Buyer's surveyor gave us his findings and they're inaccurate/exaggerated

RHemmings

Dustyevsky said:

RHemmings said:

Dustyevsky said:

House buying and selling is a game, and some people play rough or don't understand all the rules. It's always hard to work out which! The surveyor's first duty is to himself here. While he should know the difference between historic movement and active subsidence, if the area affected hasn't been re-pointed then it's safest to cover his posterior and flag it up as a 'concern.' Equally, the damp might have been measured with a meter, probably unsuitable for the job, but again, from his perspective it's best to report the findings.

Looked at broadly, if these were the only things the surveyor found on a 100-year-old house it's positive, but as you rightly surmise, that might not be how the potential purchasers feel. Unfortunately, that's in the hands of human psyche, and you've no control over that, so know what your bottom line is and stick to it.

It's a game, but I would classify a deliberately dishonest survey as 'underhand' and 'cheating'. When I play games, if people cheat then I stop playing games with them. When buying my house, my family had all agreed what we would do if the sellers tried a last minute gazump or similar. And, our response would have been a well-known two-word Anglo-Saxon phrase.

As the OP points-out, the purchaser may have employed the surveyor in good faith.

Last year, I spent far too long in a legal battle with neighbours, which I won. However, after protracted correspondence and verbal 'communication,' I'm still not 100% sure whether their motives were dishonourable, or if they're emotionally immature and/or incredibly stupid.

Keeping emotion and supposition out of it, knowing their bottom line and sticking to it seems the best course. From the latest post, it seems the OP is well able to do that.

Yes, I had moved on to discussing the concept in general, and contingent on the OP's buyers acting suspiciously which we don't yet know will happen. I believe that I made that clear in the part of my post that you edited out when quoting. 

Albermarle

Ozzig said:

It does sound rather unprofessional, when our last house was sold the surveyor was very professional, after introductions and a run through of how to get in the loft, he very politely explained he cannot answer any questions relating to the survey and to just let him get on with it.

This would be my main worry. The buyers surveyor should not be having a detailed chat with the vendor.

The actual faults described are less of an issue. This forum is littered with threads complaining about surveyors making a big deal over small issues to cover themselves, so no surprise this one seems to have done the same.

Tempestina

Albermarle said:

Ozzig said:

It does sound rather unprofessional, when our last house was sold the surveyor was very professional, after introductions and a run through of how to get in the loft, he very politely explained he cannot answer any questions relating to the survey and to just let him get on with it.

This would be my main worry. The buyers surveyor should not be having a detailed chat with the vendor.

The actual faults described are less of an issue. This forum is littered with threads complaining about surveyors making a big deal over small issues to cover themselves, so no surprise this one seems to have done the same.

I think had he simply told the buyers in his report he would advise they get an inspection by an expert on x and y and we heard it from them, I would simply then have explained to them we knew the cause of the one issue but agree they may want to consider getting the pointing done at their convenience and really didn't believe the other was correct (my builder says that due to the construction of the area in question for the damp it would be almost impossible for that area to get damp anyway and he can find no signs himself of damp) but they were welcome to get experts in at their cost if they so desired. The fact he put on his serious face and told us info we're not technically entitled to so we wouldn't be 'surprised' when we heard from the buyer is what put me on guard and felt very unprofessional/scammy. I will see what comes of it next week and go from there, and am considering a formal complaint to his firm and RICS, though I appreciate likely all that will happen is they will tell me he will be investigated and in actuality nothing will be done based on info people have said about RICS being ineffective anyway. 

Section62

Tempestina said:

Albermarle said:

Ozzig said:

It does sound rather unprofessional, when our last house was sold the surveyor was very professional, after introductions and a run through of how to get in the loft, he very politely explained he cannot answer any questions relating to the survey and to just let him get on with it.

This would be my main worry. The buyers surveyor should not be having a detailed chat with the vendor.

The actual faults described are less of an issue. This forum is littered with threads complaining about surveyors making a big deal over small issues to cover themselves, so no surprise this one seems to have done the same.

I think had he simply told the buyers in his report he would advise they get an inspection by an expert on x and y and we heard it from them, I would simply then have explained to them we knew the cause of the one issue but agree they may want to consider getting the pointing done at their convenience and really didn't believe the other was correct (my builder says that due to the construction of the area in question for the damp it would be almost impossible for that area to get damp anyway and he can find no signs himself of damp) but they were welcome to get experts in at their cost if they so desired. The fact he put on his serious face and told us info we're not technically entitled to so we wouldn't be 'surprised' when we heard from the buyer is what put me on guard and felt very unprofessional/scammy. I will see what comes of it next week and go from there, and am considering a formal complaint to his firm and RICS, though I appreciate likely all that will happen is they will tell me he will be investigated and in actuality nothing will be done based on info people have said about RICS being ineffective anyway. 

