To ask for positive stories about selling with Japanese knotweed

[Fredthefrog]

Our neighbour has just had a sale fall through due to Japanese knotweed. It was treated over 5 years ago and we have a guarantee on the removal work but this is worrying me a lot as were hoping to sell our flat soon and the market is poor anyway. Anyone else successfully sold their place after knotweed was found? Did you have to sell for less? How much of a problem was it? Thanks

vimeo.com/10028613

Listen to this talk

And look at this website

www.cabi.org/japaneseknotweedalliance/current-control-methods/

I sold a property with Japanese knotweed this year. We had it treated with a guarantee and a very detailed report about it (it wasn’t a lot- just a few stems).
We asked the agents to tell everyone upfront and we had no issues selling because of it or any reductions.
I was terrified it would all fall through having read loads of horror stories online but it couldn’t have been a smoother sale!

This has the grading information used by surveyors for JKW and how to report to banks/customers etc

www.rics.org/Global/Japanese_Knotweed_and_residential_property_1st_edition_PGguidance_2012.pdf

Guarantees are usually 5/10/15 year depending on the company used. Is it possible that the guarantee has expired or is close to expiring?

user1471508896 if the guarantee had expired and there was no new resurgence then there is no obligation on the legal form to declare the past presence of it.

OP is it also your garden?

The is everyone. I'll checkout that link. The work was done in 2012 with a10year guarantee.

There is a thing about this on Radio 4 right now.

Currently selling (ie going through the legal stuff). Not really an issue. It was first found and treated 6 years ago & still under guarantee. Firm called back to retreat. We are in Scotland and therefore subject to home report and it was disclosed in there. So any potential purchaser should have known about it. Actually it's not in our garden but very close to boundary. Had several offers so obviously didn't put them off!

Exactly what IceCream said - found out last year, got the treatment and certificate sorted, sold this year. I did all the viewings and told everyone who came round so we were very upfront.

Sale did fall through with first buyers but not due to knotweed, and we found second buyer within weeks.

We got lots of questions and had to show all the documentation repeatedly, which made me a paranoid wreck, but I'm typing this in my lovely new, hopefully knotweed-free, house.

Don't worry 😀

Does it come up on the survey?

I ask because, although I have heard of it, and know that it is "hard to get rid of," I - perhaps naively - would not consider it a massive problem and it wouldn't stop me buying a house.

There was articles recently about it not being as invasive and damaging as once thought, so there might be a change in attitude, shortly.

We were in a bit of bind with selling. Small stand of knotweed, almost exactly 7m from the house. DH had treated it himself with glyphosphate over several years and there had been no sign of it for 3 years. Honestly, had the upstairs neighbour not known about it, we would have just not said anything about, but as he did, we had to declare it. However, seeing as there was no knotweed, and we had treated it ourselves, we couldn't get a mortgage-backed guarantee on it because... there was nothing to treat!

Luckily, we found a buyer who was a property developer and a cash buyer and was unbothered by it because he understood that the idea that JK can damage houses structurally is bullshit. Indeed, has now been proved by extensive research:www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/4262/japanese_knotweed-not_such_a_knotty_problem

May not be much help to you if selling imminently, but I know some people who are experts in JK field and RICS is going to be reviewing its guidance in light of this. Quite a few experts want to push for lenders to stop making an issue out of knotweed (though obviously the JK control businesses are not keen!)

Thanks everyone. It did come up on our survey when we bought but as it had been treated and there was a 10 yesr guarntee we went ahead. I was just wondering if we had been naive. Feeling a bit better. I wonder if the neighbour hadn't mentioned it and when it popped up on the survey the buyers freaked. Sounds like the best bet is to be open and make sure the guarantee is clear plus checking no new growth is appearing.

I'll never understand how JK came to be such a Thing. I can understand if it's left to run rampant for dozens of years it can indeed be a bastard if someone doesn't clear and builds a house on top of it. However it is relatively easy to get rid of and doesn't spread as some bamboos do, doesn't kill nearby plants like rhododendron, and is more easily got rid of than marestail and bindweed.

Anyone know what time that R4 programme was on this morning?

Interesting...

Where I live, bindweed is endemic. Despite that, it does not have to be declared. I just pisses me off to no end.

Bindweed causes much more hardship than JK, and is far harder to eradicate.

Sisyphus You try marestail. One of the oldest plants on God's earth for a reason. You would be well named trying to get rid of it.

Sounds horrendous, crosstalk

I have come to the point that I pay my youngest per pail of bindweed she brings me. She has become quite the savvy "weeder"

We discovered our next door neighbour had knotweed in his garden when our estate agent spotted it doing the valuation. Thinking no one would buy it with it there we paid £1700 for a treatment programme to get rid of it. We sold the house within 7 weeks of putting the house on the market. It went to a cash buyer (landlord) who couldn't give a monkeys about the knotweed!

We bought a house with knotweed, not fully treated either. However it was very far away from the house so didn't really bother us, we've treated it this year, and it's only grown about 4 inches high, so think we're nearly there!

Just listened to the You and Yours talk.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06h0wrx about a third of a way in.

Apparently this all stemmed from an EA casual advice to RICS about JK and how pernicious it could be and the 7m rule was plucked out of the air.

It's now a £166m industry with people like Environet charging 2000£ to eradicate tiny areas and guarantee them.

However, a spokesman from Environet talked from a site where the company was digging up the rhizomes from a huge stand in Essex where a developer was planning to build (I did shudder when he said he put the soil back - as any fule no a tiny piece of any rhizome plant loves going back) because clearly if there is a huge stand, it will break through.

However the recent University of Leeds study indicated that normally Japanese K rhizomes don't interfere with existing buildings or walls - they simply creep around it. Buddleia in their examples were far more dangerous because it's a strong woody plant that will break up patios etc if allowed to seed, which it does with vigour.

I wouldn't buy on a modern development with a JK history in case they hadn't been assiduous enough at removing, unless they were insured up to the eyeballs. I would however buy a lovely house with JK if people had taken steps to treat it. It is a lovely plant BTW - which is why the Victorians imported it for parks and huge private gardens - but when it flowers it attracts rather too many flies as well as bees.