[Closed] Anyone managed to get money off their surveyor post house purchase?

I thought structural survey came with some sort of guarantee or insurance for quality of survey?

You could probation try and use the surveyor to sure up the foundations.

Well, here's the snag! It wasn't a structural, it was a homebuyers 'report'. Still a survey, carried out by a qualified surveyor. Which, from what I now gather, doesn't hold as much water and is a massive arse covering exercise. 🙄

You could probation try and use the surveyor to sure up the foundations.

Sir, I like your style... we are talking about burying the surveyor, right? 😈

Homebuyers report..., if you wanted a full survey you should've paid for one, and tbh it probably be cheaper just to repair the faults than to have paid for one.

My parents did.
Had a structural survey and the place was reported as fine, but within the first year it became apparent that there was a rotten 1st floor roof beam. Mum got the surveyors to pay for the replacement beam, carpets and decorating. I think the surveyors were pretty reluctant to cough up, but I don't think they'd experience my mum when she knows she's in the right 🙂
However you need to check very carefully what your contract covers, and if that contract is a fair reflection of industry standards.

Thanks br, but I think you've missed the point. The surveyor is still instructed to spot visible faults regardless of whether it's a homebuyer's or structural. It shouldn't stop them from being responsible for spotting visible structural issues (that aren't hidden) which in this case they missed.

You need to write to the surveyor in question or his firm with a list of the defects and ask them to come and have a look and comment. They have a duty under the RICS rules to have a proper complaints handling procedure. They will also be under a duty to inform their PI insurance providers that they possibly have a claim against them.
If this is the case you may have to instruct a solicitor and surveyor to quantify the damages to make the claim.
If you don't want to do this then get some decent builders who know what they are doing to quote and then at least you know what amounts you are talking about.
If it is historic settlement and has stopped then you do not need to underpin and you can just make good the defects. Need to monitor the cracks for ongoing movement and for this you will need a building surveyor or a structural engineer. In fact they might be your best call anyway.

However you need to check very carefully what your contract covers, and if that contract is a fair reflection of industry standards.

Solid advice, thanks muchly.

If it is historic settlement and has stopped then you do not need to underpin and you can just make good the defects. Need to monitor the cracks for ongoing movement and for this you will need a building surveyor or a structural engineer. In fact they might be your best call anyway.

Gets a bit more complex. Basically one of the walls has dropped due to poor soil conditions. Our builder found a void that runs under one of our exterior wall foundations that needs to be filled which is possibly linked to this. This has yet to move, so wouldn't necessarily have been spotted. However, the interior wall has and is in very poor condition. This needs underpinning as well.

The structural engineer we had in subsequently has said pretty much what you have said actually.

We had a Building survey (full 'structural') when we bought our house and he missed the fact that the fireplace lintels mightn't be in the best condition based on the age of the house.

We couldn't do anything about this oversight as the report was laced with caveats and get-outs.

In hind-sight I would have rather spent the £600 on paying a qualified various tradesmen to do the job rather than a surveyor!

How old's the house??

In hind-sight I would have rather spent the £600 on paying a qualified various tradesmen to do the job rather than a surveyor!

Me too, but it's our first house and I didn't know any tradesmen before this fiasco. On good terms with a number now! 😉

How old's the house??

Built circa 1900

Me too, but it's our first house and I didn't know any tradesmen before this fiasco. On good terms with a number now!

Yeah, good tradesman is worth their weight in gold. I wouldn't urinate on our surveyor if he was on fire.

To all those thinking of paying for a survey - don't! is my advice. spend the money elsewhere - there's nothing a good builder can't point out that a qualified surveyor can in my opinion

High climber
Fine if you know and can trust a good builder that has got PI cover in case he has a bad day and misses something.

Ditto on not spending money on surveyors! I had a full structural done on a house a few years ago and he missed the fact there was an unsupported chimney basically hanging above the kitchen ceiling (in the loft space). The bricks were all shot to bits and it was a crumbling mess of about 1/2 tonne of brickwork waiting to fall through the plasterboard kitchen ceiling at some point.

I spent a loooong time trying to get something back from him, going through the whole RICS complaints route etc etc. In the end, it felt very much like the RICS look after their own and it all became very subjective about whether it was "reasonable" for him to have spotted the problem - which is something very hard to actually [i]prove[/i]. Without instructing solicitors etc, there was nothing we could do and it worked out cheaper to pay for the work to be done than go down the legal route.

