so buying my first house.its a three bed victorian terrace house.
i need to decide on what to go for, either standard basic valuation for the mortgage company, the homebuyers report, or a full in depth survey for £££’s.
I have looked around the house and whilst it is old and tatty and has been rented for some time it seem sound.i dont really think i need the full monty survey as it isnt thatched, listed or anything like that but im thinking is the homebuyers survey actully going to tell me much over the obvious? would the money be better for repairs etc or am i contemplating a massive gamble? are they much help?

it seem sound

to be honest, i’d just go with your gut feeling. Should be fine 🙂

If they’ll lend you the money, it’ll probably be fine.

yeah, looking at the details on line, they dont lift carpets, wont look under floors if furniture is in the way etc etc.
it stricks me its just a overview from looking..ive done that already and i cant see anything bad or obvious, no damp, no major cracks etc etc

I’d be tempted to get a proper survey.

If not, then at least have a thorough look with a more critical eye at things like the fusebox and the provision of electrical sockets.

When I looked round the house there were electric items everywhere. Didn’t occur to me that there would only be a single (double) socket in each room), with dodgy extension leads galore.

Also, the gas boiler was not working on the day I moved in. Same thing happened to some friends. I don’t think any survey bothers to check whether they actually work though.

My ‘proper’ survey had 60 pages of major issues none of which turned out to exist – they just flagged every possible thing that might be wrong and then added the phrase ‘further investigation advised’.

Eg rising damp which never existed – it was a leaking shower tray.

Save your money, surveyors are like damp companies, they just fleece you for whatever they can.

Full structural survey or nothing. Don’t be conned into the half-way-house homebuyers report – not worth the paper it’s printed on.

The standard survey will highlight any areas of concern, like damp or trees or something, this is likely to put you off buying it. The mortgage compnay doesn’t need any more than the standard so I’d do that if I were you.

just recieved our homebuyers report.

as FTB i thought it was useful. highlights areas that are sub optimal and will need work in the medium term.

Unless you know exactly what your looking for all over a house (STW is obviously full of experts 😉 ) the it’s reassuring.

Home buyers will also have something like “oh.. and anything we didn’t notice isn’t our fault” written on it. So it’s effing pointless IMHO.

Unless you know exactly what your looking for all over a house (STW is obviously full of experts ) the it’s reassuring.

really? every homebuyers survey i’ve seen has basically said:

this house may or may not fall down at some point in the future and if it does its not our fault

thats hardly reassuring

Valuation. If there is anything you are suspicious about such as cracks/roof/electrics, rather than wait for the survey to recommend a specialist (or miss it completely) just find a specialist in that field.

A valuation should pick up on any movement etc that would make the property unmortgageable.

Steer clear of firms that will do a free survey as they will undoubtably find a problem. Better to pay a couple of hundred to a truly independent surveyor in that field (i.e. structural surveyor, damp etc), and the seller should also be much more trusting of the results should you need to negotiate.

We had a homebuyer survey first time, never again! It told us the bleeding obvious (dated kitchen, polystyrene ceiling tiles, old (but trusty) boiler and then went on to miss other rather major issues, such as the total lack of lead flashing along one wall which meant the roof leaked when it rained. Clearly visible from the ground in the garden, and you could practically touch it from the upstairs window had it been there.

You need whatever it is that the mortgage company want, anything else isn’t worthwhile. And budget for the need to ‘correct’ stuff in the first few months you move in…