Pitched Roof felt deteriorated

Justaboutgettingby

Hope someone can give us some advice here. The people next door had a roofer/roof line company come out to fix their dry verge which had come loose. Whilst up the ladders to fix he found that the roofing felt had rotted away and the battens were wet. They have been having a lot of damp issues and this guy told them that rain water was going into the cavity causing the damp problems. He has quoted 2.8 k to take off the tiles and felt, replace the battens, roofing felt with a breathable membrane, replace the original tiles and new dry verge. This seems very reasonable. Anyway whilst our neighbour was telling me this the guy comes over and offers to check ours. We live in a bungalow built in the late 70's but apart from condensation in winter have not suffered any leaks or bad damp. Anyway he had a look, and lo and behold all four corners of our bungalow has big gaps where the roofing felt has deteriorated. He did take photos and showed us and we actually could see by climbing his ladder that its true. He has quoted us the same price (2.8k) to do the same job as on our neighbours house. We can't really afford anything at the moment but this does seem a good price. The issue I have is that probably all houses of this age will have the same issue, our tiles are good (apart from being covered in moss) and we have no problems. From researching the web it would seem that felt isnt really even necessary as its a secondary measure. BUT taking into account the age of the house I am flip flopping between waiting until there is an issue, or having it done now before any issues happen. Can anyone please advise? TIA 

stuart45

You can look in the roof space to check the felt. It's quite common to go at the eaves first. People often have the first 4 courses removed and new felt and eaves support tray installed.