Owning your own home

Living in a super old house than needs lots of work, it's a hate love relationship. Some days I do regret it!

Interesting.

I feel the outcome will be determined by how keen the sellers are to move.

If they have a place lined up already, and have had some buyers pull out, they will negotiate and you will be able to chip them a fair amount.

If you are the first buyers and they feel they can afford the wait, they will push as hard as they like and try and test you.

I would, personally, get in touch with the seller. Try and strike up a dialog. Going through the EA won't really work here. Also, I'd start looking for another place, a plan B, as you might need it.

FWIW, any roof over 20 years old would be classed as end of life, so don't read too much in to that on it's own. We had a similar report for ours, OG unlined Edwardian tiled roof. It's still going after a £7k service. If the wooden roof structure is fucked somehow, that's another story. So I'd be keen to find out the real condition of the structure underneath. That's a Roofer's job, but as always, it will be hard to get them in to look without the possibility of a job lined up.

This. When I bought our house 9 years ago, it was mostly fucked, including needing an 'iMmEdIaTe !!' complete roof replacement according to the surveyor.

The whole roof at the rear of the ridge was unlined, with heavy non-original concrete tiles weighing the sagging Victorian timbers down, and many leaks. One leak was bad enough, and had been happening for long enough, to have completely rotted away the plaster in a bedroom. It was thick with black mould under the fresh magnolia paint. Surveyor claimed it was all in danger of collapse, and recommended to walk away from the purchase.

I bought the house for below asking price, replaced a few concrete slates, re-pointed a lead valley and called it a day for the next 8 years. Cost a grand, was fine. Saved the big money for an eventual loft conversion instead.

I'd be walking away from that one.

Thanks all. Lots of good points, lots to think about.
We are definitely looking again at whats on the market now but with the stamp duty changes looming at the end of March, that is having some influence on our decisions.

The house is priced at the top end of similar size properties in the area which we felt was fair given the character that is has that others don't plus a big garden. Definitely not priced with a new roof and structural work required imo. That would make it an extremely expensive 2 bed house from what we've seen. Likely over 500k when all is said and done with the cost of work plus current sale price. This is in Hampshire, an hour from London by rail. We've been looking for 6 months and more seriously for 2 or 3, viewed a lot in the area.

I have a feeling that we'll be walking away in the end but I'm going to try to get a few quotes if we can do it fairly quickly. I have contacted a couple of well reviewed local roofers.
What I really don't want to do is spend any more money on it given the chance of pulling out. Which leaves me not knowing how to address the rear wall situ. Do I just get a builder to quote to fix it including putting a lintel in and sorting the brickwork? A quote is hopefully free but hasn't been confirmed as 100% necessary by a structural engineer/surveyor. And given the rear window and door would probably be replaced at the same time, would that cost be fair to pass on as those are technically upgrades although maybe the originals have to come out to do the building work.

So fucking much to think about/deal with. How do other people do this with a full time job? Nightmare.

If there were other houses on the market that tick as many boxes without all this hassle, we'd be pulling out already but there seems to be SFA new coming on the market at the moment. In the area we're looking at at least

First time buying is the worst. There's no one on your side, the whole market is geared towards getting the highest price possible.

I don't know. We got a good price on our place because the sellers really wanted to exit as they'd already found a new place. I had all the cash and could quite happily sit around London in a rental for another x months waiting for another place to appear. If you're after specific place in a specific location I imagine this is substantially harder, but no fucks given if you're into a London flat.

At the end of the day it's still your money. Let them find another buyer.

First time buying is the worst. There's no one on your side

Yes, but once it's vaguely established you have control of the entire chain since it's your money that everyone needs to pass up. We had a five house chain completely bossed around by the idiot buying a two bedroom flat at the bottom of it, I think he was able to gouge quite a bit out of his seller for repairs as a result.

My two cents on the roof, a few slipped tiles are fine to swallow the price of, but a whole roof will be ten of thousands and massive hassle / risk of price escalation. The surveyor for the next buyer that looks up there is going to find the same issue and the estate agent knows exactly what's needed in the situation (negotiation on the price).

I'd hasten the prospect of him loosing his fee by looking elsewhere, or (slightly less ethically) revisit the question once a chain is established and others have paid money for their surveys etc.

Amend your offer to what you think I fair given you have to find money for work (also condition may affect your ability to get a mortgage if you get a bad day where they actually check something)

Be willing to walk away if they don't budge significantly.

