When buying a house, would you hope to recoup the cost of the survey by finding ways to lower the asking price?

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We are currently selling our first house and buying a new one. We gotvthe standard home buyers survey, and it came up with a few niggling things, e.g. decor a little outdated in some rooms, a crack in one of the small interior panes of glass in the porch, but nothing major, so we are happy to proceed. Our buyers are going for the structural survey, which is fair enough as our house has been substantially renovated.We know that there will not be any nasty surprises as we have renovated the house to a very high standard.
However, when I spoke to my mum about this, she said that because the structural survey costs £750 the buyers will probably want to recoup that cost by using the survey as a reason to drop the asking price. For example, we know that a tile came off the roof two weeks ago in the bad weather. We are having it repaired next week at a cost of £40 (we couldn't get it repaired any sooner due to bad weather.)There will probably be a few other niggly things which we could have sorted out if we had more than 2 days notice of the survey, but that is another story.I guess my question is: would they be being cheeky fuckers if they recouped the cost of the survey by finding reasons to knock the price off the asking price, or are we being mugs for not lowering the asking price on our new house due to a cracked tile on the front of the house and a cracked pane of glass?

On our third attempted house purchase, and third homebuyers report. My OH is of the opinion that £500 on a hundreds of thousands house is really just small change if it gives you a heads up re problems.

I live in Scotland where the vendor pays for the Home report. Nevertheless last time we were looking at an older property we still paid for a full structural survey.

We offered a lower price for the house following the survey due to defects in the roof, the damp proofing and the electrics. The survey cost was irrelevant.

If you are spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on a house, plus legal fees and moving costs £500 is neither here nor there.

Good luck with the sale!

The homebuyer's report on the house we are buying came up with minutae such as "The chain on the ensuite sink plug was broken" and "there are large trees in the back garden which will require trimming regularly". My mother was suggesting that we should use this list of minor things as a reason for asking for a reduction on the price, in order to make back the money spent on the survey. I told her she was being ridiculous. She seemed to think that our buyers would do this, so we should too.
I am confident that there will be no nasty surprises from the survey, but it sounds like the survey is no insurance against the buyers being CF's. Let's hope I am not on here with a CF story next week. I also hope that when my DM sells her house next year I have convinced her that this sort of cheeky-fuckery is not normal.

Surveyors will flag up everything, if only to cover their own professional behinds. And also, that's what you're paying for too. Mine pointed out traffic noise. The house is on a busy road.

Ephemera such as gardening and other routine maintenance shouldn't form part of the negotiations as you'd have responsibility for them when you own the house.

Major repairs or defects not listed in the sale particulars can be used to argue reductions...if the price doesn't already reflect them or that property moves fast in that area.

For example: there are two properties on a street, both three bedroom semis constructed at a similar time. One is priced at 200k and the other is priced at 185k. Unless it's for a quick sale, you'd see at a glance that there may be a reason for the bargain.

There is no exact science for valuing homes once repairs are identified. It all comes down to what someone is willing to buy it for and whether the seller is being greedy or in a rush etc.

I'd take a step back from your mother's advice because she doesn't seem to get the bigger picture and if you take it, your sellers may be less than accommodating with you in other areas. As pps have said, why cheese someone off over 500 quid in a transaction many, many times that?

Definitely your mum who is being odd here!

The survey might throw up stuff like a whole new roof being needed or the boiler being dangerous, which could warrant a negotiation for a lower asking price if it's clear that these weren't already reflected in the valuation. But the actual cost of the survey? No way

We paid for a full strucural survey on our house as it was old victorian. It flagged up a few minor issues but nothing for us to worry about.
The day we moved in our removal people asked us what was going on with the floor in the front room. We checked and it was sinking in the middle! After a hasty call to the surveyors (part of the mortgage lenders) they came out to see and admitted that they'd failed to spot rotting joists under the floorboards.
The surveyors paid for all works to be remedied luckily.
Just be warned surveyors don't always get everything right!

Never heard of anyone who has done this and it simply wouldn’t occur to us. Fairly shitty behavuour and a bit daft because If everyone did it, you’d all still be paying for a survey.

Surveyors don't usually open up or excavate anything eg: lift floorboards, open up walls, get into the drainage etc.

Unless they have been given the means, instructions and permissions to do so (their professional indemnity insurance allowing).

They are not infallible nor have xray vision. BUT if they are Chartered and performing a full structural survey, are held to certain professional standards. So if a chartered surveyor misses / omits something and can be proved to be negligent, such as trouble's obviously sagging floor they can get done for the cost of those remedial works.

Our survey came back with loads of stuff that will need a bit of TLC but we kind of expected that with a period property so our offer had already reflected that. We just wanted to be sure that the house was liveable, safe and unlikely to need emergency repairs imminently. That’s cost of the survey was worth that peace of mind!

decor a little outdated in some rooms... you paid for someone to tell you that? If you couldn't tell that when you looked round then it obviously doesn't bother you.

Witchend - they would also comment if the decor was to a good standard too.

Our sellers had wallpapered before we put our offer in. When we moved in and I promptly removed the paper, there was extensive black mould and cracking.

So even if something looks freshly painted and wallpapered, they may be concealing something too.

Caveat emptor and all that. Just depressing to think we have more rights as a consumer when purchasing beans than when it comes to massive things like houses.