Buying a House, Survey Results...

jcb33

jcb33

jcb33

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Joined
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Notts
Hey all,

Taking the big step of buying a house, which has so far been going well, however I just got the survey results back, and as I have no idea who else to ask was wondering if I might get some advice:

It requires several repairs, most notably there is damp to the lower portions of the WC and Living room:

"In the living room, chimney breasts and also the WC there is damp and salt damage to the lower parts of the walls"
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The electrics need updating:

"Electrical circuitry can be improved by replacement of fuses with micro circuite breakers, installing a residual current device and ensuring that supplementary earth bond connections are complete in the building"
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There are also other repairs required, the joint between the conservatory and the house has a small leak, the kitchen sink + drainage pipe need repairing and the drain clamp has corroded and also needs replacing.

Because of all this I am unsure if it is worth investing in the property, the value is above what I have offered, which looks good, but as I don’t have a huge amount put by for repairs I am unsure if I could improve the house for living in...

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Jcb33.
 
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the rewire means plastering and full redec of whole house. The minor stuff of corroded bracket etc, is just that, minor. The biggie is the damp, hack off 1 metre, filthy job, mortgage will probably be retended whilst you do this.
I would get the whole lot priced up and ask for the entire amount off the purchase price, thats if you want to do it. there are so many houses on the open market that they would be silly to just jack you off, they might have to wait a year for another buyer, or auction it off. Will your mortgage company actually lend on this?
mrs herby
 
jcb33 said:
Because of all this I am unsure if it is worth investing in the property, the value is above what I have offered, which looks good, but as I don’t have a huge amount put by for repairs I am unsure if I could improve the house for living in...
Click to expand...
That's why you ask for the cost of the works off the price.

Also, surveys are rarely comprehensive.
Case in point, a friend of mine moved into a house with a very obvious damp problem caused by decking installed outside - covering an air brick.
How the hell a competent surveyor could miss that, I don't know.
 
Be careful with electrical work i just spent 2800 quid in a property i let for a job that started at 1800 quid.

Make sure you get a firm quote not an estimate.
 
jcb33 said:
The electrics need updating:
Click to expand...

Surveys always advise you to update the electrics on an older house. It's not worth worrying about. The damp is more concerning. Does the surveyor give specific advice regarding it.

In general, walk away if you're not sure is good advice for house buying.
 
You will need to determine the cause of the damp, lower walls and salt could indicate that it's rising and possibly needs a damp proof course, it might also be something external letting water in, ie damaged brickwork, pointing etc

You could do some of the electrics yourself then have it checked

You could also diy a load of other stuff, I'm doing loads of the stuff in my house such as mortaring, Joinery, Electrics, some plumbing


Your surveyor has found some noticeable faults but be prepared to uncover more that he can't have possibly found

There's loads of help on the net for diy too :)
 
Sensible thing - get some quotes on the price of those repairs. If they are extremely high seek asking for some money off what was offered?
 
Mr Jack said:
Surveys always advise you to update the electrics on an older house. It's not worth worrying about. The damp is more concerning. Does the surveyor give specific advice regarding it.

In general, walk away if you're not sure is good advice for house buying.
Click to expand...

They state that the house already has a damp course, so all that needs doing is removing plaster upto 330mm above the damp, and re-plastering + treating with a correct covering.

The walls are mostly inside walls, joined onto other houses.

I however have no DIY skills currently, and have no idea how much it would cost to get someone in to do this job!

Decorating is not an issue as I was going to do that anyway. Also for the electrics is the suggested a large job?

Thanks for all the advice!
Jcb33.
 
Lopéz said:
Now this I can vouch for. I'm currently doing it in the living room on some of the outside walls and it's a filthy, dusty task that I am not enjoying one bit.
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haha, it's my favourite part of renovating, except when bits land on yer head :(
 
Lopéz said:
This is untrue.
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are you sure? it will need comissioning and if the person comissioning it isn't happy with it, it will need doing again by a pro, sometimes it's better to let a professional do stuff like this. is it worth taking the risk? insurance company might take an interest if there was an electrical fire
 
cm1179 said:
are you sure? it will need comissioning and if the person comissioning it isn't happy with it, it will need doing again by a pro, sometimes it's better to let a professional do stuff like this. is it worth taking the risk? insurance company might take an interest if there was an electrical fire
Click to expand...
My comment (as indicated by my quote) was regarding

"you are not allowed to do your own electrical work, cabling etc, you are allowed to just change socket fronts and so on."

Which is incorrect.

I wasn't commenting on the OPs situation, since I haven't seen the installation and don't know what work is needed.
 
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