As a professional his first responsibility is to wider society before the client, so although other posters have already branded him unprofessional, it isn't necessarily unprofessional for a surveyor to discuss what they have seen with the owner of the property - in fact if they failed to mention certain things they could potentially be held to be negligent.

By discussing things with you the surveyor hasn't materially disadvantaged you, the disadvantage is to the buyer in that you now have information that the buyer could otherwise have used to their advantage.

It isn't entirely clear what the situation with the beam/electricity meter is, but the fact part of the beam is still visible is something I'd expect a surveyor to flag up as a problem.  The beam should be given fire protection and not left exposed - and to be exposed in a situation where there is something nearby that could be a cause of fire (the electricity supply point/consumer unit) ought to ring alarm bells.  Maybe that is something he noted and will tell his client about later?

ThisIsWeird

Tempestina said:

I must stress I think the buyers likely found this surveyor in good faith and I don't subscribe any underhanded motivation to them as yet. The surveyor did give me the feeling that his method of securing business might be along the lines of telling people he has an excellent track record for getting people info they can use to get ££££ off the price based purely on his own behaviour while he was here. 

I'm assuming from what others have said that the 15 minute interview he requested after is highly unusual. I felt odd about it, him asking us when we redecorated like it's a dirty secret we'll try to hide, yes we redecorated some rooms to sell the house as it has last been done 15 years ago, one room was a god awful colour scheme of three horrible sand brown walls and one bright cyan one I thought was 'beach themed' 15 years ago and soon after thought was just eff ugly but wasn't eff ugly enough to make me drag out the rollers back then. Obviously to sell the house, removing the ugly and polarising colours in advance seems a pretty normal thing to do. 

I know he has to cover his buttcheeks but you'd have had to be here for the 15 min conversation he asked for I guess to see why I feel it was more digging for info he could leverage against us. If I could go back in time and certainly now that I've been through it once and had time to reflect, in future I'd just say oh no sorry I haven't time as I need to be back at my desk. We knocked the kitchen into a kitchen diner several years ago. He was actively smirking about 'the need for building regs' and going on about how it was 'lucky' the builder missed a bit of plaster and he could see that at least we'd used a steel until I pointed out it had full sign off and the certificate was with the solicitor already. The area where he could see the steel is right next to the main National Grid fuse for the 240V supply and because you're not really meant to interfere with it if your not National Grid, they had to do their best around it while allowing for safety and it's tucked up under the stairs with the consumer unit and meter anyway. I had to explain the safety decisions we'd made around the supply to him when they should have been clear and I'd think things he should know. He then moved on to something about needing building control for a chimney stack the council removed likely half a century ago when they still owned the property, and reroofed what I'm given to understand was the whole house after. If it needed building regs, circa 50 years without enforcement would make me think it's a bit of a nothing burger but as it didn't come up in our conveyancing, I'm guessing it's unrequired or on file with the council who did the work to their own property back in the day. He was just really wanting his ah ha got you moment around work without building regs and was visibly disappointed to have it denied to him. My other half says the way I said good bye made the off you eff clear so I'm sure at least he left clear he hadn't intimidated me and I didn't believe much of what he said. He brandished his damp meter at me and I said oh the thing made for timber not 100 year old plaster and he refused to look me in the face.

My inclination is to say the house was fairly priced and the two 'major issues' their surveyor sat us down to discuss are actually a bit of nothing/not even real, and that I am considering my options to make a formal complaint about their surveyor's unprofessional conduct while he was in my home, and I'm not interested in negotiation over these inflated minor faults he tried to sensationalise. Of course I will have to wait until next week to see if the buyers go down that road but thinking back to my survey when I bought the house, the tone was rather more matter of fact in delivery than this 'gent' employed. His tone felt very much I've promised my clients I can run down your house and save them some money.

Lol!

You seem to have a good handle on this, Tina, and I've just appreciated the significance of your username :-)

You won't know if this is an issue until the buyer gets back to you having read the survey. Fingers crossed there was nothing untoward in the surveyor's intent.

You seem to recall much of the more controversial points he made, so I'd suggest keep writing these down as verbat as poss whenever another one pops into your head. Just in case...

Look forward to hearing how this pans out. But, man, that beach colour-scheme :-(

markin

The should be fire block foam or putty used around the beam.

Doozergirl

Section62 said:

Tempestina said:

Albermarle said:

Ozzig said:

It does sound rather unprofessional, when our last house was sold the surveyor was very professional, after introductions and a run through of how to get in the loft, he very politely explained he cannot answer any questions relating to the survey and to just let him get on with it.

This would be my main worry. The buyers surveyor should not be having a detailed chat with the vendor.

