House buying surveys - are they worth it?

thermionic

Regular readers may be aware of my run-ins with rogue estate agents and buyers who change their minds without telling anyone... but I've had an offer accepted again, my buyer hasn't done a runner, and things are looking up finally. The mortgage lender did a valuation survey which was fine. The company doing the survey for the bank offered to do a choice of "better" surveys for about £450 and £700. Do people get surveys done these days? From what I can see, they don't seem to be as necessary as they were 20 years ago for some reason - seems like many people don't bother now.

Of course the industry websites have a vested interest in selling you one, and I've heard that they cover their backs so much (fear of being sued if they're wrong) that the report is so non-committal it's barely worth reading. Bear in mind that I wasted £400 for my solicitor to do a search on the property I was planning to buy but the estate agent sold without telling me. This came back with a detailed write-up of flood risk, drainage etc and I'm likely to be doing this again with this property. Also, I'm quite hopeless with DIY and have only put offers in on houses that look like they need a coat of paint sometime in the next 5 years - anything that looked like it needed any kind of work I've walked away from.

So, would you pay £450 for a survey?

ToneControl

just get the one the lender mandates

then also get your own independent chartered structural engineer to write a report just for you. They are chartered, and have liability insurance

LuttiS

Yes. Get a proper survey. We thought we were ok with the valuation survey, but after a bit of thinking decided to go for proper one to be safe.. it showed up quite a lot more than expected and we negotiated quite a lot off of the asking price.. 

spark240

It’s possibly the most money you will ever spend buying a house....and for a relatively small cost I would have the survey.

p90fool

LuttiS said:

Yes. Get a proper survey. We thought we were ok with the valuation survey, but after a bit of thinking decided to go for proper one to be safe.. it showed up quite a lot more than expected and we negotiated quite a lot off of the asking price.. 

Or alternatively, get a detailed survey which finds borderline faults which your mortgage lender forces you to either borrow extra to fix or pull out of the deal. 

Houses almost never spontaneously collapse in this country, but being told we'd have to fix the "subsidence" on a 100 year old house because of hairline cracks in the ceiling plaster is annoying, to say the least. 

I don't think our last surveyor even got our of his car when we bought our current house, and twenty years on it's still standing and doesn't leak. 

strtdv

Yeah they regularly call "settling" which is perfectly normal "subsidence". 

Stuckfast

If I remember right you have three choices of survey. There's a minimal one that just establishes you're not paying over the odds, a middle one ("Homebuyer's Report"?) that's supposed to involve more detailed inspection and at the top end of the scale there's a full structural survey.

We had a Homebuyer's Report done and it was a very effective way of chucking a lot of money down the drain. The surveyor simply failed to spot major things wrong with the house (like the roof needing replacement) and there is absolutely no comeback. I'd never do that again -- either don't bother, or go for the full structural survey.

JezWynd

Stuckfast said:

We had a Homebuyer's Report done and it was a very effective way of chucking a lot of money down the drain. The surveyor simply failed to spot major things wrong with the house (like the roof needing replacement) and there is absolutely no comeback. I'd never do that again -- either don't bother, or go for the full structural survey.

I did the same and am also having to replace roof despite being told it was okay. Roof doesn't leak but sheds bits of slate as result of poor refurb by previous owner. Not sure that I'd advise not to have a survey at all but I'd definitely go with a full structural survey if I buy another property.

strtdv said:

Yeah they regularly call "settling" which is perfectly normal "subsidence". 

The problem with a full structural survey is that it will probably reveal a lot of issues that in surveyor-speak can sound quite terrifying to the average house buyer. 

fretmeister

Yes get a proper survey. Always. 
The lender's one is not for your benefit it's just for them.

You want one with obligations to you.

and as an aside - searches are never a waste of time!
Do you really want to find out 5 years after you've moved in that there is a well established right of way through the middle of your garden? Or that you have Chancel Repair Liability for the local church, and you now owe them thousands of pounds just for owning a house in a particular area?

If you don't do searches then you cannot sue your solicitor when you discover this stuff later.

Going to a local solicitor who is aware of local bylaws / rights of way / other rights us always a better choice than using an online conveyancer who might be based 200 miles away with no local knowledge.

shaunyshaun1234

We had one for our first house and it was pretty much a waste of money.

It was basically the surveyor covering his arse so there was no comebacks on him.

I'm dumbing it down a bit but it had things like.... There may be subsidence but there may not.... The roof may need replacing at some point but it may not. 

strtdv

Depends on the house you buy.

Ours was 15 years old (old enough to not be a rubbish new build but not so old it'll need a new roof etc), the guy we bought it off was a building contractor who had lived in it and had quite a bit of good quality work done to it, and my father in law who also worked as a builder had a good look round it, so we just used the one the building society did for the mortgage.

On the other hand my brother was looking to buy an old cottage, but obviously being a much older house he got the full survey, which basically revealed it needed a new roof (laths and all), and there were some asbestos issues too and damp at one end of the house.

The house we rented when we first moved here has since been knocked down and replaced (it was an old stone built cottage which had later had an upstairs put in) and when they knocked out down they discovered one end of the house had no foundations at all, it had been fine because the walls were so thick (1.5m in places)


Always get the searches done. Ours revealed that the garage had been built without the leasehold owner's agreement, so the sellers paid for a policy to cover us being legally pursued in the event of anyone objecting to it (once the garage was up 10 years it was fine anyway)

Snap

We bought a property that had been hugely renovated about 10 years ago. We had a full survey(about a grand) which turned up some damp. Then got a damp and timber survey (cost about 180 quid). Net result was that we negotiated the selling price down in lieu of the repair bill (which was about 3k).

Depends on the property, but in my view I want to know as much as possible before I nake something my home.

As for searches, mandatory IMO. And they cost next to nothing really

Whitecat

When we bought 10 years ago we did the "better" survey and it turned up a problem that got us £5k off the house price, and said problem ended up costing about £1800 to resolve, so yeah, well worth the "gamble" IMO.

thermionic

My point about the search was that I paid my solicitors £400 to do one for the property I was buying, only for the estate agents to then sell the house to somebody else without telling me. That was definitely a waste of money for me! I intend to check up with the solicitors that they're doing the searches for this one.

Still getting the same conflicting opinions I'd heard before, but I think will get some sort of survey done now.

kaypeejay

We moved last year to and had the Homebuyers survey. It detailed things the surveyor thought needed fixing along with a priority and an approximate cost for fixing it.

On the whole though, it is just an indication of where you need to look in more detail, so the earlier you do it in the buying process the better. I understand that you may be a bit reticent to do this given your past issue, but you should definitely consider it.