How could you tell a house isn't standard construction pre-survey?

Mercury1415

So I'm in the process of trying to buy my first house. It looked like a standard brick house so I applied for a mortgage thinking it was a brick house with standard construction, because it didn't appear to have anything unusual about it, but the survey has come back saying it's got steel beams inside. None of the advice I'd seen said to wait for the survey before applying for a mortgage, but obviously now I'm potentially not going to be approved anymore. The lenders didn't want to do their own valuation originally, the survey is for my own benefit. Just wondering for the future if there's any way to tell if there are things like this? The steel beams are within the bricks so there's no way to tell visually and it's not something I ever encountered in any of my researching. 

user1977

Generally they're in a whole development of similar construction, so you get some clues from the marketing and prices achieved by the neighbours. There are websites with photos showing what the various types of construction usually look like, if you have a search.

nic_c

Definitely look at neighbouring houses. For instance some of post war houses were prefab and since had a brick skin done outside, but for a mortgage you need a certificate to confirm the retro fit is up to standard. 

MultiFuelBurner

If the house shakes when two or more people jump up and down?

stuart45

Looking at the construction in the roof space can often help.

m0bov

Can you post up some pics or the listing? If a lot of the other houses are built the same, then that is surely the "standard"?

Mercury1415

m0bov said:

Can you post up some pics or the listing? If a lot of the other houses are built the same, then that is surely the "standard"?

No because steel beams aren't considered standard. Regardless of what the rest of the street is made of. 

Mercury1415

stuart45 said:

Looking at the construction in the roof space can often help.

Thanks! This is the most useful comment so far. Any particular things though? I'm just really cross with myself because I spent ages researching all the things to watch out for when I went to view a property and 'Looking out for steel beams' didn't come up anywhere. 

Mercury1415

MultiFuelBurner said:

If the house shakes when two or more people jump up and down?

Ha ha ha. I was looking for actual advice though. 

Mercury1415

nic_c said:

Definitely look at neighbouring houses. For instance some of post war houses were prefab and since had a brick skin done outside, but for a mortgage you need a certificate to confirm the retro fit is up to standard. 

They all look the same, so I had no idea there was anything weird or wonderful about the inside of these walls until we had the survey done. 

Mercury1415

user1977 said:

Generally they're in a whole development of similar construction, so you get some clues from the marketing and prices achieved by the neighbours. There are websites with photos showing what the various types of construction usually look like, if you have a search.

Yeah I tried to look at all the neighbouring houses but all I could tell was that they went for about ten grand less on average, which I'd assumed was because most of them weren't well looked after and from the state of many of them from the outside I wasn't really surprised they went for less, and the place I'm trying to buy has a nice conservatory which I assume bumped the price up a little. But none of them have any clear indication anywhere that they weren't standard construction, or that they weren't mortgageable.