We're buying a bungalow and had our offer of £300k accepted.

The bungalow and the surrounding properties were built in 1987, which
makes it 35 years old and the people who own it have never skimped on
anything, whether that be maintenance or appliances or any work on it.
They've always paid for good stuff.

Which level of survey would you go for?

On 28/11/2022 12:42, Fred wrote:
> We're buying a bungalow and had our offer of £300k accepted.
>
> The bungalow and the surrounding properties were built in 1987, which
> makes it 35 years old and the people who own it have never skimped on
> anything, whether that be maintenance or appliances or any work on it.
> They've always paid for good stuff.
>
> Which level of survey would you go for?

It depends on your level of competence and knowing what you are looking
at. A bit of new decoration and a few carpets can hide multiple faults.
Any cracks behind the wardrobes? :)

Note: a mortgage lender survey is possibly no more than a drive by, just
to make sure that they will get the money back if you default.

--
mailto : news {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

On 28/11/2022 12:42, Fred wrote:
> We're buying a bungalow and had our offer of £300k accepted.
>
> The bungalow and the surrounding properties were built in 1987, which
> makes it 35 years old and the people who own it have never skimped on
> anything, whether that be maintenance or appliances or any work on it.
> They've always paid for good stuff.
>
> Which level of survey would you go for?

Personally I tend to go for the middle one. YMMV

Unless there were cowboy builders involved or spray foam in the roof
space I wouldn't expect there to be much wrong with a decent building of
that age. The newest parts of my house are 10 years older than that!

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

Fred wrote:

>We're buying a bungalow and had our offer of £300k accepted.
>
>The bungalow and the surrounding properties were built in 1987, which
>makes it 35 years old and the people who own it have never skimped on
>anything, whether that be maintenance or appliances or any work on it.
>They've always paid for good stuff.
>
>Which level of survey would you go for?

My solicitor was suggesting, a very long time ago, that I should
have a full survey done for a place I was buying. I responded
that the report would be so full of caveats that there would be
great difficulty in taking action in the event of trouble, and
selecting a surveyor based on the adequacy of their insurance
seemed to be rather missing the point. "Not necessarily" he
replied "We have a number of such cases on our hands at the
moment." At which juncture I felt that he had made my point for
me.

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK
chris@cdixon.me.uk @ChrisJDixon1

Plant amazing Acers.

On 28/11/2022 12:42, Fred wrote:
> We're buying a bungalow and had our offer of £300k accepted.
>
> The bungalow and the surrounding properties were built in 1987, which
> makes it 35 years old and the people who own it have never skimped on
> anything, whether that be maintenance or appliances or any work on it.
> They've always paid for good stuff.
>
> Which level of survey would you go for?
I bought my last (80 year old) house for rather more than that without a
proper survey because time was very short and because I had so little
faith in surveyors and their reports. I poked-around in its nooks and
crannies over a number of visits and thought I had spotted everything
that was important, but we had already decided that we wanted the house
so, with hindsight, I did not assess things objectively and did not spot
the "bleedin' obvious" - this probably cost us over £80k.
In your circumstances my advice, FWLIW, is to forget paying for a survey
and to take a knowledgeable pal or two around the place with the brief
of pointing-out everything that is bad in their eyes.

nothanks@aolbin.com wrote:
> I bought my last (80 year old) house for rather more than that without a
> proper survey because time was very short and because I had so little
> faith in surveyors and their reports. I poked-around in its nooks and
> crannies over a number of visits and thought I had spotted everything
> that was important, but we had already decided that we wanted the house
> so, with hindsight, I did not assess things objectively and did not spot
> the "bleedin' obvious" - this probably cost us over £80k.

What was the 'obvious'?

> In your circumstances my advice, FWLIW, is to forget paying for a survey
> and to take a knowledgeable pal or two around the place with the brief
> of pointing-out everything that is bad in their eyes.

