Yeah peace of mind is priceless. Plus as I’m buying via a mortgage, there’s no question about getting surveys done… iirc the provider would be content with a ‘basic’ survey but I felt like it was worth the extra ~£80 to go for a more in-depth one!
Am trying to look at it not as £500 wasted, but a £500 expense that’s saved me from potentially making a very bad purchase.
That’s funny - not your roof troubles but that they came crawling back in the end, because they must’ve found that every other buyer was similarly unhappy about the roof. My dad had the same thing trying to buy a house last year, they wouldn’t accept his bid then came back months down the line to accept it… at which point my dad reduced his offer again by 5k haha.
I am definitely going to make the point to the estate agent (who was boasting she could’ve sold the house 10x over), that all other buyers are going to have a survey carried out and discover the same serious issues. So if the seller and her are serious about selling the house, then they need to sell it for a serious price that reflects those serious issues!
Am definitely not in love with the house! I think I’m pretty desperate to be a homeowner after renting all my life and dealing with scummy landlords, plus while I’m living with my dad I can’t really work. There’s just about room for a table with my PC and one synth, but certainly no space for my giant monitor speakers, let alone any bass traps or room treatment (as this is essentially a rental for my dad, albeit housing association so he’s very secure).
So I prob need to factor in my emotional state, try my best to be as cold & calculating about this as possible. Thanks for your advice.
I do have somewhere within walking distance where I can stay while works are being completed. Windows I’m not so much worried about, as estate agent said she had similar issues and just did the windows one at a time as budget allowed. The damp / potential subsidence though is my biggest concern. It’s likely the provider would pull the mortgage offer based on that, and there’s no way I’d get building insurance with issues like this.
What level of survey did you have done? Have you had a structural engineer look it over?
We went for a full survey, the guy is RICS-registered but fairly young so assume he’s pricing cheap to get plenty of jobs and reviews under his belt. He did recommend a specific separate cavity inspection but at this point it feels like I’m probably going to be chucking more money down the drain considering all the other issues.
You’re clearly up north! If they aren’t prepared to negotiate then everyone should walk, if they weren’t prepared to come down closer to £50-60k then I’d definitely consider walking
Correct haha. Someone else said that a reduction of 15k is almost unheard of. Tbh I already was having a bad feeling, and reading all these responses has really crystalised that I simply cannot buy this house without a massive reduction… and even then it’s going to be a shitload of hassle, potentially more expenses that haven’t yet been uncovered. Will see what they say once we have the full report in writing. I don’t mind roughing it a bit, but managing a project like this I would think isn’t really in my wheelhouse and will be very stressful.
Can I ask what TV programme you’re trying to find? Between 1337, eztv and TPB it’s vanishingly rare I can’t find what I’m looking for. And for those rare occasions, I can find it to stream (or download using a firefox extension called VideoDownloadHelper)
Well this doesn’t sound appealing! And this just speaks to what I was trying to explain to the person at the start of this thread… Linux may be growing rapidly but there’s still giant holes in the driverset etc for many tasks.
I think prob the best solution will be to perform a hard reset / clean on the laptop, remove any bloatware, keep it offline once I’ve installed necessary updates / plugins, and only have live PA software installed.
I liked his writing but a third of the way through the 4th book I realized I didn’t give a shit about the characters anymore.
xD fair point. I guess we all have different tolerances for different stuff. I was dating women in their 40s when I was in my 20s so maybe the age gap stuff flew over my head when I read them. I just finished a really enjoyable book by Stephen Baxter called ‘World Engines’, the main character also appears in other books by him and I really, really struggled with it purely based on the character.
He’s called Malenfant, and would you believe it, he’s bad-tempered! ‘Malenfant grunted:’, ‘Malenfant snorted’, Malenfant scowled, oh very subtle Stephen. He is capable of imagining such diverse creatures, thought patterns and genuine ‘hard sci’ concepts, then went with ‘grumpy old man’ for the protag. There’s enough grumpy old men running the place already, I’d prefer my fiction to be a respite from that!
Looking forward to his next book about a protaganist paralysed by indecision called Soppy McSimpleton.
Dan Simmons is an incredible author, I really should check more of his books out. The only other ones I read (before Hyperion actually) were the Ilium / Olympos ones which were very enjoyable.
Yeah I took the explanation at face value, at first… but the more I think about it, in conjunction with not turning the water on it feels very much like they’re trying to pull a fast one.
The surveyor said he was actually surprised to find the roof in quite good condition… seems like at least one area where it’s either been properly maintained, or had very high-quality work performed.
I’ll definitely do some shopping around for structural engineers in the area for future surveys, might as well go in deep for the most expensive & important issues before moving forward with any future potential purchase. Great advice, thanks.
I guess I can do an update once I have the report in writing. Someone has made the point that the surveyor will ‘over-survey’ to cover their arse, but for sure I’m very much leaning into the possibility that this purchase isn’t viable. Thanks.