After 6 months and 12 offers we’ve finally had an offer accepted on a house we really like and are starting the buying process.

As a rookie in this, any wisdom/warnings the STW collective could impart?

In particular, whether homebuying/building surveys are worth their cost? Several friends argue they don’t offer anything as they aren’t that intrusive and the property has no immediate issues or quirks (A 1970’s suburban build). I know a couple of domestic civil engineers who have offered to give it their thoughts.

On the other hand some friends have been hit with bills that they believe would have been identified in a building survey.

Thoughts and any other tips would be much appreciated.

Bought lots of houses, all surveys were a complete waste of money. Sure a surveyor will be along to tell me I’m wrong.

Nothing is done until you get the keys and into the house. Set your expectations accordingly.

A basic survey is probably a decent idea. I think it can be easy to overlook stuff yourself but a friennd / family member with the right experience could also do this for you. Have experience of a decent local solictor refusing to do the conveyancing unless a survey was done. In the English system the survey is first time you actually have to part with cash – so I think half of it is protecting the client but also it weeds out time wasters.

I’m buying a house and didn’t get a survey because I’m paying from equity and had a good poke round it with my dad (in the building trade).

If you are getting a mortgage, your lender willrequire some kind of survey for valuation purposes – but are you suggesting you might stick with the basic option and investigate further yourself?

If so, I’d say that’s a solid plan.

whether to get a detailed structural survey (which is different to a valuation survey which your mortgage lender will probably insist you have ) and then all the various sub surveys – depends on your appetite for risk, and whether you could afford to fix any massive issues that occur – also just because the survey finds issues doesnt mean the seller will reduce the price of the house – but it does give you the opportunity to back out/go in with eyes open. you also need to consider the fact that you are buying an old’ish house, therefore it will have some issues – hopefully minor ones that you can live with or are cheap to fix, but issues nonetheless.

I have found that surveyors like to cover their arse, using words that dont really commit one way or another, but usually recommend a more detailed survey that costs you further money. If you find something after you bought the house that the surveyor didnt pick up on, you’ll have a hell of a time claiming on their insurance.

I think if you can take someone along who knows what they are looking for then that could be more helpful than an official structural survey.

Other advice? be patient, expect stress.

Once you have the house – the costs dont stop there – they are (unless brand new) a never ending money pit requiring constant up keep over the years.

Pester solicitors several times a week and have the other side do the same, relay information back and forth between yourselves or via EA.

Your buying a 1970’s house. It is a 50 year old thing that *will* not be right, and you cannot expect everything *right*.

Make sure it is not falling over/subsiding, but beyond that….

I would make my judgement of condition based more on the current owners than some formal survey or friendly engineers looking at it. Are they people who have painted over sh*te to make it look lovely, or are they someone who sorted new boiler and plumbing before improving? Asking them a few questions about what they have done, not done, who did it and show me it is enlightening. Just like buying a second hand car.

If no improvements or changes other than paint, assume it all needs doing in the fullness of time.

FWIW, our current 1970’s house is the straightest and most solidly built house we have owned – most of the rest are 1850’s-1920’s houses. But 1970’s is also the decade of microbore plumbing, ‘interesting’ electrics standards, odd cavity walls and the rise of cheap-as-we-can developments.

(Matt, ex landlord, owner of 9 houses over the years (3 ground-up renovations) and landlord agent for about another 20 over the years).

Edit: whatever you think the cost of renovations and improvements in time or money, double it and you are in about the right ballpark.

My basic (non-expert) checklist for house viewings, which may be useful…

– Age and condition of double glazing/doors (this can be a big spend)
– Condition of electrics (are there sufficient sockets in each room, indicating modern wiring? Does the consumer unit look recent?)
– Boiler, radiators and thermostat (age and condition)
– Is the roof straight and the loft dry?
– Any signs of mould or suspicious recently painted areas?

And obviously it’s helpful if the kitchen & bathroom(s) are acceptable, as they are the expensive rooms to update.

