bit worried. The first thing I did though is rearrange a RICS Level 2 survey (which has annoyed the buyers because their earliest appointments are 1-2 months ahead). But I feel like this is not enough? Many of the surveyors I speak to tell me that they cant comment on the risks due to coal etc. I then ask my solicitors who tell me that I need to speak to a surveyor.

It's my first house so I have no idea what to do? I've looked online for hours and there are sooo many different types of searches and surveys available. All I'm looking for is for someone to quantify (as much as possible) the risk the house faces on the land it sits on. Is there a survey/report that does this or gives me something close? Any other reports/surveys you recommend I should get?

Thank you all in advance, please bare with me as I'm very new to all this

cheme7676

Also just to add detail, some surveyors told me that I don't even need a coal report. Whereas others told me to get the Coal Authority one. I have a friend who worked in construction who said you don't want any kind of report now, you need a survey and somebody on the ground inspecting the property. Any help is appreciated

user1977

Isn't your solicitor offering any advice?

It's not "normal" to get a level 3 survey merely because a property is in a coalfield. I wouldn't expect surveyors to be able to comment much on risk - their job really is to tell you what (if any) defects are already there.

The ground stability reports are very low-resolution, you're likely to get an identical result for everything else in the neighbourhood - so would be daft to ditch one property if you're only going to get the same sort of search for another one.

And assuming you're buying with a mortgage, there's no option to proceed without a coal report - it's a standard part of mortgage instructions if the property is in a coalfield. But correct to say that 99% of the time they don't tell you anything surprising.

What age of house are we talking about?

lincroft1710

user1977 said:

What age of house are we talking about?

OP says built in 2013 in their first post

cheme7676

user1977 said:

Isn't your solicitor offering any advice?

It's not "normal" to get a level 3 survey merely because a property is in a coalfield. I wouldn't expect surveyors to be able to comment much on risk - their job really is to tell you what (if any) defects are already there.

The ground stability reports are very low-resolution, you're likely to get an identical result for everything else in the neighbourhood - so would be daft to ditch one property if you're only going to get the same sort of search for another one.

And assuming you're buying with a mortgage, there's no option to proceed without a coal report - it's a standard part of mortgage instructions if the property is in a coalfield. But correct to say that 99% of the time they don't tell you anything surprising.

What age of house are we talking about?

Thank you so much for the reply!

My solicitor basically states that they can't further recommend any additional actions. They've carried out the searches as required and it's up to me to decide if I want to dig deeper or not. They stated that they're not qualified to give detailed advice on this.

Surveyors may or may not be able to provide some superficial advice, but nothing quantitative.

The house was built in 2013 so is relatively new. The only reason I've asked for the RICS L2 again is that if there is indeed a high degree of ground instability, it's possible that it might translate by flagging issues on the RICS report. However, it's not fool-proof as maybe subsidence won't cause any damage if the house is sinking equally? Also not sure on the timescales for subsidence, if the house was built 9 years ago and there is subsidence, is that even enough of a timescale to see anything?

user1977

Sorry for missing the build year.

Have a look at the planning papers for the development (which should be available online here: https://property.swansea.gov.uk/online-applications/ ). Those will almost certainly include much more detailed investigations into the ground conditions than your desktop searches, and commentary on how they would be taken account of.

Generally, modern properties have much better foundations than older ones, so I think you're worrying unnecessarily if there's no indication of problems.

cheme7676

user1977 said:

Sorry for missing the build year.

Have a look at the planning papers for the development (which should be available online here: https://property.swansea.gov.uk/online-applications/ ). Those will almost certainly include much more detailed investigations into the ground conditions than your desktop searches, and commentary on how they would be taken account of.

Generally, modern properties have much better foundations than older ones, so I think you're worrying unnecessarily if there's no indication of problems.

That's a pretty solid idea, I did take a look though and found the planning permission for the development. However they don't have any of their findings on the geography in the area uploaded, it seems they withheld these. 

In the meantime I did get through to another chartered Surveyor that seems to know his stuff a bit more. He said that South Wales is notorious for mines and there isn't a great deal of concern. He also mentioned that given the property is relatively new, the building developer (Taylor Wimpey in this case) would have done the due diligence and built accordingly (one would hope anyway).

He said it would be no different from buying nearly any home in South Wales. I feel like that's reassuring. He did mention though, if I wanted to proceed with a RICS L2, it would be simply because I want to determine build quality since newly built houses are infamous for their snags. He said that it's completely optional though and not necessary on this property.

 At this point, I feel like £400-odd is negligible though given the value of the house and is probably worth it anyway?

BlobCore

Searches and surveys are a minefield in my experience. Pretty much everything comes back saying “this may or may not be a problem so you should seek specialist advice”, very rarely will they offer an interpretation that says anything concrete. 

The most hilarious one is the chancel search. They don’t even bother searching, just take out an indemnity in case the local church ever asks you to fund roof repairs. 

Desktop searches are next to useless and you can do them all yourself for a fraction of the cost. 

On the mining side of things when researching our recent purchase I learned that around 30% of UK properties sit in former mining areas which makes sense if you think about how many UK cities were built of the back of the industrial revolution. 

I can remember how scary surveys and searches were as a FTB! Be pragmatic and sensible would be my advice. 

Best of luck!

cheme7676

BlobCore said:

Searches and surveys are a minefield in my experience. Pretty much everything comes back saying “this may or may not be a problem so you should seek specialist advice”, very rarely will they offer an interpretation that says anything concrete. 

The most hilarious one is the chancel search. They don’t even bother searching, just take out an indemnity in case the local church ever asks you to fund roof repairs. 

Desktop searches are next to useless and you can do them all yourself for a fraction of the cost. 

On the mining side of things when researching our recent purchase I learned that around 30% of UK properties sit in former mining areas which makes sense if you think about how many UK cities were built of the back of the industrial revolution. 

I can remember how scary surveys and searches were as a FTB! Be pragmatic and sensible would be my advice. 

Best of luck!

Thank you for your advice! 

Definitely starting to think that biting the bullet is the way forward now (after the survey anyway which I think is worth doing). That statistic doesn't surprise me if I'm honest. Besides, even if the Swansea area is infamous for coal mines, homes here still seem to be in tact... So although the report highlights (rightly) that there is a risk, it might be negligible.

HAHA the chancel search was a classic and caught me well off guard. I didn't even know a thing existed and I had a report come back saying the land my property sits on means the home is potentially liable. Thankfully my solicitor cleared up that since the house exchanged house after October 2013 for monetary value, and that a notice wasn't issued against it, they have lost rights over it. 

Thank you very much, hopefully though when I ever come to sell the house it doesn't cause prospective buyers too much of a concern either

cheme7676

Hi all, 

Just an update, managed to get a surveyor booked in this week. Also got myself an electrician and gas-man to test the systems. My solicitors have chased the owners for these certificates but they haven't been provided.

I've been sent all the legal docs including contract from my solicitor. They told me to sign and return to them and assured me that this wouldn't be legally binding until they are exchanged.

I'm still waiting for land authority search, surveyor, gas & electrics and a response from the developer regarding some restrictive covenants. Would it make sense to sign all the paperwork and hand it over to the solicitor such that it's ready when I give the green light? There isn't a way the solicitors could accidentally exchange the contract without consent right?

Sounds like some silly questions up there I know, I apologise in advance! Thank you all again

Jaybee_16

To understand the mining situation, before moving to Wales I looked at this map

https://mapapps2.bgs.ac.uk/coalauthority/home.html

Selecting the options on the top right shows redundant mine locations. 

Doesn't help your situation particularly but shows just how much of the UK is built over coal mines.