Ceiling – Does this appear to be asbestos

As a certified home inspector I will give you some more specific advice from a Buyer's point of view. If the inspector suspected asbestos, then this warning should be taken seriously. At this point in the house buying negotiations, it would be wise to insist the "Seller" have the material sampled by a licensed tech and tested by a certified lab with a copy of the results given to you before proceeding to a closing. If the tests do come back positive for asbestos, get a quote from a licensed asbestos remediator to remove it, and a quote to replace the ceiling with some safe material such as drywall. I would recommend asking that the total amount of both of these projects be adjusted from the selling price.

Under no circumstances would I advise one of my customers to proceed further into the purchase until this issue is resolved. If positive for asbestos, this could be an expensive fix and definitely not a DIY project under any circumstances.

What I ended up doing was putting up batons on the ceiling and plasterboard over the top. We did this with the other wall which was questionable too.

Benefits here are that the finish is much better once finished, and it's decidedly less plastering than doing the entire wall.

The cost was likely higher than if we had plastered, but the end result was much better.

If we had decided to plaster over, the stipple paper would have come up relatively easily with a scraper and some elbow grease.