If it’s a fairly typical house, I’d not bother.

If it’s “special”, or has had substantial extensions/work, I’d punt for the structural survey. I’m not really sold on their value, but it’s not a *lot* more money over the cost of the house.

I had a specialist damp survey done for the current house (recommended by the basic mortgage provider survey), which ended up being worthwhile. I’ve not found other surveys to be useful. I actually complained about how terrible the homebuyer’s report was, and got my money back for it.

I know a couple of domestic civil engineers who have offered to give it their thoughts.

I’d say that this is far more use than paying for anything above the basic survey. Ditto if you know any sparkies/plumbers/builders.

Other than that, MOAB and chakaping’s advice is sound.

Make sure you check the land registry docs & that they tie up with what you think/been told you are buying.

don’t buy at the top of the market…

Dont buy leasehold

Don’t buy next to a primary school

Surveys can be a waste of time, the end result will probably be ‘it is worth the amount being paid’. However if it says that the mortgage is dependent on an electrical inspection and full re-wire, then that is your only solid bragianing chip, as anyhting else will just be a friendly negotiation. If your lender is refusing to lend the money based on the findings of a survey, then there’s no sale, until someone else comes along thats willing to take that risk.

They can be usefull, I had a level 3 survey that showed about 11k worth of repairs needed doing – the people selling wouldn’t accept my revised lower offer so I walked away from the sale. The house is still on the market some 6 months later – dodged a bullet there.

Homebuyers surveys are largley pointless – they are just to satisfy the mortgage lender that they won’t be out of pocket if you default and they have to re-posess.

Bought our first house two years ago.

– Try to feel as little emotion as possible. Do not get “attached” to the house until it’s yours (i.e. sale completed, sellers out, keys in your hand). The sellers are not your friends (but of course, treat them like the human beings they are, i.e. rule 1).
– A survey is only as good as the surveyor doing it. If you get a Homebuyer’s Report through your lender (which is sometimes a good option as they can be much cheaper), you don’t get to choose the surveyor, so it’s a bit of a lottery. With both houses we had them done on (one which fell through) they were pretty comprehensive considering what we paid for them.
– That said, if you do get a survey done, be prepared for an initial shock and then take the report with a pinch of salt. Unless the house is impeccable (1970s: it won’t be) it will be full of dire warnings and words in red. Some might be genuinely of concern, some might just be that it’s impossible to tell if it’s safe/in good order. Remember, surveyors have to cover themselves.
– In your situation, I probably wouldn’t bother with anything above what your lender demands for the valuation, especially if you or someone you know has looked over it with a knowledgeable eye.

Like Mattyfez, I had a full structural and deep survey done. It showed bomb damage from WW2. About £10k of structural fixing required (in 1999).

Everyone else ran away scared.

We got price reduced by £12k, did the work, got 100 year warranty on it. 🙂

In particular, whether homebuying/building surveys are worth their cost?

The advice I was given was to either stick with the basic survey required by the mortgage lender (which as far as I can tell was essentially driving past the house, counting the walls and if it adds up to four going “it’ll be right, that’ll be several hundred quid thanks”) or the top whack ripping-up-the-floorboards one. Anything intermediate is a waste of money, you’ll just get a list of advisories like “you might want to investigate this further.”

How accurate that is I do not know, I’m just repeating what I was told.

My personal opinion is that it’s worth getting a local / known solicitor or conveyancer. There’s not much difference in the price for online cheap ones but it’s good to know that at least the issues won’t be on your side.

There will be issues and stress, but it will be okay in the end. Some good advice above.

Bought our first places two years ago.

IMHO:

There is no ‘bad time’ to buy for FTB, yes the market is quite hot at the moment, and it will cool, but in 2 years when you’re re-mortgaging (the first time it’s value will really be of any real importance to you) you’ll be glad of those 2 years’ worth of repayments, even if the interest rate for FTBs mean you’re not making as big a hole in it as you might otherwise like. Even if it drops a few %, you’ll still be better off than renting for another couple of years.

