The report ran to 41 pages, and the word "defects" appeared 37 times. I know because I counted, on Monday 7 October, at my desk at lunchtime, with a sandwich going dry next to the keyboard. A survey exists to find what's wrong with a house, so I shouldn't have been surprised. I was, mostly in the stomach.
Level 2, not Level 3
We paid £560 for a RICS Level 2 survey, and the surveyor went round the house on Wednesday 2 October. There are three levels. Level 1 is a light condition check, aimed at newer homes in good order. Level 2 sits in the middle and rates each part of the building from 1 to 3. Level 3 is the full structural survey, which is what you'd think about for something very old, heavily altered or unusual. When I rang to book, the surveyor's office said a Level 2 suited a conventional brick house like ours, and a Level 3 would have cost a good deal more.
A 1 on the ratings means nothing to worry about, a 2 means something needs repair but it isn't serious or urgent, and a 3 means serious, urgent, or in need of further investigation. We got a lot of 1s and 2s, which is normal for a house of this age. We also got two 3s.
The five problems
- The electrics: an old fuse board that the surveyor couldn't say much about except that it looked old. Rated 3.
- Damp: high readings at the foot of the front room wall, with a note recommending further investigation. Rated 3.
- The roof: slipped and cracked tiles, and loose mortar on the ridge. Rated 2.
- Gutters and downpipes, rated 2.
- No ventilation in the bathroom beyond a window, rated 2.
The unused chimney got a 2 as well, but I counted it as something to keep an eye on rather than a problem.
Asking for £2,500
By the end of October two things had happened. The lender's own valuation had matched our price, so the bank wasn't worried. And we were worried enough ourselves to want something off.
Matt knows a friend of a friend who is an electrician. He looked at photos of the fuse board and said a new consumer unit with testing would be roughly £800 to £1,000, and that he couldn't promise what he'd find once the old board came off the wall. The damp was the harder line. "Further investigation" means somebody turns up with a meter and then with a quote, and nobody could tell us what the quote would be. In the end we asked for £2,500, which was less than the sum of the worst cases and more than the nothing we'd get by shrugging.
I wrote the email on Friday 1 November and rewrote it four times. It was short and polite, it attached the relevant pages of the report and the electrician's ballpark, and it asked whether the price could come down to £187,500. Then not much happened for a week, apart from a message from the agent on Wednesday saying that Karen was "thinking about it". Matt thought that sounded positive. I thought it sounded like a dentist's waiting room.
At 11.20 on Friday 8 November the agent emailed to say Karen had agreed. I read it at the table in the flat, where I was working from home, and then walked to the end of the road and back to check I hadn't misread it.
What we didn't push on
We didn't ask for anything for the chimney, or for the age of the windows, which the survey put at about 2006 and thought were fine. Every 1930s house comes with a list, and we guessed that if we asked for the whole list we'd be asking for more than the price could stand. So we only put in the items rated 3, plus the roof and gutters that would need money soon.
I'd choose a Level 2 again for a brick terrace of this age, because it told us what to ask for, and it didn't tell us the house was about to fall down. If a house is older, odd or altered, a surveyor will say whether a Level 3 is worth the extra, and that's a conversation to have with your own surveyor rather than a blog.
We've kept the five problems on the fridge, printed out, with the date. So far nothing has been crossed off.
