I'm looking for a bit of advice.

I'm a first time buyer and I've seen a house I really like and I've put in a bid for it. I mentioned a few things I'd spotted whilst viewing it to a friend who is in the building trade and he suggested that I arrange a second viewing and take him along so he could give his professional opinion on whether there were any problems with the house that would need attention.

If I did this and he did spot a problem could I get back to the estate agent and lower my offer? Would lowering my offer be a mistake and make it much less likely that the seller would accept?

You have done nothing legaly binding at the moment and you have not said they have accepted your offer ether. If you have issues then raise then before you start spending money.
As for being less likely to accept your offer, that probably depends on if they have had a better one!

Yeah that's about what I thought. I suppose if we do find any problems with the house I'll have to decide whether saving a few thousand is worth the risk of losing the place.

Of course they've got to accept my offer first ;)

We viewed the house we have just bought twice before putting in our offer and twice again after our offer was accepted just to make sure we didn't miss anything major and to check out the area at different times of the day. Didn't find anything untoward and still havn't fortunately.

There's a to to get through before you get to the legally binding stage which happens when contracts have been exchanged.

When you make an offer you should say it is subject to surveys and searches just to make it clear that if anything untoward is found you may want to withdraw or renegotiate the price.

It is worth taking a trusted knowledgeable individual along if you don't know what you are looking at. Surveys are worth doing even though it may seem expensive for a full one. The surveyor goes over the property and hands you a huge report on the state of the place. That will give you a very good idea of what state the place is in and warn of any potential hazards.

Always get searches done. They take a time, but you can find out things like whether there's a mine running under the property or through the garden.

Regards

L.

It is worth taking a trusted knowledgeable individual along if you don't know what you are looking at. Surveys are worth doing even though it may seem expensive for a full one. The surveyor goes over the property and hands you a huge report on the state of the place. That will give you a very good idea of what state the place is in and warn of any potential hazards.

I'd definately agree with taking the trusted individual with you, a second opinion is worth a lot and may spot things you haven't seen. The 'trusted individual' may well spot something that means you want to withdraw without ever getting a surveyor involved.

I would counsel on involving the surveyor too soon, you need to be sure that the property is really the right one before shelling out a few hundred pounds on a survey. If you are going for a mortgage to purchase the property with the lender may well insist on a survey being done depending on the percentage of the loan.

I paid hundreds for a survey once which had a standard line in it which went 'we could not check the floor timbers owing to the floorcoverings in the property'. It was completely empty and all the timbers were clearly visible including the ground floor ones which you could see from above, and from below if you bothered to venture into the cellar!