Actions after surveyors report

Woden

Hi,

I think I'm going to have a few questions coming over the next while.. We are selling our apartment in the UK and buying a house around the corner. Solicitors engaged/mortgage broker engage etc. Offer accepted on our apartment and on the house we want to buy.

My overall feeling is of being a little out of my depth. We commissioned and received a comprehensive structural survey. I've reviewed it as best as I can understand and had a call with the surveyor to clarify.

The general gist of the survey was that the house is structurally sound but the work done to get it on the market was likely unprofessional e.g. chimney breast removal, wall removal. No identified support for some removals. Some damp. The recommendation was to ask for building regulation completion certificates here to see it was inspected and done by a competent trades person. I've put request to the EA for these.

Assuming they don't return with these we had a general recommendation to start negotiating price based on these finding The impression was we could work on the items identified in the survey as we worked to improve the house over the coming years.

Basically I'm wondering if we are all on the right track. Anything else I should be considering? The surveyor generally felt he would be happy to buy the house.

We do like the house but i'd have no qualms in pulling out if necessary.

Thanks,

Woden

LirW

The approach I'd take would be the following: Do your research and get a ballpark figure of what that would cost. Try, based on that to re-negotiate the price. You'll see how willing the vendor is to engage with you.

Something that's important and we had to learn the hard way is that issues can emerge when you already moved in. Could you afford to fix some of these issues when there's an urgency?
For example, we lived in our house for 3 weeks or so and my son had a shower and suddenly we had water coming through the ceiling. Following that we had to find out that the installation of the bathroom was very shoddy. Which meant, we had only one choice and that was to re-do the bathroom. Cost was roughly 4k and that involved some DIY and keeping the tiling minimal. I hope you get my point.
Granted, I hired a pretty incompetent surveyor.

If you can live with the issues and the cost it would involve to fix that, there's nothing that speaks against the house. As long as you take care that you don't buy a money pit, you'll be fine. Almost every second-hand house has some sort of problems. Generally, if the surveyor is happy, it's a good sign.

Lumen

Someone who is willing to make unsafe modifications in order to sell a property is unlikely to accept a lower price and more likely to move on to the next sucker.

Woden

Thanks for the feedback folks. We should be in a position to hold back about £10k after purchase for anything urgent. I'll await feedback from the EA with regards to the completion certificate. The surveyor gave a ballpark figure he would use as a negotiation start point and his thoughts were the vendors attitude to this will indicate the speed he wants to sell. Point noted from Lumen also.

The market is a bit quiet were we are at the moment and the property had seen some price drops due to the market. Our current accepted offer is about 12.5% lower than what one sold for 2 doors down 1 year ago.

mitresize5

this should really be a sticky on this forum

You're buying a second hand house, your engineer is reporting against current regulations and building practices. Every surveyors report on a second hand home will have recommendations on what needs to be done to bring it to modern building standards.

Your engineer has said he would buy it in its current condition.

You can try and negotiate but I expect you'll (rightly in my opinion) be told take it or leave it.

Lumen

mitresize5 wrote: »

You're buying a second hand house, your engineer is reporting against current regulations and building practices. Every surveyors report on a second hand home will have recommendations on what needs to be done to bring it to modern building standards.

I'm not an expert on building regulations but as far as I know they're not optional. The OP has indicated that structural modifications were made recently; any buyer would have reasonable expectation those modifications were made to current regs with evidence to support.

Otherwise, what's the point in having regulations?

Gumbo

Lumen wrote: »

I'm not an expert on building regulations but as far as I know they're not optional. The OP has indicated that structural modifications were made recently; any buyer would have reasonable expectation those modifications were made to current regs with evidence to support.

Otherwise, what's the point in having regulations?

Agree, But remember, only to the standard of the regulations that were in force at the time of commencement of construction.

It can’t be used to hammer down a price because a 20 year old house doesn’t have the insulation levels of a 5 year old house etc

Lumen

kceire wrote: »

Agree, But remember, only to the standard of the regulations that were in force at the time of commencement of construction.

It can’t be used to hammer down a price because a 20 year old house doesn’t have the insulation levels of a 5 year old house etc

Sure, but in this case....

Woden wrote: »

The general gist of the survey was that the house is structurally sound but the work done to get it on the market was likely unprofessional e.g. chimney breast removal, wall removal. No identified support for some removals. Some damp.

Mike3549

Lumen wrote: »

Sure, but in this case....

Doesn't matter. My place has C3 BER. So if I want to make some minor changes, does it also mean I have to increase my BER to A3 to meet the current regulations?

Gumbo

Lumen wrote: »

Sure, but in this case....

In those cases I ask for a structural engineers opinion but you know yourself, someone coming in after the fact, the opinion is non binding and not worth its salt.

The seller won’t get an Engineers cert at this stage unless they were involved in the works, so the OP has to make his mind up if it’s worth buying or not.

Lumen

Mike3549 wrote: »

Doesn't matter. My place has C3 BER. So if I want to make some minor changes, does it also mean I have to increase my BER to A3 to meet the current regulations?

Right, AFAIK regs only apply to new builds and extensions, so no.

I should have chosen my words more carefully.

OTOH, there's no building regulations which specify a particular BER, so you should also. :pac:

the_syco

Woden wrote: »

The general gist of the survey was that the house is structurally sound but the work done to get it on the market was likely unprofessional e.g. chimney breast removal, wall removal. No identified support for some removals. Some damp. The recommendation was to ask for building regulation completion certificates here to see it was inspected and done by a competent trades person.

First off, this is what you can see. Fcuk knows what you can't.

Regarding the chimney breast removal; how much was removed? Is there still a bit jutting out from the wall, or is it smooth? If the latter, I'd be worried the rest of the chimney may come in.

You mention "some damp". I'll rephrase that; you're seeing the damp that they couldn't hide. Look for fresh paint near where the damp is, as fresh paint is often used to hide historical dampness.

Also, perhaps check with someone if the dampness could have been caused by the work done improperly. Example; if there is dampness coming from external walls due to an amateur finish cutting corners to get the house on the market.

Woden

Hi,

Yes the work was all done just recently so that was my understanding of why we could expect compliance/certificates. The seller was involved in the works. I can see the planning permission application/approval. They converted a double house back into the original two terraces essentially

Thanks,

Woden

mitresize5

the_syco wrote: »

First off, this is what you can see. Fcuk knows what you can't.

Regarding the chimney breast removal; how much was removed? Is there still a bit jutting out from the wall, or is it smooth? If the latter, I'd be worried the rest of the chimney may come in.

You mention "some damp". I'll rephrase that; you're seeing the damp that they couldn't hide. Look for fresh paint near where the damp is, as fresh paint is often used to hide historical dampness.

Also, perhaps check with someone if the dampness could have been caused by the work done improperly. Example; if there is dampness coming from external walls due to an amateur finish cutting corners to get the house on the market.

?? the engineer who has done a full survey has said he'd buy the house and obviously hasnt raised any of these hypothetical scenarios.

Woden

Yes he said informally he would buy it as we'd do the loft and sort out the main identified issues as we went along.

As it stands we have a request with the EA for the compliance certificates and if not available will look to negotiate a reduction due to work outstanding as I see it.

On the damp I've looked more closely and the main source identified is on a new wall that was put back in to split the 2 properties. The vendor retains the other property in which his mother lives so he'll hopefully be interested in resolving that also assuming it would effect her.

I guess I'm wondering if you're gonna do it half arsed why do it at all. No idea what he spend to get it ready but he might as well have just split the houses and left it for sale if it was going to be necessary to redo a lot of the work anyway.