It sounds like a metricfucktonne of work to me

£20k price chip or gtfo

Stamp duty changes are a deadline for them as well as for you.

small update after a few days of emailing + calling:

1. Getting a councillor involved did speed up response time from the Planning Department.
   
2. Planning Department will investigate but can't help with Building Regulations, which is the biggest concern (not the regulations, the sinkhole.) The extension needs planning permission too so hopefully they'll do something.
   
3. Southwark Building Control say the developer is using private building control so they can't do anything now. This is frustrating because that private building control is probably for their planning application for a change of use of the top 2 floors, they did not do a planning application for this extension, nor for the soakaway. After some words on the phone, I got the name of the building control company they're using.
   
   

I need legal advice. A court injunction can stop the works on the basis that they don't have a party wall agreement, if the works are notifiable (I believe they are.) If they're acting unlawfully, I believe they should pay my legal fees. Recommendations for a good lawyer?

Hi mate.

Did you call HSE? From the photo you have shown, the HSE will stop this site in a heartbeat.

If you don't want to call: https://www.hse.gov.uk/contact/tell-us-about-a-health-and-safety-issue.htm

Be aware that quotes from tradesmen can take fucking ages (if they even get round to it at all). I've had people who have come round to quote and then just never reply to you.

Just so many red flags with this. Looking for 6 months, seriously for 2 is not that long for house hunting tbh. I know you feel under pressure to get in before the tax changes but it’s definitely not worth rushing the biggest financial decision of your life.

We also can't negotiate. We don't have any more money.

From what you've said, there's no way you're getting the full cost of works knocked off by the sellers. Given building work will always cost double what you expect, and you've offered all the money you have, this seems like a simple equation unfortunately

it’s definitely not worth rushing the biggest financial decision of your life.

Deffo. While I wouldn't recommend fucking off to Australia for 5 weeks during the purchase, you should always be prepared to walk away from trouble.

there's no way you're getting the full cost of works knocked off

completely agree with this.

old houses always need work, some more than others and this one looks like being towards the "more" end.

whether or not it's worth persisting with depends on lots of factors including how much you really want this particular house, and how long you can put up with living in a place that needs work.

the roof on our place was pretty bad when we bought it. patched it up once or twice and finally got around to getting a new roof 20 years later, and guess what, yeah there were rotten timbers and some badly repaired fire damaged timbers under there which needed sorting out. now we'll probably sell and someone else will get the benefit of the next 19 years of nice new roof over their heads.

such is life.

We walked away from a place after survey turned up a bad roof, although nothing as bad as yours . We asked for big discount and no dice . All worked out for best in the end . As a first time buyer you are in a strong position, so keep your nerve, be prepared to walk away ( an earlier house we were outbid on and my partner was convinced we would not find better, but we did and a lot better ) . Good luck .

On the plus side, at least your surveyor spotted it before you bought it. You wouldn't have wanted to be settling in to your proud first home that you've borrowed a lifetime's worth of money to buy, when the roof and walls collapse.

There are other houses, there are always other houses, and it's worth waiting.

Imo prices are always as high as buyers can possibly afford. Stamp duty rising wont mean the overall cost goes up, sellers will have to reduce asking prices accordingly. When they cut stamp duty, it didn't lead to buyers saving money (apart from edge cases maybe), it just further inflated asking prices.

There are other houses, there are always other houses, and it's worth waiting.

This ^ don’t get emotionally attached or get pally with a seller, things can and will go awry but you always end up in a better position.
Come the next sale/purchase you will turn into a cold hard nosed bastard and tell several people to ‘jog on’

My (our) home selling/buying trauma is all documented in this thread, it’s changed my attitude to property for the better plus we really did end up in a better situation despite all the angst.

Nailed it, as per

Haven’t called HSE yet, just council and building control. The actual builders are a couple of nice Mexican guys and I’d worry HSE might screw them rather than the landlord? Also can HSE address the issue (them building something that will likely do damage to my property?) Lastly site is currently not as extreme as it was when they were digging. Might still call them it if no other options.

They might be nice Mexican chaps, but you might save one of them being killed. How much trouble depends where they are in the chain of command.

Damaging your property is a safety issue, so yes the HSE would act.

What are folks thoughts on windows? My house needs doing throughout - Is there much difference between brands? Had a couple round and they all say the same “ours are are mint, everything else is terrible” Not tying to cut corners but also don’t want to have my pants pulled down

Massive difference. Don’t get shitty british double glazing.

Velfac/Rationel/IdealCombi/Nordan if you’re feeling flush.

Klar/Eurostyl for big bang for buck.