Ridiculous survey comments?

allconnected

Interested to know if our experience is common. 

We’ve had a buyer scared off by a homebuyers survey which includes comments appearing absolutely bonkers. It contains comments like ’the walls have been hidden by bookcases and furniture preventing is from identifying probable issues’ ‘existence of wallpaper may be hiding damaged plaster which will be expensive to remedy’ ‘the bathroom extractor is noisy - essential to obtain external quotes for remedying before completion’. It warns, in doomsday terms,  of  potential structural issues in arising from work 40 years ago which have been raised, and answered, in two subsequent surveys. 

This is an 80 year old house which while in good and well maintained condition was priced VERY realistically. The survey, however, appears to have been carried out by matching the house to a new build template and marking down emphatically anything that is not ‘as new’

despite all this the valuation matched asking price, but the buyer is so scared by the language used they have backed out.

Is this how surveys  go now? Anything not in mint condition is “unacceptable, pay someone for a second
 opinion?

Allconnected

hazyjo

More that it's standard backside-covering by the surveyor, and why FTBs often aren't the most desirable buyer (despite what many think). Know we all had to start somewhere, but not nice for sellers when they drop out over nothing. The next survey they have for the next property they consider will say pretty much the same thing. Maybe they'll take advice and get back to you!

lookstraightahead

We bought a really old house so had a level 3 survey. Our vendors did their own structural engineers report as their previous buyers pulled out over vagaries so when we had ours done we had access to this which helped our surveyor.

of course your house isn't old but it might put future buyers minds at rest if you do your own.

MultiFuelBurner

Par for the course on an 80 year old property.

The language will of course be offensive to a seller and alarming to a buyer but as mentioned above as long as the surveyor has covered their derrière then that's all that matters in the survey process these days.

ThisIsWeird

I guess you can ask your conveyancer to ask the buyer's to explain to them the typical tone of these surveys. Ditto the EA - they should be doing this too, pointing out that - although the survey comments are 'factual' - eg to say they cannot see a wall behind a bookcase - is just a statement of the bleedin' obvious.

But, some folk will just not be reassured. 

Gavin83

hazyjo said:

More that it's standard backside-covering by the surveyor, and why FTBs often aren't the most desirable buyer (despite what many think). Know we all had to start somewhere, but not nice for sellers when they drop out over nothing. The next survey they have for the next property they consider will say pretty much the same thing. Maybe they'll take advice and get back to you!

Nowhere in the post does it state they were a FTB.

OP, as hazyjo does point out though surveyors these days will list a huge amount of potential problems just to cover their backs. Doesn’t really matter if it isn’t particularly likely, they want to avoid any comeback should problems later be discovered. It’s unfortunate for you but that’s the way surveys are these days. Hopefully a future buyers surveyor will be a bit more realistic.

Another option would be to ask the buyer to have an ‘off the record’ convo with the surveyor about the realistic prospects of the issues raised. They might be a bit more up front if they feel there’s less comeback.

In all honesty I see surveys as a bit of a waste of money. Were I buying a house again I wouldn’t bother.

TBG01

Again, as others have said, the surveyor is covering their back.

You might think 'Oh well it's obvious the surveyor can't see behind a wallpapered wall', but for every person using common sense, there's just as many looking to blame the surveyor for not foreseeing a water leak 6 months down the line.

Gavin83

TBG01 said:

Again, as others have said, the surveyor is covering their back.

You might think 'Oh well it's obvious the surveyor can't see behind a wallpapered wall', but for every person using common sense, there's just as many looking to blame the surveyor for not foreseeing a water leak 6 months down the line.

It’s a fair comment. People these days are very quick to try and place blame on others, especially when there are significant costs involved.

I totally understand why surveyors would wish to cover their backs but it does make the whole process somewhat unfit for purpose.

Dustyevsky

Speaking as someone who once glass fibre resined the wallpaper to avoid re-plastering, I get where the surveyor is coming from!

Soot2006

hazyjo said:

More that it's standard backside-covering by the surveyor, and why FTBs often aren't the most desirable buyer (despite what many think). Know we all had to start somewhere, but not nice for sellers when they drop out over nothing. The next survey they have for the next property they consider will say pretty much the same thing. Maybe they'll take advice and get back to you!

This happened to us, when selling. The first viewer was keen but panicked at the survey ... Then we struggled to find a keen buyer and were just negotiating with someone when the first buyer turned up again, having had a similar doomsday survey on a second property made them realise they still preferred ours and now understood surveys better. We had no more trouble from them, so it ended up being an easy sale after the original faffery.

allconnected

Thanks all. We have no problem with the surveyor being brutally honest (it’s an old house, we’ve held off on certain external improvements because we know a future buyer will likely extend upwards/to the side so it would be throwing away money.) Our problem is that the surveyor seems to have gone out of their way to make the survey as offputting as possible by exaggerating the state of the property (a roof replaced 3 years ago to a very high spec is described as ‘old and insubstantial, needs replacing soon)

  ‘Unable to inspect wall behind fitted furniture’ is fine - ‘the walls have been hidden, which may conceal issues” is not - furnishing a house isn’t hiding the walls! The survey seriously describes everything that isn’t brand spanking new as ‘worn, dated, in need of replacement, may conceal issues, get a professional opinion before exchange’ -a 6 year old and very expensive interlinked block paved drive is described as “sunken and uneven” when it clearly isn’t at all, it has one very, very slight dip to a couple of blocks in a 3 car drive. The surveyor begrudgingly admits they can’t advise replacing floor insulation  as they have  found no “significant” signs of rising damp, when actually they have found absolutely no signs of any damp whatsoever - because there isn’t any!

Reading between the lines the surveyor had found virtually no actual faults, (one downpipe actually does need replacing) but has flagged up so many ‘this is old and might fail’ warning signs the buyer  (not an FTB but someone moving for the first time in many years) was given the impression the house was badly built (because it didn’t meet modern building standards in the 1940s) and is about to fall to bits at any moment.

OK, rant over, now to find a buyer who expects an old house to be, well, old!