Surveyor recommendations?

Th problem with Bulgaria is that it never had a real tangable 2nd market  the primary market is foriegners  and thats why in 2008 the Bulgarian property markey almost collapsed.  i.e not many Bulgarians buy property in the way we do in uk... suveys are done to safeguard the mortgage company not you!  most bulgarians could not even get a morgage .  its just not like the UK,  its getting there very slowly and thats why you cannot find a surveyer! 

Jessica, I've seen some Brit expats who do building inspections for a reasonable fee listing on ebay. Not the same thing as a full survey which is probably not possible to get in Bulgaria, but likely to let you know if they spot any significant problems. Estate agents may be reluctant to let them inside the building, though, so chances are they can only look from the outside.

If you're buying a lower cost property without seeing it first, especially a village house that's been empty for a while, it's possibly best to assume there will be some problems, maybe some big problems, and that quite probably some or all of the appliances shown in the photos don't work.

If you're spending a lot, then reading up on how to do your own building survey and having a very thorough look at the house with the agent's permission, armed with a good torch to look into dark lofts, a penknife to check for rotten beams, checking ceilings for signs of water damage, walking all the way around the building to check the roof, gutters, and walls, might be the way to go. It's also helpful it they'll switch the electricity on so you can test any included appliances and make sure they do work. An example - I was shown that the red light came on in the hot water system for my house when it was switched on, so it appeared to be working. But the piping was so gummed up with thirty years worth of gunk, that when I went to use it I discovered that no hot water came out when the hot tap was turned on!

My village house only cost 9,000 GBP, though, so though disappointing to find the roof leaked and most of the appliances didn't work, I should have expected it for a property in that price range. The agent made no claims that nay of the things pointed out in the listing actually worked!  But if I'd paid 49,000 GBP or more, I would have been correspondingly more unhappy with the issues. If the agent refuses to let you do a proper inspection, that's a red flag.

Only you can decide how much financial risk you're willing to take, buying a house that could need work. Even getting a full survey done in the UK is no guarantee. I know plenty of people who paid rather a lot for a survey in England only to discover after they moved in that there were big issues that the surveyor didn't pick up on.

How much is the property you're considering?

@philip Mckay thank you so much, very interesting. It's helpful to understand the background of the housing market as we are so new to this! I appreciate you taking the time to comment.

Hi @janemulberry this is so helpful, thank you so much!

The house we are looking at is £9500 and does clearly need cosmetic work, a kitchen fitted, bathroom fitted too, but I just am worried about anything structural that's going to cost us more than the house itself and then some! At that price, it seems impossible that it wouldn't require some major works, but we're new to the market so perhaps it isn't that unusual.

The description states the roof was replaced and I can see one interior wall that looks water damaged and crumbling, so I am assuming there was once a leak in the roof perhaps. The wall is actually a wall we'd like to knock through to combine two rooms, so we were hoping it isn't a supporting wall, but we can't know that until we view it and if there's water damage there, it makes us wonder where else it might be. We're so far from experts at this, so having a surveyor to check these thinsg out would be great. Even the expats you mentioned who do these checks would be helpful.

It's not much, but this is our first home as we can't afford anywhere in the UK and we'd like to keep costs down as much as reasonably possible.

Perhaps this is a silly question - but what would I search on ebay to find the people who offer these inspection services?

Thank you again!

When I found someone to look at a house for me, I found him under the property listings on ebay. That was a few years ago,, though, I don't know if he's still doing it and he only did the south east region. If you post a very specific post here saying you want someone to look at a house in whatever location it is and take photos, you might find someone who lives nearby who can help. But unless you have the keys to the house, without the agent's permission they may not be able to look inside. The guy I hired went and took extra photos of the outside of the house and the surroundings which helped me realise it wasn't the right place for me. But I didn't bother doing it with the place I'm now renovating to be my main home someday. Possibly a good thing, because it I had I wouldn't have bought it and I love the place and have wonderful neighbours.

It sounds as if you're actually quite aware of the possible issues with an old house in that price range. If the roof has genuinely been replaced and not just patched up, that's the biggest and most expensive job done. Replacing the roof on my £9k house cost almost £8k, a lot more than I expected! Worth it though as without a decent roof there's no point doing anything else. So if your house has a good roof all around already, that's a big expense saved. Maybe ask the agent for photos of the roof of the back section, if they didn't show it? Sometimes the front is redone but not the back. And agents don't always count that add on section for the kitchen and bathroom when describing a house's condition.

Some of the other things I've found with my house - as you've noticed, there's probably going to be water damage to walls and ceilings that will need to be replastered or covered over, but those are relatively inexpensive repairs. Windows are likely to be single glazed, not a problem if you'll be using the house as a summer holiday home but something likely to need doing before you spend a winter in the house. Safest to treat all walls as structural in these old houses, but getting your builder to put in a support beam will let you open up those rooms. In my house, some of the rooms had earth floors under the carpet. Unfortunately because of the leaky roof those floors are very bumpy!