I'd go for the full survey because the delta is only about £300 over the
middle one which is nothing in the grand scheme of moving costs. If you'd
spent £300 and saved £80k I think you'd be happy?
(or spent £300 and decided it was worth an extra £80k to you)

I'd then aim to be on site with the surveyor (not necessarily following them
around, but there to ask them questions): basically the surveyor is the
'knowledgeable pal' that you go and visit with, because not everyone has one
of those - and your mate has exactly zero responsibility for your
third-of-a-million quid purchase. Which is not to say you can't also drag
your mate round if you insist.

If the surveyor spots something, you can ask them to point it out there and
then, not when you read the report weeks later.

I don't expect the surveyor's report to say very much, but IMX things they
tell you verbally give you much more information than guarded words in
reports.

Theo

On 28/11/2022 15:49, nothanks@aolbin.com wrote:
> In your circumstances my advice, FWLIW, is to forget paying for a survey
> and to take a knowledgeable pal or two around the place with the brief
> of pointing-out everything that is bad in their eyes.

+1

On 28/11/2022 12:42, Fred wrote:
> We're buying a bungalow and had our offer of £300k accepted.
>
> The bungalow and the surrounding properties were built in 1987, which
> makes it 35 years old and the people who own it have never skimped on
> anything, whether that be maintenance or appliances or any work on it.
> They've always paid for good stuff.
>
> Which level of survey would you go for?

I would be inclined to find a surveyor and have a conversation with them
about what you want to know. Chances are a basic valuation survey with a
little bit of guidance from you as to what interests you in particular
and what you don't care so much about should get a decent amount of
information without paying for a "home buyers report". The home buyers
reports tend to be very template driven, and so don't tend to cover any
properties that are not "bog standard" that well.

When I bought the current place I told them just to look for major
defects, and that I did no need to hear about plumbing or electrics
since I could evaluate those myself.

--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

In article <juk3jvFepfuU1@mid.individual.net>,
<nothanks@aolbin.com> wrote:
> On 28/11/2022 12:42, Fred wrote:
> > We're buying a bungalow and had our offer of £300k accepted.
> >
> > The bungalow and the surrounding properties were built in 1987, which
> > makes it 35 years old and the people who own it have never skimped on
> > anything, whether that be maintenance or appliances or any work on it.
> > They've always paid for good stuff.
> >
> > Which level of survey would you go for?
> I bought my last (80 year old) house for rather more than that without a
> proper survey because time was very short and because I had so little
> faith in surveyors and their reports. I poked-around in its nooks and
> crannies over a number of visits and thought I had spotted everything
> that was important, but we had already decided that we wanted the house
> so, with hindsight, I did not assess things objectively and did not spot
> the "bleedin' obvious" - this probably cost us over £80k.
> In your circumstances my advice, FWLIW, is to forget paying for a survey
> and to take a knowledgeable pal or two around the place with the brief
> of pointing-out everything that is bad in their eyes.

If you are taking out a mortgage, the Building Society will require a survey

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England - sent from my RISC OS 4té
"I'd rather die of exhaustion than die of boredom" Thomas Carlyle

On 28/11/2022 14:48, Martin Brown wrote:
>
> Personally I tend to go for the middle one. YMMV

It's a difficult one.
Our house was surveyed when I bought it, the surveyor mentioned brick
ties as it was apparently an issue with houses in that area and of that
age at the time, i've never done anything about it, none of the
neighbours have, that was nearly 30 years ago, walls all look straight.

I tried to borrow against it approx 8 years ago, there was talk of
possible timber issues so the bank wouldn't lend without further
investigation, I didn't bother and got a couple of small loans instead,
i've since made holes and poked a camera under the floor, the timbers
look like new to me despite being over 100 years old.

Bought a shop 5 years ago, much of the same... Pain in the ass and
expense having extra inspections and reports.

IME surveyors don't do too much actual looking but make a list of things
that *might* be a problem.

So if it was me i'd either have the cheapest one or the most expensive
and thorough, having looked into how thorough it was and judged whether
it was worth it.

