1st time buyer - Granite Cottage . Advice

[Quaintcottage]

Hello , I am purchasing my first property . It is around 200 years old , and built out of stone . My cash bid was accepted , 35k below asking price, for which I am very grateful.

I have since had a survey and two major issues have surfaced. These issues could cost 15-20k to rectify . This is a problem, as I maxed out my budget to secure the sale , and at present , I do not have the funds to pay for the potential renovations needed.

One is the upgrading of a shared septic tank system, to a sewage treatment plant. I have been advised by my solicitor , that since 2020 this is required within 12 months of purchase, or risk a fine from the Environment Agency .

The second issue is damp. Please see photo. The roof of the property was replaced in the last 15 years , but there is a lot of damp on a party wall (upstairs and downstairs ), adjoining next doors property.

The surveyor thinks , the damp could be coming down the neighbour’s chimney , or via the flashing , where my prospective property , adjoins the neighbouring property .

I am in the process of getting quotes from builders/roofers to determine how much it will cost to stop the damp .

Question

At this stage of the conveyancing process , is it acceptable/fair to go back to the seller and ask for a further reduction on the agreed price , in light of the issues the survey has found?

My other options are to not buy the property, or to buy it , and hope that in the next few years, I can save 15-20k to remedy the issues found . Albeit , I appear to run the risk of a fine from the Environment Agency, and I will end up living in a damp property.

As I say , I have never been through this process before , so any advice/views would be greatly appreciated.

 

[malcolm]

Location is useful - is yours a mistake? It can be edited when you click on your username at the top right of the page.

The flashing from next door doesn't look right - surely the flashing should run above your tiles and not below them. If it directs water below your tiles then that would defeat the purpose of your tiles.

The damp downstairs is likely worsened by a gypsum skim possibly on some tanking that someone has added to fix (err) damp. So that didn't work and an improvement would be to knock the plaster back to the brick and plaster in breathable lime.

Masonry paint on the outside is similarly a bad idea. Walls can't breathe to the outside to reduce internal damp when they are covered in waterproof paints.

The advice I had when buying a house was to work out the cost of fixing stuff found in the survey then comparing it to my overall budget and starting further negotiation. For me I didn't mind as that sort of thing had already been priced in to the sale price. Worth asking your solicitor for advice on that side of things.

 

[Quaintcottage]

Hello Malcolm, thank you for your message and advice . I have updated my location. I am based in Cornwall.

I will ask the builder/roofer to inspect the flashing closely , when he looks at the property next week . It has taken a month just to convince a tradesman to visit the property and provide a quote!

The property has flooded in the past , and apparently the ground floor was tanked . It appears my cottage was added to the existing cottage many years ago , and as I understand it , my lounge wall was my neighbour’s original outside wall. If that makes sense.

A lot of people have advised to remove the paint and re point with lime , and that is something I will certainly do , if I successfully purchase the property.

Thank you for the advice regarding re negotiating. I will certainly go back to my solicitor and seeing whether the seller is willing at least to go halfs on any unforeseen problems that were identified in the survey .

Thank you

Benjamin

 

[Stevers]

The flashing from next door doesn't look right - surely the flashing should run above your tiles and not below them. If it directs water below your tiles then that would defeat the purpose of your tiles.

Those are 'slates' rather than tiles though. For slates (and plain tiles actually), flashing against flanking walls is run as a series of soakers under the slates. For pantiles the lead is run on top so would be visible.

We reduced our original offer price on this house to reflect the cost of rebuilding a tall road fronting stone retaining wall that was clearly in a very fragile state with both significant bulges and cracks. Our house had proved difficult to sell (eighteen months), and once the sale had gone through the seller told us that he would have accepted a further price reduction. Thanks entirely to our brilliant builder, the wall ended up costing much less to repair than the price reduction we'd been given - so I suppose all is fair in love and war!

I would have thought the cost of the septic tank conversion is something that might reasonably be requested as that would be a cost that any buyer would incur.

 

[Quaintcottage]

Thank you for your message and reply , Stevers. I have zoomed in on another photo of the roof, and it looks (to me) that the flashing is coming away from the wall and , could be the cause of the ingress of water . What do others think ? My roof is the lower one



I will certainly bring up the issue of the septic tank. To be fair to the seller , I doubt he realised it is now law to upgrade a non compliant septic tank upon completion. It is just unfortunate that the tank is shared by three properties , none of whom will probably want contribute financially to its upgrade or replacement.

 

[Stevers]

That slapped on render fillet looks extremely dodgy, so no, I wouldn't trust the way that the flashing has been done. For random stonework (on the Mendips at least) we cut a 1" groove parallel to the line of the slates and about 4" above it. The flashing is inserted into the groove held by lead rolls, in lengths of no more than 4' long. The groove is then sealed with Leadmate, or possibly even better nowadays, CT1 or equivalent. To me the fibre cement slates indicate a cheap sort of job, and someone needs to clear the gutters.

On one of my trips up to our chimneys, the jet of warm air coming out of our undampered functional flue (no fire), made quite an impression! Without such a stream of warm air to keep the chimney dry an open pot is definitely to be avoided! Our redundant flues have clay cowls, or if live for an open fire, then a stainless steel cowl has been fitted.

You can but approach the neighbours who share the septic tank, and get some idea of whether you'd actually want to live next to them. I know it's fashionable to have no idea who lives next door, with wooden barricades between the gardens, but I think it's a poor way to live!

 

[Quaintcottage]

Thank you Stevers. I am learning a lot from this post . I have just been watching YT videos on flashing , and just learned that lead rolls should not be more than 4’ long. You are correct, I went back to the survey and the slates are ‘artificial’ slate , so one would presume the previous owner went for the cheap option.

I think all the flashing will have to come and out and be re laid correctly.

The chimney you can see in the photo is not mine , but the neighbours. My chimney was dismantled at some point , although the fireplace is intact and a flue from an old wood burning stove , exits at the roof .






Thank you for the tip

I agree with respect to neighbours. I think it is a lot better if everyone gets along.