@Karen Hodge, I hear you!! Sometimes I think the estate agent should carry quite a bit of the blame actually. If they do their job correctly like you see in the adds on TV, they should bring these discrepancies to the attention of the sellers, stand on their morals and say if you can't get it better than this, then you'll have to find someone else to sell your home!! I know you can't make everybody "house proud" but the saying "do unto others" springs to mind. I bet if these same people bought a house not up to scratch, "a current affair" would hear about it but they don't think it wrong to simply walk out on a house that isn't being left nicely for the next family!! I have some friends that recently sold a house in Essendon, Melb and whilst the buyers were back and forth selling their own home, my friends kept watering the plants and even did things like painted out the wardrobes because of the scuff marks made over time!! They cleaned the entire two storey house from top to bottom and finished by mopping the floors as they were exiting. The buyers were so taken by the entire home, they bought it with almost all the furniture that my friends had in it!!

When buying our renovator, the electrical inspector found the house had been earthed to the gas line instead of the water line. Plus other illegal wiring. The electrician would not leave the house until something else was rectified as well as the earth as the house at the time was rented. So glad we had that inspection as a few months after moving in we had a huge storm the house was hit by lightening then the high voltage lines fell across the house, we were home it was really scary but we had the whole place rewired before we moved in. Our neighbours behind said the house appeared to engulfed with a blue fireball. Our neighbours house did catch on fire. It would have been a different story for us if wiring was earthed to gas line.

Absolutely doable. Will cost you more however maybe worth it as you probably will not be happy with layout if you don't and this means $1000's of dollars wasted.,

this is one of those jobs that must be done properly but you may be able to help with the final price by asking for plumbers' quotes to include a discount for your labour to dig out all the tree roots and prepare trenches and backfill after the new pipes are installed, especially if you're lucky enough to have 12 months to do the work and start saving..there's not much else that can alter the cost of the plumbers' time and materials but also decide if you're planning any changes to the plumbing as this is the time to make them