Tenants buying house have asked me to pay for investigations and repairs

[Wonderifitsme]

Have not sold a house before and have no-one to ask on this.

I moved abroad a couple of years ago and rented my (v nice) house to some nice tenants. They wanted to buy the place and I agreed, at a slightly lower price than the estate agent valuation range for the ease of having a secure sale etc (think valuation range 400-450, agreed 390).

they have had a survey, great, which has come up with an internal leak in the upstairs ensuite, possibly making a damp issue in floor. They have asked me if I am willing to pay for further investigation and for costs of repair.

Gut feeling is that this is not right. Surely costs of further investigations are borne by potential buyers and then you negotiate on price. Since I agreed a price at below 3 estate agents’ estimates I’m loath to renegotiate further. But are my instincts right? Tia

This would be an incredibly shitty thing to do!

They were never going to pay £390k if they offered £310k. After this they'll find another reason to a skd for discount and this will not be the easy sale you have discounted the price for. Just go to market.

In the meantime the tenants will have found elsewhere to rent, have moved out and the owner with have no income from the property until it is sold in a falling market.

If they had bought a house on the open market and then found the leak they would have to get it fixed.
It’s tricky because it’s still your house atm.
They are getting a discount , which is very generous. I’d be tempted to call their bluff and say that you’re going to put it on the market and try and sell it at the price it’s valued at. That may make them think twice maybe ? It doesn’t sound an expensive thing to get fixed. Plus once you’re a home owner you have to pay out for everything! They had better get used to it.

I do know that they have another house which they didn’t need to sell to buy mine

It's down to negotiating strength really

Can you tolerate a void period if you need to get them out then sell?

True both parties benefit.

You could always cover the cost of the investigations to start with and then decide how best to proceed. You could split the cost of the repairs given they will be saving on removal costs.

If you think its is undervalued just put back on the market

What ‘investigation’? Surely that’s way over the top. It could be just leaking washer. It can’t be that bad or the tenants would have noticed it. Just get a plumber in to fix it.

My first thought was ‘you are a landlord and your property has a leak? Fix it!’
But then it seems they have negotiated hard to bring down the selling price. So morally I think you should fix it, but you would not be unreasonable now to add that fix to the purchase price (or leave it to the new buyers).

👆👆👆this

This. If you were selling an empty house and a prospective buyer found this issue, you’d fix it surely? Maybe do the repair but they have to cover the cost of making good after (if you’re feeling particularly mean).

You can just say no. You've marketed it for a lower price than the valuations and it's perfectly okay to say the house is being offered exactly as seen. But on the other hand you do have a ready-made sale with no agent's fees in the bag, so consider whether it's worth losing that for the cost of what they are asking. Perhaps agree to meet them halfway.

If you sold to others and the same thing came up in a survey, it is likely that the buyers would be likely to try and negotiate a discount.

Whether you agree or not is your shout.

The EA valuation is meaningless so I wouldn’t place any weight on that at all.

if they couldn’t have known about the leak then it not an unreasonable request. You can choose to say no if you wish and sell your house on the open market, but I strongly suspect you’ll regret this.

OP, sending a plummer to have a look and sort a leaking tap (because that is what it sounds like now that you gave more detail) is going to be less than £200. Most will have a look and quote for free.
I would not change the cupboards, for example. Or any other fancy thing that they may want. I would list the house, if they push it further fixing a leaking tap.

And once the leak is fixed, list the house on the open market for 60k more

They have asked me if I am willing to pay for further investigation and for costs of repair.

Regardless of selling it or not you have an active leak which is causing damp, just get it fixed you are a landlord. Do you really want to risk losing your easy buyers over this is a tough market?

At the moment it’s still your house.

I can’t believe you’ve got a leak ( albeit a small one at present) and don’t want to pay to at least get it investigated. It could be a worsening problem that if left unchecked, will cause expensive damage. You are potentially allowing a problem with your own house get worse because you don’t see why you should pay to find out what’s going on.

The tenant/potential buyer request was completely reasonable.

This. Fix it. The sale is good for them because they get a discount, but it’s also good for you because you avoid the potentially long process of having it on the open market, managing viewings etc.

They aren't sitting tenants. Sitting tenants are people you can't evict. She can evict them and then sell the house.

These people are themselves landlords, presumably, as they own another house. They understand the score and they are taking the piss, since their first offer was £140,000 below the market value obtained from 3 estate agent quotes.

It's a buyer's market at the moment. Properties are sitting unsold with no viewings for 12-18 months. You are lucky to have a buyer. Will you even have to pay EA fees selling to them? Fix your leak.

It's entirely up to you. You're not obligated to get it fixed, you can tell them it's up to them.
But I would think a bit carefully about whether you really want to lose this sale. You have a buyer with no chain who wants to buy your house. You've got yourself a pretty easy sale.
Don't be fooled into thinking you'll easily get more money if you go on the open market. You might, you might not, But you also will probably find that any other buyer will play much more hard ball on this issue.
You might easily end up in a chain which can drag your sale process on for much longer, You don't know that you will get more money. Estate Agents frequently over estimate what a house is worth - just look at the number of houses for sale on Rightmove that have been reduced since originally being put up for sale.
It's all about what you want. Is sorting this issue out worth it to you to get the sale finalised and get your money. Or would you rather push back. They might still want the house badly enough anyway and accept that. Or they might pull out and you need to go on the open market.
There's no right or wrong answer. Either way has pros and cons.

Two things

1. are you willing to lose this sale and put house on open market (may get more money, will cost more in time and the hassle of moving them out)
2. have you said to them 'you already have a huge discount on my expected asking price - if I incur additional costs I am likely to go back to open market'

But in the end run, if you do go back to the open market you are going to have to repair the leak ... This might all be drama over £1000.

Fix the leak OP. No one is going to buy a house that has an active leak in it. I don’t understand why you’re not leaping to fix it?

The price you agreed to sell at was based on there not being a problem like an active leak.

In my mind that’s different to a survey picking up on something that might become a problem further down the line, like an old roof, which is clear to the buyers anyway and will know it needs replacing within 10 years. The leak is something that is an issue now and needs fixing now.

While the house is still yours, I would see it as your responsibility to fix it. I would do it in a flash if it were mine (and I did fix a couple of immediate issues that were picked up on the survey in my house when I sold, as did the people who I bought mine from).

Once the leak is fixed, you can decide whether to proceed with these buyers, or evict and put up on open market with the higher price.