South east and London hit hardest as UK homebuyers faced £3.6bn repair bill on properties
Those who bought a home and failed to look into the condition of the property they were moving into faced a total repair bill of close to £3.6bn in 2014, according to new research.
Research from e.surv, the UK’s largest chartered surveyor, shows that in July 2015 alone, UK homebuyers faced “unexpected repairs worth over £300m”.
The south east in particular faces the biggest annual repair bill at close to £820m in 2014, followed by London at £448m. The north west faced a bill of £325m.
A total of 773,400 mortgage buyers moved home last year, but only twenty per cent, or 154,700 buyers, opted to commission a private survey. As buyers did not know about faults in the house, they faced an estimated repair bill of £3.56bn.
According to the department of communities and local government, a fifth of houses in England do not meet their “decent homes standard”.
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Richard Sexton, director of e.surv chartered surveyors, said:
On average, the repair bill faced by buyers who don’t get a survey is close to £6,000, while some may find themselves facing costs far higher than this figure.