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What's the worse thing you have found when buying a property and the worse thing you have covered up

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  • Slinky
    Slinky Posts: 11,018 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    Our current home was full of minor issues, mostly relating to water. The dining room floor was soaking wet where the patio door was leaking. The seals weren't available anymore so we had to replace the whole door. We had a chap round to clear the gutters, got him to clean the windows, this revealed the dining room ceiling leaked around where the external soil pipe from the bathroom passed through it (single storey extension). There were problems with both toilets leaking, the kitchen tap was ceased solid so you couldn't rotate it, so that had to be replaced. The cold tap on the basin in the downstairs loo was dripping. The perils of buying a probate property in a hard water area that had been empty for at least 18 months.

    There was surface mounted wiring everywhere - 3 doorbells that didn't work, speaker cable running from the lounge to an upstairs bedroom, loads of co-ax but we couldn't find any socket where we could get a tv signal.

    Biggest thing that didn't work was the solar hot water, it was so ancient the pipework on the roof had disintegrated and the metal panel behind had moss growing in it. We had to pay £500 to get it removed, which was the same as it had cost to put in 40 years earlier.
    Make £2025 in 2025
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    Make £2023 in 2023  Total: £2606.33/£2023  128.8%



  • While getting the gas safety certificate for the house we were selling, the fitter noticed that the open flame gas fire in the lounge didn't meet current safety standards. He capped it off and we kept schtum. Felt a bit guilty when the vendor of our new house said the electric fire in the lounge there was faulty, and knocked £500 off the purchase price. Especially as it was hideous and we were binning it anyway!
  • NornIronRose
    NornIronRose Posts: 465 Forumite
    100 Posts Second Anniversary Name Dropper
    edited 28 October 2023 at 12:46PM
    FreeBear said:
    EssexHebridean said: We have a winner! 😆
    Patio and wine cellar. I'll say no more, but there isn't a Tesco bag for life anywhere to be seen.

    Please put the link for this, if you can find it (I can't) as I'd love to revisit it and it'll be a real treat for those who haven't read it. 
    Probably my favourite thing from MSE over the many years. Could do with a few giggles. 

    And yes, it may look as if I'm a newbie but I have been on MSE for many more years than I care to mention, but changed my name so that I didn't get stalked by my nosy ex!
  • jaymz84
    jaymz84 Posts: 24 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10 Posts Combo Breaker
    About 6 months after I'd moved into my first home, I started needing to repressurise the boiler to get any hot water. Several visits from British Gas homecare later, they were insistent there was no leak, even if it was the only logical answer for me needing to climb into the loft on a daily basis for hot water.

    A week before Christmas, I returned home from work to find my entire living room ceiling had collapsed, damaging two sofas and ruining the laminate flooring that was running the entire length of the house. The culprit was a screw the previous owners had used to secure a floorboard hitting a pipe, being patched up and taking a long time to corrode.

    The plus side of it all was that I hadn't decorated the living room or adjacent hallway, so the insurance company paid out for decorating I was going to do anyway, and for two new sofas, even though I was able to savage one of the damaged ones
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