Ridiculous survey comments?

housebuyer143

allconnected said:

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!

That does sound very negative and unnecessary. That would probably scare the wits out of me as well even if I did expect it to be old.
Unfortunately not much you can do as it's not your surveyor. Maybe get the agent to pass on a message to them explaining about the roof and the drive etc and that you feel the survey is extremely negative and you are happy to move the furniture from the walls if you were asked as you have nothing to hide. Might not change anything but worth a shot.

ThisIsWeird

allconnected said:

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!

Blimey, AC! That does appear to go beyond the usual 'caution'.

Also seems to have at least a couple of blatant and very obvious inaccuracies - the roof and the drive - which might be a good thing; a half-decent EA should be able to talk this over with the interested party, explain the simple falsehood  of the surveyor's roof comment, and ask the buyer to look at the driveway and make their own judgement on whether it's been accurately reported. Hopefully that will help to address the 'bias' in the rest of the report.

subjecttocontract

If you have a copy of the surveyors report then write a damming criticism to his professional body correcting his inaccuracies & questioning the necessity of  his critical comments. Even if it gets you nowhere it will make you feel a whole lot better.

allconnected

subjecttocontract said:

If you have a copy of the surveyors report then write a damming criticism to his professional body correcting his inaccuracies & questioning the necessity of  his critical comments. Even if it gets you nowhere it will make you feel a whole lot better.

To be honest it’s taking all my energy at the moment coping with the buying/selling process (moving a long way away) even when it’s going well - I’ll save that for when (if) I move! We really did think that being  totally honest with the estate agent, pricing at the lowest suggested realistic price and flagging up every possible flaw with the house might get us round this, we’re downsizing and don’t need to wring every last penny out of the property - I just hadn’t accounted for a ‘why haven’t you rebuilt this house annually fronm the ground up your house is a slum” survey!

I am a bit fascinated by the fact that our house is blighted by ‘heavy wallpaper’ (there isn’t any - the walls are paint over plaster or lining paper) - maybe it’s like heavy water, and radioactive?

jimbo6977

Survey:  "It's a house and it's standing and if there's anything that might case it to fall down we couldn't see it because it has plaster and wallpaper and stuff and we don't go up ladders so it's not our fault if you buy it and it falls down next week that'll be four grand please."

Copy, paste, easy money. 

allconnected

Yup, pretty much! 

With an extra ‘ but it probably WILL fall down unless you refurbish it to “as new” condition IMMEDIATELY and if you don’t then we’re in the clear.”

housebuyer143

I am a bit fascinated by the fact that our house is blighted by ‘heavy wallpaper’ (there isn’t any - the walls are paint over plaster or lining paper) - maybe it’s like heavy water, and radioactive?

You really should email the agent/buyer over these inaccuracies because maybe they will talk to the surveyor about it or rethink. 
Saying you have wallpaper when there is none.. surely this guy is negligent! 

simon_or

jimbo6977 said:

Survey:  "It's a house and it's standing and if there's anything that might case it to fall down we couldn't see it because it has plaster and wallpaper and stuff and we don't go up ladders so it's not our fault if you buy it and it falls down next week that'll be four grand please."

Copy, paste, easy money. 

Absolutely!

At least in England, it's an industry with weird incentives, due to how common it is for transactions to fall through between offer and completion.

Surveyors get their fee upfront. If the purchase falls through, the property goes back on the market. Another buyer has an offer accepted and commissions another survey, another fee is paid to some other surveyor. Add on top of this the multiple mortgage valuations as well for the same property.

As far as the surveyor industry is concerned, the more transactions that fall through, the merrier.

I'm not alleging any conspiracies here, just pointing out how many wasted surveys must be carried out!

martindow

housebuyer143 said:

I am a bit fascinated by the fact that our house is blighted by ‘heavy wallpaper’ (there isn’t any - the walls are paint over plaster or lining paper) - maybe it’s like heavy water, and radioactive?

You really should email the agent/buyer over these inaccuracies because maybe they will talk to the surveyor about it or rethink. 
Saying you have wallpaper when there is none.. surely this guy is negligent! 

There is lining paper though.  It's painted over so not decorative paper, so I don't think the comment about paper is incorrect.  But saying that this implies the plaster is in a terrible state is something of a jump from seeing a papered wall ...

ThisIsWeird

Yeah, it all depends on how 'heavy' the lining paper is...