On 28/11/2022 16:07, charles wrote:

> If you are taking out a mortgage, the Building Society will require a survey

Which is rather meaningless. It's more of a valuation to satisfy the
mortgage lender that the property is worth the money being lent. The
surveyor may not even leave his office but the report may say that the
property needs a woodworm treatment guarantee etc.

--
mailto : news {at} admac {dot} myzen {dot} co {dot} uk

On 28/11/2022 15:05, Chris J Dixon wrote:
> Fred wrote:
>
>> We're buying a bungalow and had our offer of £300k accepted.
>>
>> The bungalow and the surrounding properties were built in 1987, which
>> makes it 35 years old and the people who own it have never skimped on
>> anything, whether that be maintenance or appliances or any work on it.
>> They've always paid for good stuff.
>>
>> Which level of survey would you go for?
>
> My solicitor was suggesting, a very long time ago, that I should
> have a full survey done for a place I was buying. I responded
> that the report would be so full of caveats that there would be
> great difficulty in taking action in the event of trouble, and
> selecting a surveyor based on the adequacy of their insurance
> seemed to be rather missing the point. "Not necessarily" he
> replied "We have a number of such cases on our hands at the
> moment." At which juncture I felt that he had made my point for
> me.
>
> Chris

When we bought our house, our surveyor let us down very, very badly. I
didn't sue him, although I came close. In retrospect, I should have, as
he was grossly negligent.

On 28/11/2022 16:26, John Rumm wrote:
> On 28/11/2022 12:42, Fred wrote:
>> We're buying a bungalow and had our offer of £300k accepted.
>>
>> The bungalow and the surrounding properties were built in 1987, which
>> makes it 35 years old and the people who own it have never skimped on
>> anything, whether that be maintenance or appliances or any work on it.
>> They've always paid for good stuff.
>>
>> Which level of survey would you go for?
>
> I would be inclined to find a surveyor and have a conversation with them
> about what you want to know. Chances are a basic valuation survey with a
> little bit of guidance from you as to what interests you in particular
> and what you don't care so much about should get a decent amount of
> information without paying for a "home buyers report". The home buyers
> reports tend to be very template driven, and so don't tend to cover any
> properties that are not "bog standard" that well.

The basic valuation survey always seemed to me like count the number of
rooms and multiply by the number of bathrooms or something equally daft!

Main things you want to know about in an old house is any signs of
subsidence or structural problems with walls, rot, woodworm or rising
damp. Stuff that can be very expensive or messy to put right, requires
moving out for a while and/or requires specialist skills.

A particularly nasty one near me is a whole estate of houses that at the
time we were buying all required to be underpinned because their
foundations had been made with some weird cut price 70's concrete mix
that gave up the ghost after about 25 years. Nice houses apart from the
major structural problems with the foundations. We didn't buy one...

Also if we had bought our first house with all the carpets included we
would never have known about all the faults with floorboards upstairs.

> When I bought the current place I told them just to look for major
> defects, and that I did no need to hear about plumbing or electrics
> since I could evaluate those myself.

The Energy Performance Certificate is even worse tick box.

My parents house got marked down for "not being fully double glazed".
The north facing larder window in the kitchen was a single pane of
original frosted glass. Everything else was double glazed...

I don't think the clueless muppet had seen a larder before!

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On 28/11/2022 16:08, Harry Bloomfield Esq wrote:
> On 28/11/2022 15:49, nothanks@aolbin.com wrote:
>> In your circumstances my advice, FWLIW, is to forget paying for a
>> survey and to take a knowledgeable pal or two around the place with
>> the brief of pointing-out everything that is bad in their eyes.
>
> +1

And beware of any strong smells like perfume sprayed
around to mask something like a seriously defective
class 2 flue (which caught me out with a 1976-built semi),
plus the usual chestnuts like the smell of freshly brewed
coffee or baked bread. If it had a baxi gas back boiler from
new (likely) then I expect that will have been replaced but
what age is the current boiler ?.

