Engineer troubles!FTB's got an unfavourable structural survey!

Hi everyone,

Me and my boyfriend are first time buyers. We've nearly sealed the deal except today we got an unfavourable structural survey!
The property we want is an old cottage on 2 of acres so we have big ideas for it.
The survey turned up the usual cracks here and there but bigger problems like he thinks theres no foundation under the oldest part of the building! He also thinks there was no planning for the newer part!
Where do we go from here??
Obviously the bank aren't going to be happy about it, should we be haggling with the auctioneer even though we had already settled on a price? PLEASE HELP!!!

Re: Engineer troubles!

Welcome to the world of house purchase.

First, you have not yet signed contracts so you are not bound into anything.
Secondly, this is a big undertaking for f.t.b.'s. Do either of you know anything about property or building works or engineering? If no, then you have a huge learning curve ahead of you and you need to educate yourselves about what these issues mean.
You need to talk to your engineer and work out the cost of rectifying any issues. You need to talk to your solicitor to ask them to look at the planning issues surrounding the house - you can ask the auctioneer to ask the Vendor's solicitor for any planning details.

Once you have educated yourself to the stage of knowing how big the problems are, you can decide whether you want to go ahead with it and renegotiate on price. Be aware though that building work is not for the faint hearted!

If you know something about building or have friends/family in trades, it is a great deal less daunting. I have a very good builder friend who can tell me if things are rubbish ( as in walk away, it will be a money pit) or manageable ( as in , its like lego, once you know your issues, you can deal with it)

Good luck with your house hunt.

mf

Re: Engineer troubles!

It is unlikely that the bank will be willing to lend you money given this engineer's report.

I know it might not be what you want to hear BUT you need to think of it in a diffrent way. The engineer's report could stop you wasting your money.

It might not seem like it but there will be other places out there.

Alternatively whats the scope for knocking it down and starting again....

Re: Engineer troubles!

Thanks for trying to help out.
The funny thing about it is this place has been sold three times in the last 10 years with every purchaser living in it for a number of years. So how come this problem wasn't evident then?
On top of this there's someone living there now, how did all these people not notice? or is it they find an engineer to look at it more favourably?
We have big plans for this place but on the long term.
We're only borrowing enough to buy and then doing the work ourselves.

Re: Engineer troubles!

have you or your boyfriend any building experiance? I assume you have since you plan to do all the work yourselves.

Listen to the expert and run a mile. It will break your pocket and your heart. There are plenty of houses out that would just need to be modernised and not major structual work.

If you still want to press ahead, get a builder in to give you a quote on remedial work before you sign anything.

Don't give up on your dream, just maybe give up on this particular house.

Re: Engineer troubles!

The no planning issue is important and would have been a problem when your solictor was dealing with the paperwork. Without planning you could be forced to knock the part any time.

You need a proper foundation under all your house.

Looks like you got a good engineer.

Re: Engineer troubles!

Many very old houses have little or no foundation - people used to just dig out a little and start building the walls. The Engineer is, of course, right to point this out. But the important thing here is whether the house is a reasonable example of its type. Clearly people can and do buy and live in old houses. Clearly old houses have stood for many years and their structural problems should be evident in that there should be cracking in the walls etc.

If this Engineer is saying 'don't buy an old house' he is being unduly cautious. If he is saying 'this is a particularly bad old house - don't buy it' fair enough. If he is simply saying 'there are no foundations to speak of' then that alone would not be enough to cause me to run ( if I wanted an old house). I would want the Engineer's view of course.

I practice in a building which used to be a house. It has no foundations to speak of on at least one side. But is is 100 years old and still standing.

No planning on the new section may or may not be a problem. But in the current market, I would certainly try to force the vendor to pay for a retention application.

be thankfull your engineer found or highlighted these problems..when we bought our house the engineers report only said that extra insulation was needed..and since then we have had so many problems. Atleast now you know where you stand to some degree with the house and its your decision to continue on and buy and then deal with problems that may or may not occur.
Also maybe this the reason the house has been sold so many times in the past few years, money pits do exist...

Thanks for all ye're advice.
It's going to be a long day on the phone tomorrow!
Hopefully it'll all work out one way or another.
As if being a first time buyer wasn't stressfull enough especially in this climate!

Oh yeah, if it doesn't work out, i'll be looking here tomorrow to either vent frustration or just moan!

Feel free avontuur!

You've been given some great advice, I too have bought old buildings without some parts having some foundations and amazingly enough they are still standing as MOB said after 100 years. There are engineers and engineers. Get the strict engineer to give you the worst case scenario so you know what you are getting into and how much it will costs and get the easy engineer for the bank. And don't forget there will be other dream houses if you don't have the stomach for this house. As pointed out you need to know what you are getting into. There is one thing that is slightly odd to me though the fact that there have been 3 purchasers in 10 years and now you're the fourth.

Re: Engineer troubles!

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Re: Engineer troubles!

Doozie said:

The funny thing about it is this place has been sold three times in the last 10 years with every purchaser living in it for a number of years. So how come this problem wasn't evident then?
On top of this there's someone living there now, how did all these people not notice?

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Think about this. How do you know they didn't notice? A cottage on 2 acres which has sold three times in ten years sounds exceptional unless it was a holiday home, I should think. As Bronte and MOB point out, many old single-period structures are settled and rock solid even without proper foundations, but many more are an amalgam of add-ons of varying quality over long periods of time and can be very problematic, it's very difficult to make generalisations here. I presume you do realise that a structure which isn't underpinned properly can become a damp, cold, cracking nightmare which will involve huge relative expenditure (right up to demolition and reconstruction) to deal with in the end? The owners wouldn't necessarily notice dramatic changes, just a long disintegration over time, and I have dealt with engineers who have overlooked blatantly obvious structural issues. Think very carefully about what you are doing here, or you could very easily find yourself living at the bottom of a money pit.

Well just giving ye an update, i'm meeting the auctioneer tomorrow and bringing the structural survey with me. Going looking for a price reduction of around 80,000 euro, as we would effectively be buying a site. So we'll see how that goes.

avontuur said:

Well just giving ye an update, i'm meeting the auctioneer tomorrow and bringing the structural survey with me. Going looking for a price reduction of around 80,000 euro, as we would effectively be buying a site. So we'll see how that goes.

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Best of luck with that.
Knocking it and starting again maybe the only sensible option.

Just out of interest if i got the price down can i continue to borrow the additional 80,000 if i had a quote for a new build? We could easily build a fine property for that kind of money, whilst still being in the same price bracket as the original structure?

avontuur said:

Well just giving ye an update, i'm meeting the auctioneer tomorrow and bringing the structural survey with me. Going looking for a price reduction of around 80,000 euro,.

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How did you conclude with a price reduction of €80,000

avontuur said:

as we would effectively be buying a site. So we'll see how that goes.

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So you have full planning permission for:

1. Knocking down the existing building?

2. Erecting a new dwelling?

You need to do your homework...check up all previous planning documents....even speak to the previous owners, I would go that far myself if possible....why did they get rid of it etc.

You seem to have made a decision that you are going ahead & buying the site, despite the advice given in AAM.

I read previously that the site has been passed on (sold) a few times. It sounds dodgy......therfore.....I think, BUYER BEWARE!!!