The survey results are in for the house (here’s the obligatory link to previous episodes of this story) and there are fewer nasty shocks than we feared. It does have damp issues, the roof is missing a few slates, the guttering needs looking at and the electrics/gas need safety checking but all in all its not too bad.

Apparently the lining paper is holiding up the ceilings in the attic and said ceilings have absolutely no insulation in them at all, but we kind of expected that. There’s something I don’t understand about the cellar and building regulations but the kitchen was in the basement when the house was built (we think, its got most of an old range in there) and they may not have had building regulations in 1900! Anyway, its going to be lots of work and money but I really wanted it not to be falling down, and it isn’t, so I wanted to share the news!

I’d be the first to admit that our path along the house-buying road (see all house posts if you missed earlier episodes) hasn’t been straightforward. So far we’ve had:

• Three offers accepted on different houses
• Two different solicitors
• Two different estate agents
• One mortgage arranged, then the amount reduced, then put back to the original amount again
• Another mortgage arranged to cover the shortfall between the original mortgage and the house we’re now buying.

Its complicated and I admit that. However the bank have surpassed themselves over the last week or so by sending us out paperwork for one mortgage with the wrong amount on it, one with the wrong property address, a duplicate of one of the above, and finally copying the wrong solicitor on the corrected version of the paperwork! I’m confident that they now have it under control and I’m more amused than worried, but its another twist in the road.

In other news, the estate agents tell me the survey was done last Friday (I discovered you can just ring them and ask and they will tell you these things) so we’re giving them a chance to type it up before I start stalking them for a copy of it … I’ll keep you posted.

We’ve had an offer accepted on the house I told you about. This is the third time we’ve had an offer accepted on a house and the other two have failed to end in a successful purchase, mostly because we seem to choose houses that turn out to be falling down (see the other epsiodes in the house saga ).

The solicitors are instructed, and we’re meeting the bank later in the week … everyone cross your fingers for us :)

Well, following on from the earlier episodes in the house hunting saga we have been pretty quiet on that front recently. Partly because we’re a bit twice bitten, lots of times shy. Partly because the houses in Leeds in the areas we’re looking at are all pretty similar and we’ve kind of seen enough.

So when I picked out a victorian semi-detached in a rough area of Leeds (Beeston, I do know it isn’t all rough!), which has four bedrooms, is set over four floors, has no heating and is rather out of the price range, you’d think we’d just leave it … right? Right???

We’ve been to see it twice, we really like it, and the estate agents are negotiating on our behalf (don’t worry, I do know whose side they are on and it isn’t mine) with the vendor who apparently doesn’t need the money and isn’t going to drop his asking price! Are we mad or what?

We pulled out of our second sale¹ yesterday. We can’t get a mortgage on this house unless we pay for more surveys, and we already know that the damp proof course has been breached and the whole house needs repointing. Spending money to prove that we can’t afford something we already can’t afford didn’t seem like a great plan so we’ve cut and run.

Feeling a bit sad about the whole thing but I’m sure its for the best. Something will turn up in the New Year I expect.

¹ In case you haven’t been keeping up, you can catch up with the whole story

The house¹ survey has arrived – hurrah! Actually very good service and much quicker than I expected so thumbs up to the surveyor. But its bad news ….

They can’t value the house until its been structurally surveyed, properly looked at by a roofing contractor and had its electrics certified. It needs repointing and reroofing. Never mind the list of ‘significant matters’ which follow, including chimneys not capped, boilers incorrectly installed, guttering needing replacement, damp proof courses bridged and the garage in a pretty poor state of repair!

So, no idea where we go from here, certainly we can afford to walk away and that’s always going to be an option. Right now I feel like a clueless person who picks totally rubbish houses!

¹ If you’re not following the story perhaps you would like to read the back issues

This post is a few days overdue but we’ve bought a house! You can read the saga of the last time we had an offer accepted if you like.

The house has three bedrooms, a garage, and gardens back and front. Its a decent size, has original fireplaces in the bedrooms and has had its kitchen and dining room knocked into one which is great. Its been rewired and has central heating and double glazing.

Its early days yet though – the survey happens on Monday.

We’re not buying a house! Or rather, we’re not buying the house we thought we were.

The house, as I have mentioned before, is a bit of a wreck. I mean, it has walls and windows and a roof and stuff … but internal doors, floors and a working kitchen aren’t really included in the deal so it was always going to be expensive. We hadn’t banked on the boundary wall, a retaining one as the property is on a slope, being so neglected that the survey described it as “leaning severely” and “unsafe”.

These walls aren’t cheap and unfortunately we don’t have that kind of money lying around, this is our first house and by the time we’ve paid the deposit, the stamp duty and all the relevant fees, there’s not a lot left! We wanted the house but couldn’t take it under these circumstances so we did what we thought best – and asked the vendors to fix the wall.

Almost ten days later we have finally heard back to say they aren’t prepared to negotiate¹ so we’ve retracted our offer. I’ll be booking some more house viewings for the weekend then ….

¹ Actually they were much ruder than that but never mind, it just served to show how much better off we are out of it!

The draft of the building survey arrived – wahey. The surveyors’ secretaries are very lovely and helpful when I ring them which is good news as I have done that three times this week already!

The actual survey is not such good news. There’s just a whole host of things wrong with this house. For the first time I am realising how seriously we can’t afford a project on this scale! There’s damp chimneys, rotten floorboards, another boiler which we were specifically told there wasn’t, missing/defective internal doors … you get the picture, and it gets worse.

Gone to the wall

The property is steep and our garden is a few feet up from the next one – the survey says that the retaining wall (20-30 yards long and about 4 feet high) is “on the point of becoming unsafe”. That could be expensive. Its a horrible reason to lose all the money we’ve already paid out on the house, but that will be cheaper that it will be to take on a house with a wall we are liable for and can’t afford to rebuild.

I’ll keep you posted, and in the meantime I’ll leave you with my favourite quote from the survey document:

The kitchen could be considered functional.

Read the previous parts of this story in Rotten Survey Results, Mortgage Application, Arranging a Mortgage and Offer Accepted

I knew things were going too well, I really did.

The valuation survey has come back. Its a pretty slim document (3 pages) with tickboxes to say how many bedrooms the house has and whether its made of brick. However, there is one paragraph of text and it says that the beams in the floor under the bathroom and adjoining back bedroom are rotting and that their recommendation is that this be rectified before the mortgage is secured on the property. Eeek!

We’ve ordered a full structural survey as well so we’re waiting for that to appear and hopefully that will give us more of a clue about what we are up against, but I’m not sure we’re allowed to go pulling up floors or ripping out bathroom fixings in a house that isn’t ours so I don’t see how we can even find out what its going to cost until after we’ve completed. Hopefully someone will tell us what to do next.

The one redeeming point is that the bank have written to say they are satisfied with the valuation and that we can have the mortgage. The letter also says that they “draw our attention” to the section which says the ceiling might not survive, which amused me :)