Bought an old house without a survey

theartfullodger

[Deleted User] said:

theartfullodger said:

FTBkat said:

Has anyone else bought a house with no survey, regretted it and felt so ashamed? 

I bought a 2-bed terraced house, Scottish Highlands, 1Q 2000, no survey, had only driven past it, not seen inside at all.

I knew it was a gamble: (Which I could cope with if it turned out a right lemon..) As it happened it turned out OK.  But window frames rotten (could shove a large screwdriver through with ease), needed various upgrades, £5-10K.

Currently on the market but s*d all interest due to the sunlit uplands of Brex**it-land.. 

S*d all interest in any, given, property is due to one factor - price.
At the right price anything will sell.

Thank you for your kind words: I'd never realized! Wow!

lesalanos

The arches above the windows have possibly dropped where the original wooden frames have been replaced with UPVC frames which bend over time.  You may even be able to see the bow in the frame.  It's not a biggie to resolve 

Ramouth

We had these feelings with our previous house.  We had had a survey but had been far too optimistic when reading it.  We lifted the carpet in the dining room then fell through the floorboards which were more woodworm hole than board!  I recall being annoyed that this hadn’t been picked up in the survey, then re-reading the survey, and being annoyed with ourselves for not taking it’s advise seriously enough!  We definitely had some ‘omg what have we done’ moments (and at one point fantasised about it burning down) but it all got sorted in the end and was a lovey house that we were sad to leave.

I agree with the other posters, get a structural engineer to take a look but much of it could well be due to the windows.  It is pretty common for original timber windows to be somewhat load-bearing whereas UPVC cannot support any load at all.  

stuart45

Replacement windows often cause problems, but it's normally when a soldier course, or stretcher bond is built directly on the frame. A well built arch is usually self supporting. The ones in the photo are gauged and rubbed brick arches, which are high quality jobs. They last hundreds of years and usually only fail if there is movement as the abutment. Also, in the photo, the frame can't be seen picking up the soffit.