Should you ever buy a house without certain ‘searches’?

gazfocus

My wife and I are in the process of selling our house and buying a smaller house with the cash from the sale. We’ve just had the quote from our solicitor for handling the purchase and it’s quite a chunk more than we are paying for them handling the sale, but £250 of their fees are for ‘searches’. 

I’m wondering whether it’s foolish to not have most of the searches done as the vendor will have had searches done in order to get his mortgage so I can’t see why there would be anything that’d come up that would be detrimental to the purchase. 

Wondering whether we could get away with just the chancel repair and the land registry search. 

user1977

You haven't told us, for example, what area of the country you're talking about (e.g. you'd want a Coal Authority search if it's a coalfield). Your solicitor should be able to advise you what the searches actually comprise and how useful they are. Bear in mind you can substitute some of them with insurance for a cheaper/faster alternative e.g. local authority searches rarely disclose anything other than the bleeding obvious, so would be daft to delay things by weeks for that to turn up, when you can search planning applications and the like yourself.

gazfocus

Apologies, should have mentioned, the house is in one of the villages in Blackpool.

theartfullodger

If the price is v low and a quick sale if you complete fast then yes.  I bought a house at auction without having even seen inside it, just a quick drive-by.  Worked out but could have gone wrong but turned out ok.  Currently in sake after 22 years ownership, price more than acceptable.  

But I could afford the gamble:. If you can't afford to find horrors, don't.

Tiglet2

gazfocus said:

My wife and I are in the process of selling our house and buying a smaller house with the cash from the sale. We’ve just had the quote from our solicitor for handling the purchase and it’s quite a chunk more than we are paying for them handling the sale, but £250 of their fees are for ‘searches’. 

I’m wondering whether it’s foolish to not have most of the searches done as the vendor will have had searches done in order to get his mortgage so I can’t see why there would be anything that’d come up that would be detrimental to the purchase. 

Wondering whether we could get away with just the chancel repair and the land registry search. 

As you appear to be buying without a mortgage, the searches will be optional for you.  You would just need to instruct your solicitor that you don't want to purchase searches.  Searches are compulsory if you are obtaining a mortgage.

Just be aware that if anything comes to light after a year or two, you will not be able to go back to your solicitor with a complaint/compensation on something they didn't enquire about, because there were no searches which might have revealed anything of concern.

Don't forget to check the Council's planning website and any local social media groups for any information you might find interesting.

gazfocus

Thanks for the replies so far.

Basically, my logic (rather a simplistic view) is that the current owners have a mortgage on the house, and they bought the house 12 years ago. IF there was anything detrimental to the property itself, it would have been an issue when the vendor bought the house (particularly the environmental, coal mining, etc). Local Authority searches and planning searches we can do ourselves by searching the planning portal. 

The only search I can see being partly useful is the water and drainage search to hopefully highlight whether there are any pipes running under the area where we'd like to put a conservatory/small extension.

I do think the searches are a huge rip off in general. There's no real reason why most of them couldn't remain 'with the property' for a set length of time similar to the EPC lasting 10 years.

thegreenone

I see your point if the vendor had been there for only 4-5 years, but a lot can happen in 12 years.  Perhaps have a look at the council's planning portal and see if there is anything in the pipeline that would affect the house and go from there.

EssexHebridean

A huge amount can change in 12 years - and can be about to change in the next 12 months too. 

Can I ask - could you have a think about how much are you paying for the house you are purchasing? Now, with that figure in mind, does scrimping about £250 really seem like a particularly good thing to be doing? 

Honestly - it's the price of a new washing machine, and could save you from finding in a very short while that you have a house that will prove to be entirely unable to sell. 

Do the searches. 

YoungBlueEyes

As above.  I bought my last house with cash, and I asked my solicitor if I really needed to do all the searches considering there was no lender to please. He said as I was spending all my own money didn't I want to protect that investment, as there was no-one was to share the risk? I got all the searches done. 

Percentage wise it's a drop in the ocean. There are plenty of places to snaggle a bit of money back from, but this ain't it.

EssexHebridean

For cash buyers going ahead without searches most solicitors will also expect you to sign a letter confirming that they have identified the searches they would recommend, and that you have chosen to proceed against their advice - just in case anyone reading this thinks they would subsequently be able to claim against the solicitors in some way. If you decline to sign that letter and still say no to the searches, the solicitor will simply decline to act further for you on the transaction.

Bolt1234

Why wouldnt you pay £250 if you are spending ££££ on one of the most important purchases of your life?