But it's worth the work and the spend, though, if you like the house and the area. I estimate that by the time my house is done I will have spent a total of between £35,000 and 40,000, including the purchase price. But that will be spread out over four or five years until I can get a retirement visa to stay in Bulgaria long term. Once we're there, it will give us a quality of life far better than we have here. If the house is weatherproof and secure, you can take your time doing repairs and redecorating as your funds allow. Hopefully your place won't need as much spent on it as mine did. A big chunk of my expense was needing to get the roof and chimneys replaced as soon as possible.

Are you planning to move full-time? If so, make sure you're aware of the visa issues for Brits post-Brexit. It's not all that easy for non-EU passport holders  to get a resident visa. Without it we can only stay for 90 days per 180 days.

@janemulberry, I assume most of the work was done by builders / contractors? Do you mind listing the works done? So we can get a rough estimate for your area?

Thanks

@janemulberry thank you for such a helpful comment! I really appreciate it.

Okay, great idea - if we decide to go ahead with a viewing we'll definitely put out a post to see if anyone on here is able to inspect it as well, I'm not entirely confident we can trust ourselves to catch all the problems!

The water damage is my biggest concern - I have a history of bad health reactions to mould, so I don't want to have to be exposed to that for a long time during renovations.

I just double checked and the roof has been repaired and relaid, not replaced, so we may run into some issues there and need the roof redoing. Good to know your cost, thank you! Quite shocking a new roof is almost the same price as the house! I can see the roof in its entirety and it looks in pretty good shape, but I'm far from an expert and very aware pics don't tell the full story. I think viewing it (whether that's us or someone else) is going to give us a more accurate idea.

From what I can tell, the floors are all wood, so thankfully no mud to contend with!

We aren't planning for this to be a permanent base, we work remotely and travel Europe, so are looking for a place we can feel settled in and secure in for a few months of the year (90 days) as it can be a bit tiring always on the move! We're also hoping to put it on Airbnb when we're not around, so want it to be at a safe standard for guests of course.

Thank you so much for your help - honestly this has been so helpful. I really hope your renovation goes well and you enjoy many happy years of retirement there.

It sounds like you may have found a good one for the price, Jessica! If repair and relay was all that was needed, the roof may well be good enough. Mine was good in parts but a complicated shape, so with problems in a few different areas so it seemed worth the extra cost to get the whole thing redone. But if you can see it looks good from all angles, chances are it's fine.  Ideally, try to inspect during a rainstorm! There was a monster storm the first night I spent in my house so I saw straight away where the trouble spots were. The flashing around chimneys can fail and let water in, so check the interior walls where the chimneys are.

Mould is an interesting one, I'm also mould sensitive and yet have had no problems at the house despite the amount of water that's poured into it over the years. There's no sign of mould at all. Possibly because it's not insulated or sealed up like modern homes so the moisture evaporates out safely, also because it's not been lived in no cooking, showering, and breathing adding gallons of water every day. Good ventilation is the best way to avoid mould so I need to factor that in when renovating. We'll be using wood fires or electric for heating and cooking, not gas, so that's a big source of excess water vapour removed.

I hope you find the house is all you hoped it would be, and a lovely base to come home to after travelling.

@CarlS1986

This is General Toshevo area, so prices may be higher or lower elsewhere. Also, my Bulgarian neighbour helped and I probably got the Bulgarian price not the Brit price! It's still a work in progress but here's what I've spent so far:

• April/May 2023 Complete reroof of 65 M2 house with complicated hipped roof, two porches, three chimneys rebuilt, new guttering all round - 17,000 BGN. Really nice work, an excellent job.
• July 2023 Electrical rewire of back section of house including new circuit board, all new wire out to the back section, adding six new outlets, two new ceiling lights, and electric supply for water heater - 450 BGN. Fantastic value, fast and very professional electrician.
• August 2023 Replacement ceiling in kitchen, partially replaster walls where an 8" gap was left after roof height was raised in the reroof, and lay cement floor in the kitchen - 500 BGN This was okay in parts but the floor and ceiling are not well done and the next builder is redoing quite a bit of it!
• October 2023 (still in progress) - complete strip back and replaster of kitchen and bathroom walls,  make good the bodged kitchen floor and lay floor tiles, install a window in the bathroom, cement and tile bathroom floor, partially tile bathroom walls, install new toilet, shower, sink, hot water system. install bathroom ceiling, paint walls and ceiling where needed in kitchen and bathroom - 4500 leva, though I believe some additional materials are required so the final cost will be around 5,000 leva. Low labour cost because I'm not there to hassle the meister to do a quick job and they're fitting it in around other work. Because it's been such a warm dry autumn they're doing outside work and only working on mine when it's cold and wet. I expect come winter things will get moving faster.

There's plenty more work that needs doing. But that's enough for my first year! If I can end the year with a sound waterproof roof and a working bathroom, I'll feel I've achieved something.

Thank you so much for a break-down, It's nice to have an idea so if you end up getting a stupid price, I would know someone may be trying their luck.

