AITA: buying a new house

[SailorBeware]

Hello, so I'm looking for some opinions as I'm dithering.

We live in an area where house prices have skyrocketed. We've been looking for ages but were always pipped at the post. For the last 18 months, every property has gone for more than the asking due to a lack of availability.

Anyway, our dream home came on the market and by some stroke of good fortune, we beat the 43 other offers (not kidding) and ended up offering £47k over asking (the next three below us were very, very close to what we offered. We were willing to pay that. The place is exactly what we were looking for size wise and location wise, but the cherry on the top is the garden. It's massive, south facing and completely secluded. Huge oaks and birches, gorgeous established beds, and goes on forever.

However very little work has been done since the 1980s. It's damp, the drive needs lowering as it is making the damp worse, the electrics have been done but are external and need chasing in, the bathroom is a vision with a steel bath, polystyrene ceiling tiles throughout and (drum roll please) an asbestos garage.

We still want the house. We knew there would be a lot of work and accepted the ceiling tiles and the bathroom. The electrics/heating/plumbing all work so we would deal with them initially but they would need changing.

But the asbestos garage? The damp. The driveway. We've had quotes and it's gonna come to at least £20k just for those alone.

Given that we've offered £47k over asking, do you think it would be cheeky to ask them to reduce the price by £20k? It's still £27k over asking. My husband says that's what he wants to do, but i'm unsure.

further info: it's a probate property so no-one is living there, it's being handled by an executor, the profits from the sale will be split between the remaining relatives and not needed to fund retirement homes or care/nursing homes.

YABU= ask to drop £20k
YANBU = that's a big drop

You can ask but let's face it, they can always refuse and move to the next buyer. So it's a risk.

I would imagine they’d say no. If they had a number of high offers why wouldn’t they? Also, it sounds like the kind of house where you should have expected to encounter some problems, and budgeted for that.

Which would you regret more - losing the house, or overpaying for it?

Just buy it. It’s not going to fall down so you can sort things out as you go along. You could ask for money off but the people below you may already have made their offer based on work needing to be done. Then it’s gone. And you e list your amazing house. You can change the house but you can’t change the location.

We've just moved into a house we had to go to best and final offers on. We paid more than 10% over the guide price (6 bed house in the SE so that's a lot of money) We didn't even do a survey, because whatever it threw up, we weren't going to ask for money off as they could just go to another bidder. I think in this market you have to decide whether you want it or not and if you do - all bets are off.

You can ask, they can say no and move to the next potential buyer.

I think given that the house obviously needed loads of work doing and still attracted that many offers they’ll be unlikely to negotiate a price drop.

If you’re having second thoughts you could just withdraw your offer?

If they had other offered £45k over the asking price why would they accept you trying to drop the price by £20k?

It's up to you, you can ask... But are you prepared for them to decline and go with one of the other buyers instead of you?

If I was in their shoes in such a sought after area I'd decline your offer and start looking to move onto another buyer, ideally one that won't try and renegotiate the price during the same.

I voted the wrong way round to your second post…

Last year I sold a house with similar issues. Buyer had a survey done and then tried to reduce the price due to dilapidated asbestos garage and damp in house. I point blank refused on the grounds that both were blatantly obvious to anyone looking round, so I figured their original offer would have taken those into account. I told them I wasn’t willing to reduce, they proceed ASAP with their original offer or I’d just put it back on the market. I’d had multiple offers at that price, so I was confident I’d get that much. It left a very sour taste in my mouth tbh.

Did you not look at the home report before putting in an offer or was it just that you didn't realise how much it would cost all in?

As others have said, you can offer less but I don't know why they would accept it if they had 40+ other offers and ones close to your offer, that would be crazy. A lot of people will buy houses like that that need a lot of work to do them up so the work needing done won't put others off the same way

Can you find the additional 47k if the mortgage company callers decide it’s not work more than asking price?

They'll say no. With a property that large there will be offers from businesses that know what they can turn around that had already got a clear idea before putting in an offer.

YABU. Also apparently not on the forum you think you are.

The key factor here IMO is it being a probate property. There is no urgency at all for the sellers, no family keen to move into a house they're excited about, nobody on their side keen to push this sale to you. I would be amazed if they agreed to drop the price. If they did I'd say their solicitor or estate agent had badly advised them. Sorry OP.

It would seem very unlikely that they would lower the price.

I wouldn't in their position and also wouldn't sell it to you at your original offer price as I would have lost trust in your ability to buy it

Are you somehow forgetting about all the other offers?

You could presumably see the damp, the state of the electrics and the dodgy garage when viewing the property.

If no work has been done since the 80s it’s obvious it’s going to cost a chunk of change to remediate and any offer should have taken that into account.

Your vendors had 43 other offers. They’re in no rush. If you want the house do no attempt to negotiate.

An asbestos garage in itself isn't dangerous- only if you start disturbing the fibres. Not a reason to knock money off in my opinion.
The damp is the pressing issue but with that much interest I'd imagine they'll offer the property to someone else rather than taking a price cut from you.
If you love it and can afford to sort the damp I wouldn't bother risking losing it. I do think people who offer well over to beat the competition and then try to reduce the price once accepted are cheeky (unless a survey reveals it's falling down).

I'd tell you to do one and just go with the second highest offer

In their shoes, the minute you suggested this I'd be expecting a further reduction after the survey and another one prior to exchange. If you were the only offer and they needed you it might work. Since they had a lot of interest? No.

As the comments above and double BU for not respecting this forum and AIBU!

You can try that. But I suspect the outcome would be that they’d say no thank you, mark you down as unreliable, and move on to the next buyer.

At that sort of mark up, I'm guessing it would cost you more to stall and risk waiting for the next perfect house.

Asbestos garage is probably just concrete fibre. Ours was.

Sorry but you've no chance.
It's a probate house so it's not like they're buying their own home and need to move they just want as much money out of the sale as possible.
They had 43 other interested parties and one other bidder who was close, they'll just go to them.
Look at it this way, if you lose it, prices are just going to remain high or possibly increase. Whatever you buy in the market you are looking in, you are going to have to offer way above asking (bitter experience from last year) so it May as well be this one.

@Lou98

Did you not look at the home report before putting in an offer or was it just that you didn't realise how much it would cost all in?

As others have said, you can offer less but I don't know why they would accept it if they had 40+ other offers and ones close to your offer, that would be crazy. A lot of people will buy houses like that that need a lot of work to do them up so the work needing done won't put others off the same way

The OP didn't mention they were in Scotland, so there wasn't necessarily a homebuyers report to see before making the offer.

As others have said OP, I wouldn't risk losing the house by dropping your offer. Especially as it's a probate property - the executors will be looking for the highest price possible and as they are not bound by a chain they have no reason not to just go to the next highest bidder.

These findings (damp, asbestos) came up from the results of the indepth survey we had. We're in SE. These things were not obvious or visible. We had no access to the garage at the time of viewing and the damp was not visible or malodorous.

Our offer was accepted back in August. We've had the valuation and mortgage accepted. Our buyer is now almost ready to go. We got the survey results around November and met the seller at the house just after. He walked us round pointing out all the faults and actually said he expected us to reduce our offer because of the issues. He also asked us if we could hold off till Feb because of some other issues he was having which could potentially cause issues with our buyer. I just think my husband is taking the piss expecting a £20k drop.