Essential to get up in the loft and see how the roof is
constructed, and what sort of insulation there is. Are the
gable ends plumb ?. Do any purlins in a cut-roof have
diagonal bracing down to an internal wall ?. If so this
wall cannot be removed without replacing with a steel beam.

A 1987 property will only have had 4 inches of fibrglass
in between the trusses/ceiling joists (if that) from new
and no cavity wall insulation.

A full survey might pressure test the drains but if you
can lift any inspection chamber covers you will see if
everything is running clear. Watch out trees within 10
metres of the drains, or further if it is certain species.

What it won't detect is what I discovered with my current
property while trying to get a cable through the cavity
wall 1 brick course above the dpc. The brickies had
thrown all the snots down inside the cavity and even
inside the class 2 flue blocks. The cavity was full of
mortar dropping and scrapings for the first three courses
above the dpc. (Still didn't cause any obvious damp though)

Check the boundary fences. Being a modern property the
fence/wall that is to your right as you look out of the
back door is generally yours. The one at the bottom of the
garden needs confirmation by looking at the T-marks on the
land registry.

Boundary fences/walls/structures do NOT cross the boundary.
Your right hand, rear fence (as viewed from your back door)
should be entirely on your land. If this is a semi or
terraced building then it is easy to confirm this by looking
at the distance between windows of adjacent properties. With
detached properties it is not so easy to prove/disprove that
any fencing work done since 1987 was done by someone who
knows that boundary fences do not cross boundaries.

Forget electrics unless it still has Wylex re-wireable fuses.
You should allow for a CU change if this is the case but the
existing wiring will be modern PVC and the power sockets in
a 1987 property should be fed from 2.5mmx2 plus a 1.5mm earth
so don't be bullied into the 'full rewire needed' scam.
Before 1984 the earth wire would only be 1mm which have a
habit of breaking if cack-handed prvious owners have been
fitting blingy, modern sockets.

On 28/11/2022 17:23, GB wrote:
> On 28/11/2022 15:05, Chris J Dixon wrote:
>> Fred wrote:
>>
>>> We're buying a bungalow and had our offer of £300k accepted.
>>>
>>> The bungalow and the surrounding properties were built in 1987, which
>>> makes it 35 years old and the people who own it have never skimped on
>>> anything, whether that be maintenance or appliances or any work on it.
>>> They've always paid for good stuff.
>>>
>>> Which level of survey would you go for?
>>
>> My solicitor was suggesting, a very long time ago, that I should
>> have a full survey done for a place I was buying. I responded
>> that the report would be so full of caveats that there would be
>> great difficulty in taking action in the event of trouble, and
>> selecting a surveyor based on the adequacy of their insurance
>> seemed to be rather missing the point. "Not necessarily" he
>> replied "We have a number of such cases on our hands at the
>> moment." At which juncture I felt that he had made my point for
>> me.
>>
>> Chris
>
>
> When we bought our house, our surveyor let us down very, very badly. I
> didn't sue him, although I came close. In retrospect, I should have, as
> he was grossly negligent.

There is no-one more deceitful than a seller who knows that there
are problems with the property and will go out of his way to
hide these facts from the buyer.

John Rumm <see.my.signature@nowhere.null> wrote:
> I would be inclined to find a surveyor and have a conversation with them
> about what you want to know. Chances are a basic valuation survey with a
> little bit of guidance from you as to what interests you in particular
> and what you don't care so much about should get a decent amount of
> information without paying for a "home buyers report". The home buyers
> reports tend to be very template driven, and so don't tend to cover any
> properties that are not "bog standard" that well.

The 'homebuyers report' is very red/yellow/green colour coded, for people
who don't know very much. OTOH it's the cheapest kind of survey beyond the
strictly mortgage valuation (which might not involve a site visit and might
not use a qualified surveyor), so I wouldn't expect to be able to get a
surveyor out of bed for much less.