You’ll be given advice on timescales, they’re usually pretty “best case” Solicitors move as a snail’s pace, Estate Agents are utterly useless, surprisingly Banks are usually very on the ball and Land Registry are good too. Just prepare for delays, don’t let it get to you.

It’s stressful AF and yeah, it’s probally wise to not count your chickens until you’ve got the keys in your hand, but don’t let anyone else’s tales of the hassles they had moving house get added to your woes to make it all seem worse than it is. It’s frustrating when there are delays, but 99% of moves are fine bar the odd set-back, very few people ‘lose’ a house they have an offer accepted on, but most people have got their war stories from moving they love to share.

Your actual moving day will be hard, exhausting and stressful and prepare yourself for problems. For example (sorry, war story coming up) we moved in on the 23rd of December, everyone said we were mad but we didn’t really have a choice. When we visited the place 2 weeks prior everything was working, but at 3pm on the 23rd of December, when we finally fought through the boxes to turn the heating on, we discovered that the sellers had the heating system drained down because the house was empty… I felt very lucky to know a man, who knew a man, who knew a kind hearted heating engineer who could sort it for us, I wouldn’t have a clue.

As for the Survey, your lender will take one, you might not get a copy of it, and if you do, it will be after you move. They only care about value, but if it’s a tight LTV (as with most FTBs) they might actually get out of the car to do it. Ours included a couple of lines that send “no subsidence, roof is sound, attic space dry, radon area” and that was it. Our Mortgage Broker shrugged it’s a 70s Suburban House, if it’s standing and dry, it will likely be 20 years from now.

the top whack ripping-up-the-floorboards one.

Problem is, such a one does not exist, they come in three flavours:

– valuation
– homebuyer
– full structural

None include any of the invasive stuff that you would really need to do to do a proper assessment. At best they’ll stick their head through the loft hatch. A “full structural” survey is anything but. If it’s visible to the naked eye, great, otherwise not so much.

, you’ll just get a list of advisories like “you might want to investigate this further.”

Is what you’ll get from both the homebuyer and the full structural, heavily caveated in all cases. You then need to work out which things you might want to investigate actually need investigating, and which are the surveyor covering their arse.

This is not a dig at surveyors, by the way, it’s just another example of how the house buying process in this country is just mental.

don’t buy at the top of the market…

Dont wait around trying to predict the future market if you can see the house you want at a price YOU can afford!

We spent a total of about 10 minutes in our current house before we made an offer. I think that’s about 5 times more than the surveyor the mortgage provider insisted we have did. I get the feeling he never even put his head in the front door. He certainly never entered any of the loft spaces or he would have commented on the lack of insulation.

Everything in the report then worded such that if the house collapsed to rubble the instant we had the keys, it wouldn’t be their fault.

If you’ve got some skills and some common sense – have a proper poke around yourself. If you haven’t – take some trusted tradesmen along.

Worst case – its been standing 50 years on its own, its probably not going to fall over immediately!

Solicitors are lazy ****s. Hassle them so much its easier for them to do the work and have you gone, than it is to still have you as a client.

I would get a gas and electrical survey done by a gase engineer and an electrician.

I didn’t on my first house. When I sold it I came home to discover the boiler has been condemned as it was pumping out carbon monoxide and probably had been since I’d moved in. Oops.

Another house the survey said the boiler needed attention. When we got in, the plumber was very firm on the needing a new boiler. The electrics in that house had been bodged by the previous owner. Highlights included a screw through a wire that he had got round by reversing the wiring. Still not quite sure why that stopped the problems but it was a right headach to find the offending screw that had been painted over

Its not infallible. We moved 3 months ago and the gas man missed some bits which have had to be fixed.

Stay on top of your solicitor for updates – every single day. When you feel you’re pestering, call twice more!!

Another house the survey said the boiler needed attention.

