Property Tips by Chartered Surveyors  from the Haynes House Manual series

Legally, you have more consumer rights buying a Mars Bar than a house

You may find this hard to believe, but when you buy a home you’re pretty much on your own, legally speaking.

Imagine if, on the day you move in the drains start overflowing, the toilet refuses to flush, or your sofa subsides through the rotten floor.

Unlike buying a new car, or even a bar of chocolate, in terms of consumer protection your rights are virtually non-existent. You can’t simply take it back with a receipt to the estate agent and demand a refund!

When you agree to buy a property it’s assumed that all the important stuff  –  foundations, roof, walls, electrics, heating, drains etc – are fit for purpose.  You may have already negotiated the price to reflect the cost of replacing any parts of the property that are obviously in poor condition, such as tired old kitchen units, misted windows or peeling wallpaper.

But as a prospective buyer you normally don’t get much of a chance to look in any detail at the building’s deeper condition. And you can be certain that the selling agents won’t go out of their way to point out the damp problem lurking under the floor boards.

This is why it’s so important to instruct a professional ‘fault-finder’ to flag up defects before you’re legally committed to buy the property.

Some of the things surveyors look for

• Any dangerous or illegal structural alterations that have been made, such as knocking through internal walls, cutting out roof timbers or chimney breasts, or dodgy DIY electrics.

• Botches made by the original builders, such as leaving out firebreak walls in the loft or building some of the main walls half the normal thickness to save money.

• Problems likely to arise due to years of neglected maintenance, such as hidden leaks causing damp problems and timber decay.

• Roofs that may be nearing the end of their life, with replacement work likely to cost many £’000s. Or old ceilings that lost their key, risking collapse, perhaps in a child’s bedroom.

In a typical house survey, surveyors identify a number of potentially costly, and sometimes dangerous defects. Without listing them all here, it would be good to know that the place you’re buying is free from things like asbestos, radon gas, subsidence, beetle infestation, fungal decay, damp and mould.

If there are problems that need solving it’s essential to take advice from someone who doesn’t have a vested interest in drumming up business. That’s where having a RICS qualified chartered surveyor on your side can be very reassuring.

But it’s not all about surveyors delivering bad news.  Sometimes things look worse than they are. For example with old sloping floors where a surveyor can use their experience to determined if the movement is ‘historic’. Or cracking is sometimes just down to seasonal movement in older buildings rather than subsidence.

The bottom line is, without a survey you’re risking being lumbered with a ‘money pit’ that could cripple you financially with expensive repairs.  

But best of all, buyers are normally able to renegotiate the agreed purchase price to fairly reflect the cost of fixing any significant defects.  Which means you get your survey fee back many times over!

Renegotiating the price

Think of it like this: when the estate agent originally valued the property they weren’t aware of the defects the survey has flagged up.

So it’s perfectly reasonable, fair and legitimate to go back and request that the price is adjusted to reflect the cost of putting things right.  This is why a survey can save you many thousands of pounds in expensive repairs.

So what’s the right survey for the house or flat you’re buying?  For most properties a ‘Level 2’  RICS Homebuyer Survey is the right choice.  The surveyor will inspect the whole property where accessible from the loft down to the drains, including the building’s structure.

You don’t need a more expensive ‘Level 3’ Building Survey unless the house is very old or very big (5 bedrooms or more) or obviously dilapidated (e.g. a renovation project).

Lastly you want to be sure you’re not paying over the odds for your survey. This is why it makes sense to use a price comparison site like Rightsurvey. Our panel of local surveyors will charge you less than it would cost if you booked a survey without first comparing prices.

To see a range of survey quotes at low prices for free click here.  

See Rightsurvey.co.uk for a quick guide to valuation and survey prices

Check out our other posts for more info that will help you pay the right price for the right property.

We would always recommend using RICS certified surveyors in every instance – don’t get caught out, get instant quotes for RICS surveyors here.

 Ian Rock’s Rightsurvey property tips are taken from the Haynes House Manual series.