> When I bought the current place I told them just to look for major
> defects, and that I did no need to hear about plumbing or electrics
> since I could evaluate those myself.

I agree about not bothering with things they're just going to say 'I'm not
qualified, needs a specialist' but TBH I doubt they spend much time on those
things anyway. However I think there's value having someone cover the
things you didn't think to ask about, and the 'tell me if the roof is ok'
approach might miss a problem you never thought to ask about the drains.

Theo

On Monday, 28 November 2022 at 12:42:56 UTC, Fred wrote:
> We're buying a bungalow and had our offer of £300k accepted.
>
> The bungalow and the surrounding properties were built in 1987, which
> makes it 35 years old and the people who own it have never skimped on
> anything, whether that be maintenance or appliances or any work on it.
> They've always paid for good stuff.
>
> Which level of survey would you go for?

It totally depends on your knowledge, and whether you may be able to use bad results to negotiate down. Pro surveys are mostly useless discaimers, negative value recommendations, vague or wrong evaluations, and can scupper mortgages or incur costs. Now & then they pick up something the diyer buyer missed - it's a gamble whether you can use it to negotiate down or you get coerced into another scam by it.

You can probably guess I'm no fan of pro surveys. OTOH some people have no understanding of what they're buying. 87 pretty much gets you out of the trickier areas of historic properties & faulty construction systems.

I had a look at a house a friend was wanting to buy, and it was a definite run run away one. She didn't know. Historic buildings are riddled with gotchas.

I'm suspecting that searches and surveys are not what they used to be.
Having lived around here well before some of the houses behind me and down
the hill existed. I know that many of them were built on top of a filled in
clay quarry. What they did is pushed a load of clinkers from a huge pile
imported from who knows where, into the hole, we used to call it the bricky
and fish for sticklebacks in it as it was full of water. They then got a
load of soil from somewhere, Shoved that on top, and then concreted a big
flat sheet over that, but left space for gardens etc.
Spool forward to more recent times and a couple of the houses lost porches
into a bloody great hole and part of the road fell in. Along comes the
council and back fills it all and all seems well for a few years, but now
once again, there is a decided dent in the rod again. When I told one of the
residents, just in passing that you have to expect this kind of thing when
you are built on a clay quarry site, it seems they had no idea this was the
case.
The house has changed hands several times since then, and not wishing to
get embroiled, I never say anything, but it does make you wonder if those
residents and indeed many around here, realise that there were many clay
quarries filled in and built on since the 1950s to now. There were also a
load of buildings mostly made of asbestos which were bulldozed into the hole
as well, and yet now one sees planning applications containing clauses for
contaminated land mitigation measures. Obviously things have tightened up
somewhat now, but existing builds are on unknown ground.
This same estate was built at the bottom of the hill on designated
riverbed, the river having been culbated, and the inspectors made them dig
up all the footings which were too shallow and put in deeper ones, So when
they landscaped the remaining land they crunched up the old concrete and
buried it just below the surface. Its now beginning to show through of
course. One block was built too close to the pylons and in the end it was
allowed to remain, but if you stand at the end of that block with a bit of
metal, you can feel the buzz as you move your finger over it.

Brian

--

--:
This newsgroup posting comes to you directly from...
The Sofa of Brian Gaff...
briang1@blueyonder.co.uk
Blind user, so no pictures please
Note this Signature is meaningless.!
"Animal" <tabbypurr@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:562770b9-4746-456b-9776-0a01b42d6629n@googlegroups.com...
On Monday, 28 November 2022 at 12:42:56 UTC, Fred wrote:
> We're buying a bungalow and had our offer of �300k accepted.
>
> The bungalow and the surrounding properties were built in 1987, which
> makes it 35 years old and the people who own it have never skimped on
> anything, whether that be maintenance or appliances or any work on it.
> They've always paid for good stuff.
>
> Which level of survey would you go for?