That’s way better than any survey I’ve ever seen. Normally it’s just “There appears to be a boiler shaped object. Didn’t inspect further.”

That’s way better than any survey I’ve ever seen. Normally it’s just “There appears to be a boiler shaped object. Didn’t inspect further.”

Not my experience, I got a survey via https://www.reallymoving.com/surveyors/guides/what-type-of-survey-do-i-need and went with a level 3 survey from a company called gold crest for just under £500.

They sent me a 63 page report with pictures, descriptions and estimated prices, very comprehensive, the surveyor was also happy to have a half hour phone call to go through some questions I had.

If you do go for a survey, make sure they are RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors) certified.

It amazes me people won’t spend £500 (a tenth the cost of the average bike on here 😉) which could save them tens of thousands when spending hundreds of thousands!

We asked on a local FB page when moving to a new area 18 months ago, got recommended a local RICS surveyor who knew the local properties (and common issues). Had a good chat and he told me things to look out for when viewing properties. When we made an offer, he did the survey with detailed photo report, but chatted through a few things the report wouldn’t cover. One was a damp patch on a ceiling – he’d stuck a moisture meter in it and said it was dry, so probably an old one-off leak and unlikely to be an issue even though the report had to say there was evidence of damp. So find a surveyor who’s up for a friendly chat on the side.

Also ask for heating and electricity to be demonstrated if possible, check all the rads are warming quickly, key electrics work etc. Look in corners behind curtains/ furniture if possible for mould, windows open, stuff like that.

Introduce yourself to neighbours too – can provide some useful insights as they’ve got nothing to loose. And you’ll get an idea of what you’re up against!

Be prepared for the estate agent to be invisible as soon as the deal is done.

And get recommendations for a surveyor / conveyancer as that’s where the real holdups can be found. Worth investing in someone trustworthy- we used the ones who had done our wills and had been very efficient, real bonus as they really pushed things on minimising delays in 2020 lockdowns (not a great time to move 😑)

And get your lender to explain everything twice if its your first time, one missed signature can set you back a month!

Good luck!

Solicitors are lazy ****s. Hassle them so much its easier for them to do the work and have you gone, than it is to still have you as a client.

This. The rule of thumb I deployed was that if I rang them going “hi, it’s Alan” and they replied “Alan who?” then I wasn’t mithering them enough.

Gird your loins and prepare yourself to be emptied of cash, forever (not really but it’ll feel like it)

Read all the paperwork and try to understand it.

I know it is what you pay the solicitors for, but they will spend more time getting worked up about irrelevant details like fensa certificates than the big picture: we went with a well regarded solicitor for  a new build who didn’t point out that the contract obliged us to pay the company in charge of maintaining the green spaces whatever they demanded (with no requirement for it to be reasonable or based on costs they incurred). Apparently they didn’t bother reading that but until asked to confirm my interpretation… You would hope this was a one off, but the entire estate sold with the same crazy term in the contract so it can’t be common for lawyer to point this kind of thing out!

Hopefully an older house won’t have such issues, but it would still be worth reading through to make sure there aren’t any legal gremlins lurking.

I recently got my first house – 1960’s build.

I did end up getting a RICS level 2 for peace of mind (visual inspection only)…probably would get it again since I found it useful, if only to remind me of various things that may need fixing in the future! 🙂

General tips are:

Make sure you get a decent solicitor (I just went by reviews on google). I would recommend getting one local to you so you can actually see them and post documents.

Keep an open mind and remain stress free…lots of things can go wrong that are out of your control.

Your new house probably won’t be perfect. I’m doing various work on my house now – a few cracks in the subfloor, and minor cracks in the walls after I removed the horrendous wallpaper…nothing too serious. You will learn a lot and DIY can be fun!

Doing your house up often needs to happen in a particular order…when I was viewing I thought I would just decorate one room at a time.

