House survey

[SuzySues]

I am in the process of selling my house. It has a flat roof. How likely is this to cause a problem on the survey. Will the buyers mortgage company expect us to replace the roof? Or will they alow the buyer time to re-roof? When we brought the house 17yrs ago, the roof was around 20yrs old and the survey said we should replace it within 2 yrs. We still got our mortgage. We re-placed the roof 10yrs ago & it is still sound, but we are worried that, if itcomes up in the survey, may scare our buyer off. HELP!

[jake-the-peg]

I sold my house about 5 years ago that had a flat roof that had been resurfaced a few years previously.

Flat roofs do tend to wear with time, quicker if they've been done poorly. If the roof is currently sound and there is no damage or indication that the new buyer needs to replace it soon then it shouldn't put off a purchaser too much.

Having said that flat roofs are not exactly plus points and any surveyor will probably want to give it a careful examination.

Be straight with any buyers if they ask about it and tell them that the last roof lasted just over 20 years and you had the work done about 10 years ago - dig out the bills if you've still got them.

Incidently I went on and bought a house with a thatched roof - so there's enough of us about who'll take on a challenge