Buying a house, modernish, mid 1990s. Obviously there will be a valuation survey for the mortgage company. Wondering if we should get a full building survey as well. No interest in the home buyers as that seems to be 30 statements of “seek specialist advice” with zero comeback.

To the untrained eye, the house appears to be in good condition and very well cared for.

Your thoughts please.

you are much better off getting individual surveys done.

I would look at;
Electrics
Gas / Boiler
Damp
Bugs / rot
Drainage (always missed but bloody expensive if anything is wrong)

generally works out cheaper than a Building Survey and you get better feed back.

If you’re happy taking the risk that a twenty year old building doesn’t need any major work and you don’t think there’s anything that could be used by yourself to reduce the price e.g. new windows etc then go for it.

If you’re confident that no repairs are needed then maybe use the money you’d be saving not having to pay for repairs etc on a compartively inexpensive thing like a survey.

We had a full building survey for a Victorian house we were looking at. Newer house feels like less of a risk but I don’t know how much less.

I would get surveys done.

Newer houses are shit build quality compared to old.

We bought a house built in 1980 with just a valuation survey. It was obvious that the electrics and heating needed doing, that the roof was fine, there was no damp and that it wasn’t falling down.

We had one done, mainly because the company doing the valuation offered to do the building survey cheaper than most others quoted for a home buyers report (as they were already there).

Pluses and minuses, they highlighted a few things we’d missed like the conservatory walls aren’t tied into the main walls, but it’s not moved in 20 years so mehhhh and the garage roof felt might need looking at in the not so distant future. On the downsides, this then meant the mortgage people wanted indemnities against stuff that would probably never have been picked up in the valuation and the vendor wasn’t in a mood to negotiate on price, still no idea if we paid too much or got a bargain, we liked it, they dug their heels in and we paid the asking price pretty much.

There were already fairly recent electrical and gas certificates as it had been rented. If not I’d have considered those, especially as we bought it mid summer so still have no idea if the heating works.

I didn’t get one , love my house but spent a significant amount on insulation new roof new windows and new render . I sort of anticipated the roof but a survey may well have got me a fair wedge off or at least given me fair warning.
Friends needed a complete wiring plumbing and roof structure replacement on a newish build.

If I ever buy again I will get the full survey I only hope whoever buys my house does not.

Any cracks you could get fingers into … ?

No … buy it if you like it.

Yes …. get a survey …. it will show up loads of stuff (most completely unimportant) and it’ll put you right off.

what Leku said, or if you do go for a survey at least give the surveyor written instructions on any specifics you want checking … £600 two years ago for some pretty pictures in my mind, wouldn’t bother again

Partly tongue in cheek but something that’s stuck with me… “if you don’t want to buy a house buy a survey”.