The reality so far has been a full electrics rewire, filling in the chases, stripping all the paper in all the rooms, deciding to plaster over the old-style artex ceilings, ditching the coving, replacing the skirting, and whilst I’m at it, replacing the rads…at the end of this I’ll get new carpets and laminate flooring and everything will come together at once…hopefuly.

So far the 100 year old boiler or whatever is in there is still going…although it’s rather clunky and bangs a lot, so will need replacing oneday.

Alternatively I could have moved in and done nothing and ridden my bike…

Choose a local solicitor, not one a million miles from the internet because it’s cheaper. Get advice from friends about which local solicitors are good. You’ll be required to submit ID docs and sign stuff so get one near your work or close to home.
Solicitors will be where the delay is, if you go in the office and it’s all mounds of paper on every surface walk away.
Your bank will ask for 3 months bank stats so get ready. If you’re overdrawn, get out of it and stay in credit.
Make allowances to treat yourself at the same time, get a good tele, get a good sofa. These things are essential.
The first thing you should set up should be your stereo, play your favourite song at loud volume and do your unpacking to this song. The first piece of furniture to set up should be your bed. Your first night’s meal should be a takeaway, it’s the law.
Good luck, enjoy.

I’m okay with internet conveyancers – you do have to chase them harder, but the time/cost works out in your favour, I think.

Completing our first purchase today, fingers crossed. Things I’ve learned:

Solicitors are frustratingly inefficient and were the worst communicators of all (very well rated non-local firm). Generic responses to emails, refusal to let me speak to the actual solicitor over the phone, generally very unhelpful with issues that I expected them to handle. I ended up bypassing them and speaking directly to the vendor via the estate agent to get stuff done.

RICS L2 survey paid for itself twice over by identifying an issue with the electrics which the seller then agreed to sort. Paid extra here to get a surveyor who was willing to take a phone call from me directly after the survey to go through some concerns I had, and feed back immediate thoughts from the survey. It was surprisingly hard to find one that was willing to do this – most refused to agree to talk to me. Was really happy with the surveyor. Usual pinch of salt applies to the report, as it’s their job to cover all bases.

Estate agent is not on your side, they are working for the vendor. Remember this, even if they’re super helpful. The estate agents we bought from were actually really very good, by far the best communicators out of everyone (ironic as we weren’t paying them). We don’t know how they portrayed us to the vendor though – judging by some of the responses we got to simple questions, I think they were likely quite two faced and played us off against each other to their benefit.

Mortgage broker was definitely worth the money, as we had a minor issue that resulted in our first offer falling through from the lender. We wouldn’t have known what to do at this stage, but the broker argued our case and got the offer reinstated which was brilliant.

Only thing I’d change next time would be to spend more on a decent local solicitor, and not be tempted to use a well rated one 300 miles away.

Make allowances to treat yourself at the same time, get a good tele, get a good sofa. These things are essential.
The first thing you should set up should be your stereo, play your favourite song at loud volume and do your unpacking to this song. The first piece of furniture to set up should be your bed. Your first night’s meal should be a takeaway, it’s the law.

Like.

The first thing you should set up should be your stereo, play your favourite song at loud volume and do your unpacking to this song. The first piece of furniture to set up should be your bed. Your first night’s meal should be a takeaway, it’s the law.

Stereo should be second, first thing is the kettle. And take a pack of toilet roll with you.

On surveys

Maybe I have been lucky but the basic homebuyers report was useful to me and the surveyor was perfectly happy to discuss the various flagged “possible problems” so I could judge whether they were important or not.  I do have some knowledge of building work tho.

A friend with good knowledge of buildings could be just as useful if not more and thats probably a good step to take

a 70s house will quite possibly need a fair amount of work if it has not been upgraded.  A lot of them were badly built.

My other advise is don’t let it stress you.  I have only bought 3 properties and all involved no chain so were simple but even so I just refused to get stressed over it.  a delay?  Oops what a shame.  I will just wait a bit longer.  Getting stressed over house purchases is all about your attitude.  don’t let it get to you