Homebuyer Hell

[emc]

Hello All

I'm a TV Producer and am looking to talk to people who have bought property this year that needs a great deal of repair. This is on the back of a report that says that a buoyant property market is putting buyers under pressure to buy a home without checking it properly for damage, leaving many with hefty repair bills after moving in .

Apparently new home owners spend ?4205 on average fixing 'hidden' problems with their property and almost a third of those who bought property this year believe their seller deliberately concealed problems during the sale - tactics sellers used include painting over mould, moving furniture to cover problems during viewing, hiding damage behind pictures etc.

If this is something you've experienced I'd love to hear from you with a view to doing an interview for a morning TV show. Fee available.

[MrBen]

Four grand to fix things on average?

I'd be more than happy with that. Especially on a purchase that in London has an average ticket price of ?260k.

I understand how the "news" game works though...

[nxjen]

And sellers have never concealed problems before that only came to light after the homebuyer moved in?

[lane lover]

I am surprised by this stat.

Does no-one pay for a survey prior to buying? Banks see a basic survey as a requirement to lending ... and anyone who doesn't pay for a more thorough survey should know they are taking this risk.

More unnecessary dramatisation!

[Lowlander]

lane lover Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I am surprised by this stat.

>

> Does no-one pay for a survey prior to buying?

> Banks see a basic survey as a requirement to

> lending ... and anyone who doesn't pay for a more

> thorough survey should know they are taking this

> risk.

>

> More unnecessary dramatisation!

Having bought two houses with a full survey over the years, I'm deeply sceptical. "Normal movement for a Victorian property" proved to be subsidence, "recent re-wiring and modern consumer unit" were non-compliant with regs (the Solicitor uncovered that one).

And the large damp patches one surveyor deduced to be from condensation were actually caused by damp.

For my third property I'll be doing the surveying with a builder friend and not relying on the surveyor.

Oh, and we budget 5-10% of the purchase price for improvements. If you don't need it that's a bonus.

[Loz]

In my experience, there are two types of 'full survey'...

1) The completely useless ones done by the survey companies appointed by mortgage providers, especially for the ones that do the provider's valuation.

2) The rather good ones done by independent surveyors.

The last house I bought I initially had the first one done. It was so bad I request and got my money back. It was 90% of cut-n-paste general stuff and the other 10% was unbelievably incompetent, they even got the number of rooms in the house wrong.

So, I found an independent. I received a 30-odd page report that was written entirely for my property. Yes, it was couched in careful language, but it picked up quite a few points that were very useful to understand certain issues I had noted myself.