We got the survey back on the house we’re hoping to buy, and it’s generally good news—we think. The whole business of buying a house is fraught with panic anyway (particularly if you’re first time buyers as we are), but the survey is written in language designed to maximise back-covering rather than practical information, so it’s very easy to read far too much into it. They never use phrases like “the structure of the house is sound”, but say things like “as far as we were able to investigate it, the structure of the house seems to be acceptable”, which immediately makes you think that there’s something they’re not telling you. What does acceptable mean? What’s wrong with it?
“The internal staircase has 13 steps”. OK. Is that good? Or bad? Why do we need to know how many steps there are? “Some of the steps squeak.” It’s cursed! It’s a cursed house! Oh my Bod!1
And breathe…