Hmm,old house has cracks,movement and not everything is level,now that's a surprise 🙄

I'd have a thorough read of the T and C's of the report and get an RICS surveyor's opinion of them,survey the house or make the necessary repairs and put it down to experience

Fine if you know and can trust a good builder that has got PI cover in case he has a bad day and misses something.

A GOOD builder will have PI cover otherwise they are just a builder!

depends what you mean by a GOOD builder I suppose,I'd be more interested in testimony from previous Clients and even that won't stop them from FU your job I'm afraid

flipiddy

I feel your pain and am contacting my solicitor to see if there is anything can be done re my recent 'useless' survey report.

I got the 'inbetween' report done which is short of a full structural but is still supposed to cover visible areas ie. no lifting of floorboards etc. Only relevant items highlighted were a couple of small damp patches. Imagine my surprise when at the first heavy rain, I had water running in one window downstairs, living room and kitchen, clothes soaked in wardrobe upstairs, damp appearing on bathroom ceiling, and water dripping into garage. [b]None[/b] of these areas were the ones flagged as damp!

Reading the report, it appears the surveyor has covered himself as most items have the rider "unable to check due to dry conditions at time of survey". He obviously surveyed it during the only few days where it didn't rain this year! Mates dad came round and within 10 minutes had highlighted about 8 faults in guttering and brickwork, all of which are easily seen from the ground with only one spotted by climbing a ladder.

I don't hold out much hope of getting anything to compensate and probably not worth my while. I would have thought that the problems you have may have been covered in the same way by the surveyor ie. 'historic movement' or something to that effect.

When I have had surveys they have been caveated so heavily that it would be almost impossible to claim for anything that was missed.

That said they did not miss anything (or nothing that has yet come to light) and so were worthwhile.

In the future I will ask to see the surveyors standard T's and C's and not go with anyone who will not stand behind their responsibilites.

Re. the OP - homebuyer survey - very doubtful that you will get any result.

Someone told me, a surveyor, that, the homebuyers report is the one where they actually get out of the car but don't go in the front door...

So no hope I suspect.
But good luck. That sounds bad. Really bad.

Hmm,old house has cracks,movement and not everything is level,now that's a surprise

I'd have a thorough read of the T and C's of the report and get an RICS surveyor's opinion of them,survey the house or make the necessary repairs and put it down to experience

I'm not really that surprised tbh, even as a naive first-time buyer taken in by the character. But it still should have been noted by the surveyor.

Here's a picture of one of the walls in question. You can see the drop in the middle and the sloping lintels. None of the defects here were specifically listed in the report. The flooring was given an 'A (green)' grade. It's not a wide-angle lens, the distortion you see is real, not the camera...

The structural engineer asked if he was looking in the right house. I sometimes wonder. 😆

[img] [/img]

It all depends on what survey you've actually paid for. I thought a Homebuyer survey was just to value the property to ensure it's worth what the mortgage company is lending against. If this is the case I assume you've no come back against the survey.

Someone told me, a surveyor, that, the homebuyers report is the one where they actually get out of the car but don't go in the front door...

I've heard similar, but I think it's the valuation that he was referring to. The homebuyer's is a 30+ page report. Half of it is cut 'n' paste, granted!

meh, looks like our old house. Is it in Sheffield?

Survey = not worth the paper it's written on! We considered a full structural survey on the house we live in now, when we contacted a surveyor they wanted us to tell them which areas we wanted looking at (which seemed a bit odd, they were the experts after all!), and the cost was several thousand pounds. As mentioned above, it seemed more cost effective to have an ordinary survey and spend the money saved on repairs as and when necessary.

That said, a friend of mine has done the same thing and come a cropper, the house needed 20K spending on the foundations as it was falling down basically :-$

Looks like houses I have lived in in Sheffield as well. If the wallpaper isn't moving, and the old doors fit, with old paint, then it just seems like an old house. Door on the left to the cellar? How does the wall look down there?

B*ll*cks to it, I'm sticking with my expanding foam plan and spending the money on drugs and hookers instead.

It's foolproof! 😀

to the OP,given that photo you'd have hoped that further investigation would be flagged up as necessary.Does that partition run through the first floor?

That said, a friend of mine has done the same thing and come a cropper, the house needed 20K spending on the foundations as it was falling down basically :-$

House buying is a bit of a lottery sometimes, isn't it?

to the OP,given that photo you'd have hoped that further investigation would be flagged up as necessary.Does that partition run through the first floor?

It's a stud partition upstairs, so supporting it's own weight and that of the ground floor joists.

How does the wall look down there?

