House Survey with flat roof.

[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 it comes up in the survey, it may scare our buyer off. HELP!

[trodgers5]

Depends what kind of a survey they have done - if it is a homebuyers survey the surveyor will not lookon the roof - thet will make a comment that they could not see the state of the roof (they only look from the ground) and will advise the buyers to have the roof checked.  If it is a full survey the surveyor will deign to get a ladder out and have a look - if it is 10 years old then it should be fine but again he will make a comment that says the roof has a limited life of approx 15 years and will need replacing in the future.  The buyers mortgage company will not expect the roof to be re done but if the buyers are really picky they may start to demand money off the final price.  The buyer knows you have a flat roof when he put the offer in so I would not worry at all.  The roof will always come up in a survey purely becasue it does have a limited life - but if it is in good nick no normal buyer will worry about it.

[SuzySues]

Thank you trodgers5, this makes me feel a bit better. I just want that part over, so I can look forward to moving! :)

[zmudge]

I'm afraid that the reality is not at all as stated above. The harsh fact is that if a significant percentage of the property has a flat roof, it will cause some lenders to decline to lend. The condition of the roof does not matter, whether new or old, and "significant" is not defined (it can be as little as 5%), and, worse, in many cases it can be just that any flat roof can sometimes be a "no no". The disappointing thing for you in addition is that if one lender refuses to lend because of this it is highly likely that most other lenders will do the same.

[Hammer]

We bought our house two years ago with a flat roof on approx 30% of it. It was stated on the survey that it looked OK now but would need attention in the future. We knew this and it wasn't an issue. No probs with the mortgage either (Abbey if that helps).

[SuzySues]

Thank you all for your input.  I am going to look on the good side that Hammer's experience sounds about the same as mine 17yrs ago.  I don't know if the decision also depends how much the buyer is borrowing. 

May I just ask trodger & zmudge where did you get your info from, as my husband likes to see defiante, expert advise, where as I beleive in hearing how other people have fared.

Thanks again. I will let you know how it goes.

[zmudge]

My experience stems from a business life of building and selling hundreds of houses of all shapes and sizes and through this dealing with every mortgage lender in the UK. Flat roofs of any sort are not good news, and timber constructed felt covered flat roofs associated with domestic property are particularly unwelcome. AnswerBank is a limited medium and it is therefore not possible to set out chapter and verse. However, it has always been so - if you look at depictions of the Ark you will see that Noah could not get a mortgage for a flat roof from Harps Above PLC and had to build a pitched roof. Yes, a purchaser of a �150000 property with part flat roof needing to borrow only �50000 will probably get a positive response whereas someone needing to borrow as near to 100%  as possible probably would not. By all means, though, keep looking on the bright side.

[SuzySues]

Thanks zmudge. I wasn't critisising, its just I "learn" stuff on the internet, but my hubby never believes it!! He has to see hard facts.  Hopefully my buyer doesn't need a large mortgage.  We have found the house of our dreams to buy & would hate to lose it.

[zmudge]

Good luck, Suzy, and hope all goes well. Shall be interested to hear how things turned out when you have further news.