The actual faults described are less of an issue. This forum is littered with threads complaining about surveyors making a big deal over small issues to cover themselves, so no surprise this one seems to have done the same.

I think had he simply told the buyers in his report he would advise they get an inspection by an expert on x and y and we heard it from them, I would simply then have explained to them we knew the cause of the one issue but agree they may want to consider getting the pointing done at their convenience and really didn't believe the other was correct (my builder says that due to the construction of the area in question for the damp it would be almost impossible for that area to get damp anyway and he can find no signs himself of damp) but they were welcome to get experts in at their cost if they so desired. The fact he put on his serious face and told us info we're not technically entitled to so we wouldn't be 'surprised' when we heard from the buyer is what put me on guard and felt very unprofessional/scammy. I will see what comes of it next week and go from there, and am considering a formal complaint to his firm and RICS, though I appreciate likely all that will happen is they will tell me he will be investigated and in actuality nothing will be done based on info people have said about RICS being ineffective anyway. 

As a professional his first responsibility is to wider society before the client, so although other posters have already branded him unprofessional, it isn't necessarily unprofessional for a surveyor to discuss what they have seen with the owner of the property - in fact if they failed to mention certain things they could potentially be held to be negligent.

By discussing things with you the surveyor hasn't materially disadvantaged you, the disadvantage is to the buyer in that you now have information that the buyer could otherwise have used to their advantage.

It isn't entirely clear what the situation with the beam/electricity meter is, but the fact part of the beam is still visible is something I'd expect a surveyor to flag up as a problem.  The beam should be given fire protection and not left exposed - and to be exposed in a situation where there is something nearby that could be a cause of fire (the electricity supply point/consumer unit) ought to ring alarm bells.  Maybe that is something he noted and will tell his client about later?

I'm not reading that the surveyor has done anything wrong.  It's their job to find issues in a house and all houses have them, particularly 100 year old houses.  They're not there to pat you on the back for not obtaining building regulations approval or pointing up after movement, of whatever description, has occurred and you've fixed it.   

I think you're taking it personally, OP, and reading too much into it.   I'd much rather have the heads up on their opinions than read it in the report.  

They're doing their job.   

It's true that someone may interpret something differently on first viewing than someone with years of knowledge of the house, but you're acknowledging that much of what they said is correct, you just don't like it.  

peterhjohnson

Tempestina said:

We had loads of interest in the first weekend we were listed and these were the first to offer and in a position to proceed quickly,

Given the state of the market in much of the country, this suggests that you priced it sensibly. In your situation, I would be reluctant to accept a reduced offer following survey unless some serious hidden issues were revealed 

Smalltownhypocrite

They dont sound over exaggerated at all... in fact I would be shocked if they DIDN'T find at least that in a 100 year old house.

Tempestina

As an update the buyers elected not to get a structural engineer out to check but to pull out over the pointing issue being put down to structural movement by their surveyor and the, in our opinion, non-existent damp (I'm sure his meter showed a high reading in the area he pointed to but I believe this will be down to the style of plaster giving a false reading or something of that nature. The house is well heated, and either ventilated in good weather or humidity controlled via a dehumidifier in winter months. There is no damp that has ever caused us an issue in all these years in any event. 

I assume this means we will lose our onward purchase, I'm still waiting to hear. I've asked my builder to book the repairs to the pointing - we should have had it done years ago but we were less financially fortunate back then and thought we'd live here forever so just wasn't on our radar as a worry. I'd honestly forgotten about it TBH. 

I'm not sure what we will do, we only decided to move as we fell in love with one particular house. If the sellers of that decide that we're too risky to deal with in case this happens again, there's nothing else I want to buy on the market right now anyway. I almost feel like the estate agent is trying to put us off relisting as these issues may come up again anyway. Do people just decide they can't move because there is a disagreement over the source of some cracked pointing? The mortgage company did send a chap round to value the house and he issued a mortgage for the sale price agreed even though he also noted the cracked pointing as possible structural movement apparently, so surely that means in at least that bank's opinion the house was worth what we agreed even with these issues.

I'm a bit at a loss and wishing we'd never decided to move. If we do go ahead and relist, what do we even say to anyone who is aware it was previously SSTC? So much of a level two is subjective. The surveyor for the level 2 flagged the garage roof 'may have asbestos' but it's a new prefab kit garage installed by a reputable company in 2018ish, wouldn't it be illegal for companies to be selling new asbestos roof panels by that era? He also flagged "missing building regs" that from my online research aren't things building regs are required for like removing a chimney stack to the roofline only (breast is still intact) and retrofitting cavity wall insulation, likely done in the 90s - both of which done before we bought the house and not flagged during our conveyancing when we purchased - doesn't mean our solicitor back then didn't mess up but just seems to support my understanding that neither required it.

So I guess the update is I regret ever deciding to sell and I have no idea what we'll do now.