In the cupboard on the opposing wall, like this:

[img] [/img]

I had an independent survey done on the house I bought last year. However the previous owners stated that the house was in good working order and it clearly wasn't.

Half of the house has no heating, plumber reckons new pipework needs fitting as well as new boiler that's powerful enough plus bigger radiators. The light in the shower room wouldn't stay on so got electrician to investigate and a new type of fitting was needed, thermostat broken, no key for the garage etc etc etc.

I bitterly regret not taking the previous owners to court for dishonesty.

working on a house next week where i ve begged the new owner to sue the estate agent / surveyor/ vendors as the boiler is illegally fitted the gas pipe to the hob was badly leaking the electric extractor and fan oven dont work at all thier is virtually no hot water pressuree and yet all okay according to the full survey and vendors declaration

There appears to be a bit of confusion on here as to what survey is what. A homebuyers survey is an optional basic survey to make sure your prospective house is in good order - electrics work, taps run, guttering, roof slates ok etc. basically everything non-structural that could potentially be quite expensive to remedy. they are generally recommended for houses over a decade old or so.

A building survey is what used to be known as a structural survey although they don't actually do any structural testing but they do go into more depth as to looking for obvious cracks, potential for flooding, drainage plus all the homebuyers survey stuff. these are generally recommended for older properties - our house is over 100 years old so we bought into the idea of having one of these.
They don't do any destructive testing of any sort and will generally recommend you to get ADDITIONAL surveys done like timber survey, drain inspections, damp survey.

The survey done by your mortgage lender is nothing more than a verification that your house is, well, a house, and isn't just a pile of rubble and has nothing to do with the above additional surveys.

all are mostly a waste of time although the mortgage one isn't optional!!

My survey said i had a solid concrete floor with no underfloor access

Nothing about the hatch in the spair room leading to the 4 foot crawl space.

I disregarded everything else pretty much after that - went through it with my dad and identified our own issues.

Athough ive found diy bodges in mine nothings majorly wrong . I have some stepped cracks following mortar lines - its an old house. Resined them to stop water getting in and living with it

If it was a straight crack through bricks then id be worried,

Our original homebuyers report was a complete waste of money, missed multiple obvious defects that could be seen from ground level outside, from upstairs windows, they seemed more interested in telling us that the kitchen needed updating and that they couldn't check this and that because of various reasons, and basically every thing should be checked by a specialist.

Just went for the valuation this time, and it still told us about a little historic settlement in the roof and the asbestos garage roof (both of which I'd noticed) I hadn't expected to get anything back other than a yay or nay from the mortgage provider on whether they would provide the mortgage.

My brother got a reasonable sized payout and a refund of the survey fees, but it was very black and white- highlight was them rating the gas fire as in good working condition, when it had been removed years before. Not sure how it would have worked out without the massive howlers tbh.

I'm in the US, so our real estate sales process is somewhat different, no doubt.

I had a home inspection when I bought my house in 1996. I think that home inspections were sorta new at that time. Mine did a decent job IMO in that they identified two big issues; a cracked heat exchanger in the gas forced air furnace and aluminum wiring. I was given an allowance to cover the furnace replacement by the seller, and they had the wiring connections retrofitted at their expense. They missed some little stuff that I found with time (bath fan exhausts into attic, etc.) but nothing that I'd consider major. The report also listed a lot of minor things, some of which are [s]probably[/s] no doubt still that way. 😀

Recently, a relative sold a 60+ year old house. I wasn't involved except to help move furniture and such. The buyer had a home inspection done, and it only identified problems that they said would cost about $700 to repair. I didn't see the whole report, but was emailed a couple of pages to ask what I thought. I told the relative selling reduce the price by the repair amount. They did, and the sale went through.

I feared that things could have been much worse for the seller. But when I thought about it, I figured out what happened. Basically, the inspectors get hired to find some stuff. Then the buyer feels good and that he has got his money out of paying for an optional inspection.

Since most people don't buy or sell houses very often, they usually rely on their real estate agent to recommend or arrange for a home inspection, boundary survey, etc. But the agents only get paid if a sale goes through, so it is not in their interest to find so much wrong with the house that the sale falls through. So if you do home inspections and you find $100,000 worth of problems with every house that you inspect, you probably won't get a lot of calls to do inspections.

So, I think that its market forces at work here; at least in the US. The inspectors find some stuff, but not too much. The sale happens. Real estate agent(s) get their commission, seller gets $, buyer got some stuff fixed or paid for by the seller. Everyone is happy most of the time.

And yes they use lots of weasel words in their reports as well as their terns and conditions in the US, too.

Double post.