u/pbrmason

I wonder what this means for the conversion of the Gatehouse?

We’re doing our due diligence on a semi-detached house we’re looking to buy. Our homebuyers survey identified a horizontal split in one of the purlins in the roof space and advised we commission a structural engineer to inspect it. There was a picture below showing the split, albeit pretty small and not very hi-res. So we pay a good wedge for a structural engineer to go and take a look last week and he reports back that there was no split, just a wire that had been attached to a roof beam! And it doesn’t even look like a split based on the engineer’s picture - it’s clearly lifted above the beam in places and you can see the staples holding it in place. He said he spent a while inspecting the whole roof trying to the find a split and it was only when he checked the original report that he realised the surveyor had mistaken the wire for a split. My guess is the surveyor just took a few pictures and pumped them into a chatbot to help write the report, which has misidentified the wire as a split.

Suffice to say we’re not best pleased. We’ve flagged it with the surveying firm and are waiting for their response, but we’re asking them to reimburse the full cost of the structural engineer report. Has anyone else had a similar experience and had any success getting anything back from the surveyor?