It totally depends on your knowledge, and whether you may be able to use bad
results to negotiate down. Pro surveys are mostly useless discaimers,
negative value recommendations, vague or wrong evaluations, and can scupper
mortgages or incur costs. Now & then they pick up something the diyer buyer
missed - it's a gamble whether you can use it to negotiate down or you get
coerced into another scam by it.

You can probably guess I'm no fan of pro surveys. OTOH some people have no
understanding of what they're buying. 87 pretty much gets you out of the
trickier areas of historic properties & faulty construction systems.

I had a look at a house a friend was wanting to buy, and it was a definite
run run away one. She didn't know. Historic buildings are riddled with
gotchas.

On 28/11/2022 17:23, GB wrote:

<snip>
>
> When we bought our house, our surveyor let us down very, very badly. I
> didn't sue him, although I came close. In retrospect, I should have, as
> he was grossly negligent.

When we sold our house, the purchaser's surveyor let us down. He left
an outside tap running which we didn't notice for several weeks. £200
down the drain, literally.

To be fair to Thames Water (not something you'll read very often), they
have a once-only leak compensation scheme and we were able to claim it
back.

--
Cheers
Clive

On 28/11/2022 16:02, Theo wrote:
> nothanks@aolbin.com wrote:
>> I bought my last (80 year old) house for rather more than that without a
>> proper survey because time was very short and because I had so little
>> faith in surveyors and their reports. I poked-around in its nooks and
>> crannies over a number of visits and thought I had spotted everything
>> that was important, but we had already decided that we wanted the house
>> so, with hindsight, I did not assess things objectively and did not spot
>> the "bleedin' obvious" - this probably cost us over £80k.
>
> What was the 'obvious'?
There were several things, but the tarmac drive being close to
end-of-life was quite a biggie that's currently nagging at me - I'm
anticipating that it will cost 30-40k next year.
>
>> In your circumstances my advice, FWLIW, is to forget paying for a survey
>> and to take a knowledgeable pal or two around the place with the brief
>> of pointing-out everything that is bad in their eyes.
>
> I'd go for the full survey because the delta is only about £300 over the
> middle one which is nothing in the grand scheme of moving costs. If you'd
> spent £300 and saved £80k I think you'd be happy?
> (or spent £300 and decided it was worth an extra £80k to you)
>
> I'd then aim to be on site with the surveyor (not necessarily following them
> around, but there to ask them questions): basically the surveyor is the
> 'knowledgeable pal' that you go and visit with, because not everyone has one
> of those - and your mate has exactly zero responsibility for your
> third-of-a-million quid purchase. Which is not to say you can't also drag
> your mate round if you insist.
>
> If the surveyor spots something, you can ask them to point it out there and
> then, not when you read the report weeks later.
>
> I don't expect the surveyor's report to say very much, but IMX things they
> tell you verbally give you much more information than guarded words in
> reports.
As I said earlier, if I was doing this again I'd get a knowledgeable pal
or two to do an un-blinkered critique but I think the suggestion of
getting a surveyor to do a non-attributable walk and talk would be
useful. The written reports have too many caveats to be much use, but a
surveyor should be unbiased and knowledgeable so could be the needed
"critical friend".
>
> Theo

On 29/11/2022 15:26, nothanks@aolbin.com wrote:
> As I said earlier, if I was doing this again I'd get a knowledgeable pal
> or two to do an un-blinkered critique but I think the suggestion of
> getting a surveyor to do a non-attributable walk and talk would be
> useful. The written reports have too many caveats to be much use, but a
> surveyor should be unbiased and knowledgeable so could be the needed
> "critical friend".

Indeed. I took a friend, who then worked in a museum doing restoration
work, to view a listed cottage.

He walked round and said "£10,000 a room, and it will need a rethatch
in ten years"

I offered the owner market price, less that, and they said that wouldn't
even repay the mortgage.

I walked away.

--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.
-- Yogi Berra

nothanks@aolbin.com wrote:
> There were several things, but the tarmac drive being close to
> end-of-life was quite a biggie that's currently nagging at me - I'm
> anticipating that it will cost 30-40k next year.