If your going to spend money on a older house then the  very 1st thing is to get the roof water tight before you start other works under it.  Typically most older houses don't have bitumen felt under the tiles  and so as the tiles become porous or cracked they leak .. this isn't such a problem because many houses have concrete reinforced ceilings and the way Bulgarians look at it is that the water that does come in will just evaporate on the concrete ceiling below the tiles and not be a problem ..   

Make sure whoever does Ur roof pays particular attention to the ridge tiles because that will take a lot of stress and will be the place where the cement will erode..  I'm gonna buy a cheap drone so I can inspect my roof  each winter .. iv had my ridge repaired in samokov 3 times over the years ... Flashings around windows and chimneys are another area for inspection as they are typically made of zinc plated steel plate and usually fitted terribly  or rusty ..  my house in Samokov has whole trees as rafters you can even see where the branches were cut off lol .. things you take for granted in UK with our houses are often missing or  done badly..

I bought a brand new 3 story villa on the black sea in 2005 it looked fantastic and I instantly fell in love lol

But  as the years rolled by I started seeing strange things when I arrived there fir the summer holiday like water staines on the floor in our bedroom but no sign of water damage from the ceiling.. anyway I eventually realised what was the cause .. the builders had put the large  French door window frame    round the wrong way so the drain holes were inside the house lol  easily solved but  very annoying .. thank god for concrete ceilings   I'm pretty sure if it was wood and gypsum the ceiling below would have come down .. I found an MDF door that  accessed the sun terrace on top of the house .. yes an internal door being used externally .. uPVC now .. another tip is if you are replacing windows to uPVC don't buy the wood coloured ones the coating will start to come off eventually I have many friends on the black sea who have the same problem .. it's all down to the relentless hot sun .. I'm not complaining about the sun cos I love it .  If the have a continuous problem with damp in certain places on your single skin walls you will repair them hundreds it times but it always comes back year after year .  I don't have that problem now cuz I used natural stone tiles inside and out .. you can make a lovely feature with stone tiles and then use stone varnish to finish it off ..  you gotta think outside the box in Bulgaria ..  good luck with the reservations

@Jessica Duffin

Welcome to the forum, and good luck with your property search!

As others have advised, surveys don't seem to be much of a thing in Bulgaria, especially if it's a cash (i.e. no bank/mortgage) deal for an inexpensive house.

I think the logistics of doing formal surveys might be quite tricky, I don't know how I'd arrange that. If you're here in Bulgaria doing viewings, then you could take a friend (who knows a bit about construction) with you for a 2nd opinion.

Some of us (including me) have purchased a Bulgarian house based only on the pretty pictures on the internet. :-) But I don't think it's something I would recommend. If you can, it's helpful to see the house for yourself, especially as bigger problems (leaks and water ingress, structural/subsidence) are pretty easy to spot as large cracks or patches of damp. Water-damaged walls/ceilings are easy to spot in photos, but it's hard to differentiate between past damage (before repairs) and current damage. Whereas it's pretty easy on a viewing.

Aside from the condition of the property, there is its location and village to consider, and its distance from various amenities.

Cost-wise, some folks are great at sniffing out bargains, but I reckon that 10k-20k is about as cheap as it gets for a house that's basically livable (rather than falling down). But most will need significant work, including, potentially, roof, septic, new windows, heating/cooling, insulation, new electrics/plumbing, new bathroom, new kitchen. If it's partially renovated with an overhauled roof and UPVC windows, that's a good chunk of money saved. Bulgaria is cheap to buy... cheap to own (taxes, utilities)... but no longer cheap to renovate.

If you're on a budget (and especially if you want to buy remotely), your best bet is to go with very reputable agents, there are some around. I like BulgarianProperties as they are very large with listings all over Bulgaria, and they're very good with their property descriptions and photos/videos. They have had some great village houses, but they tend to have higher priced properties.

Ebay is very popular, and there are often English owners selling off their personal house (which is often a great option as it's already properly renovated). There are two pay-monthly sellers on Ebay who have sold lots of village houses to Brits, and they know what we're looking for... and they also know enough about property to sell structurally sound houses. They are BulgariaDirect (dot com) and Paul Hawtin/Emerge (bulgarianoverseasproperty dot com). A more recent agent is Yulson Homes, and they've also had some nice properties.

It might also be worth looking at IdealHomes (idealhomes-bg dot com) as they specialise in Veliko Tarnovo, which is a very popular region with expats. They usually have some interesting properties for 10k-20k.

Recently, I accidentally hit on a blog (pleasantplacesbulgaria dot com) by Brits up in my neck of the woods (Valley of the Roses / Balkan Mountains). I have no idea if they are still here, or still active, but it has a phone number so it's easy to try. The husband is a retired builder, and they offer survey-type assistance, at a very reasonable price. This might be an option for them to come with you to viewings, or give you recommendations after you buy something.

Long time ago when we bought our property we used an architect to do the surveyor work.

HI all,

Just to advise i am a retired uk surveyor having worked in the industry for over 30 yrs am over in Balchik happy  to help with building queries if i can and when time permits  as keeps me brain active lol. i cannot travel far tho as doing up our own shack and so many jobs its like the forth bridge never ending.

Take care all,

Rgds ozzy