Dangerous Defects: Homes Under the Hammer’s Martin Roberts Shocked by Property Issues

Homes Under The Hammer host Martin Roberts was left shocked and concerned after spotting two dangerous problems with a property on the BBC show.

The TV star, 61, was looking around a semi-detached house which was up for auction at £115,000, assessing the situation before a buyer got their hands on it.

Although things seemed to start off well, they quickly took a downwards spiral when Martin headed upstairs.

He came to halt with a concerned expression on his face as something worrying caught his eye in the stairwell.

Puzzled, the presenter exclaimed: ‘Hang on a minute, before I get upstairs – that’s a bit of a worry. 

Homes Under The Hammer host Martin Roberts was left shocked and concerned after spotting two dangerous problems with a property on Thursday’s show

The TV star, 61, was looking around a semi-detached house which was up for auction at £115,000, assessing the situation before a buyer got their hands on it

Pointing at the ceiling, he revealed: ‘Loads of cracks on this wall. There’s a crack here that goes all the way across the ceiling there and down back there.

‘It’s on this end wall. That’s not good, that’s weird, I didn’t see anything on the way in. I’ll need to check that out.’

Shocked, Martin made his way back down the stairs to find out whether the cracks were visible on the outside of the property.

Back on the front garden, he looked up and remarked: ‘I mean, yeah I’m not surprised I didn’t see it when I first walked in because it’s very subtle.

He continued: ‘The only thing that concerns me is that here and there you have these manhole covers, so there is likely to be some kind of a drain linking those two.

‘It is suspicious that it’s exactly where this potential slight subsidence has occurred. So get somebody to check out those drains and make sure there isn’t any seepage from them.’

He insisted: ‘But to really put your mind at ease, get a structural surveyor in. They’ll probably put little things on the walls that monitor whether the crack is getting any worse.’

Things began to look up as the presenter said the rest of the property was ‘promising so far’ apart from the dangerous cracking issue.

Pointing at the ceiling, he revealed: ‘Loads of cracks on this wall. There’s a crack here that goes all the way across the ceiling there and down back there’

Unfortunately he soon stumbled across another issue that was impossible to ignore – asbestos.  

He approached the garage and explained: ‘There’s also a garage which is actually wider than the little driveway that leads to it. That’s not my main concern. The major concern is the roof.

‘That to me definitely looks like an asbestos roof so you need to have that taken away by a professional and specialist company.’

Near the end of the episode, viewers found out that the house was bought by a man called Tim, who forked out £116,000 and had a budget of £25,000 which he hoped to use to transform the space within six months.  

It comes just after Martin’s fellow presenter Tommy Walsh was left gobsmacked by a controversial feature he found during a recent property transformation.

The hilarious moment was dubbed a series ‘first’ on the BBC daytime programme and left the presenter lost for words.

In a recent episode of the show, the TV personality made his way around a three-bedroom semi-detached property in Hilgay – a village in Norfolk, which sits four miles south of Downham Market.

The star was faced with a very bizarrely placed ‘open plan’ shower, sitting right in the middle of the landing.

Visibly taken aback, the presenter remarked: ‘Oh! Now, that’s got to be a first for me, that is, open-plan showering.

‘I’ve never, ever seen a shower on a landing, all open to everyone. Not very private is it?’