That's the kind of thing that might be staring you in the face, but if
you're not familiar with the cost of drives you might have thought 'ah but
it's only a few K' and got the estimate badly wrong.

> As I said earlier, if I was doing this again I'd get a knowledgeable pal
> or two to do an un-blinkered critique but I think the suggestion of
> getting a surveyor to do a non-attributable walk and talk would be
> useful. The written reports have too many caveats to be much use, but a
> surveyor should be unbiased and knowledgeable so could be the needed
> "critical friend".

I'd want both. The surveyor to tell you stuff on site, and then to write
you a report afterwards. You can then wave the report in front of the buyer
and use it for negotiations. If it sounds like something you made up they
might decide you're not serious or trying it on and tell you where to go,
while if you have evidence they might take it more seriously.

Similarly you can take your knowledgeable pal round, but how do you know
their knowledge isn't 20 years out of date, or entirely lacking in some
areas. Does the average pal know about timber frames if they've always
lived in brick houses? A professional at least has to keep up to date with
all these things, and know what things cost.

Theo

On 28/11/2022 16:07, charles wrote:
> In article <juk3jvFepfuU1@mid.individual.net>,
> <nothanks@aolbin.com> wrote:
>> On 28/11/2022 12:42, Fred wrote:
>>> We're buying a bungalow and had our offer of £300k accepted.
>>>
>>> The bungalow and the surrounding properties were built in 1987, which
>>> makes it 35 years old and the people who own it have never skimped on
>>> anything, whether that be maintenance or appliances or any work on it.
>>> They've always paid for good stuff.
>>>
>>> Which level of survey would you go for?
>> I bought my last (80 year old) house for rather more than that without a
>> proper survey because time was very short and because I had so little
>> faith in surveyors and their reports. I poked-around in its nooks and
>> crannies over a number of visits and thought I had spotted everything
>> that was important, but we had already decided that we wanted the house
>> so, with hindsight, I did not assess things objectively and did not spot
>> the "bleedin' obvious" - this probably cost us over £80k.
>> In your circumstances my advice, FWLIW, is to forget paying for a survey
>> and to take a knowledgeable pal or two around the place with the brief
>> of pointing-out everything that is bad in their eyes.
>
> If you are taking out a mortgage, the Building Society will require a survey

For valuation mostly... i.e. if it goes pear shaped, will they get their
money back!

--
Cheers,

John.

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On 03/12/2022 03:48, John Rumm wrote:
> On 28/11/2022 16:07, charles wrote:
>> In article <juk3jvFepfuU1@mid.individual.net>,
>>     <nothanks@aolbin.com> wrote:
>>> On 28/11/2022 12:42, Fred wrote:
>>>> We're buying a bungalow and had our offer of £300k accepted.
>>>>
>>>> The bungalow and the surrounding properties were built in 1987, which
>>>> makes it 35 years old and the people who own it have never skimped on
>>>> anything, whether that be maintenance or appliances or any work on it.
>>>> They've always paid for good stuff.
>>>>
>>>> Which level of survey would you go for?
>>> I bought my last (80 year old) house for rather more than that without a
>>> proper survey because time was very short and because I had so little
>>> faith in surveyors and their reports. I poked-around in its nooks and
>>> crannies over a number of visits and thought I had spotted everything
>>> that was important, but we had already decided that we wanted the house
>>> so, with hindsight, I did not assess things objectively and did not spot
>>> the "bleedin' obvious" - this probably cost us over £80k.
>>> In your circumstances my advice, FWLIW, is to forget paying for a survey
>>> and to take a knowledgeable pal or two around the place with the brief
>>> of pointing-out everything that is bad in their eyes.
>>
>> If you are taking out a mortgage, the Building Society will require a
>> survey
>
> For valuation mostly... i.e. if it goes pear shaped, will they get their
> money back!
>

And with projected 'falls' in house prices, most lenders
have removed all their 5% deposit deals from sale.