Lesson 14
The House You Fell For
Work through one house purchase that needs everything in the course at once: the asking price, the money already spent, the survey, the timetable and how you judge it afterwards.
The house
You and your partner are buying a two-bedroom terraced house in England, listed at “offers over £250,000”. It’s freshly painted, and on the sunny Saturday you viewed it, light poured into a kitchen staged with flowers and a bowl of lemons. You offered £262,000 that afternoon, and the seller accepted, subject to contract.
Since then you’ve paid £600 for a survey and £900 in legal fees. The survey notes damp in the back bedroom’s outside wall, and a roof that will need about £8,000 of work within five years. The agent says, “Every house that age has that.” A friend’s story about a damp house that cost them a fortune is ringing in your ears.
This lesson is about your judgement. What the survey means, the legal steps and the mortgage are for your surveyor, conveyancer and lender. In England an accepted offer isn’t binding on either side until contracts are exchanged, so you can still renegotiate or pull out. (Scotland’s system works differently.) The steps of a purchase in England sets out what happens when.