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.

@ConstanceL ah I didn't realise that was just in Scotland. I've only ever bought a house here and didn't even think about it being different in England!

@SailorBeware I'd say given that the valuation has been accepted the chances of getting the price lowered are zero.
We were in a very similar position buying our house (15 offers, we offered 28k over asking) and actually DID pay £2k less than we were
prepared to. But that was because the valuation came out below our offer because there were structural things needing doing. Anyone needing a mortgage would have faced the same problem so our seller continued with us.

It sounds like the seller doesn't really know how probate works tbh. And why would he? It's a minefield! The solicitors dealing with the estate are duty bound to get as much money as possible for anyone who is inheriting. So whether he thinks you're being overcharged is neither here nor there.
If you love the house I'd pay what you offered. I've never felt bad that we paid more. I've always just felt delighted we actually got it!

Our valuation was done online- they never even went to the house. But we think that's because we're not actuallyborrowing most of the money. We have a good deposit so only need 25% ltv.

I feel the same as you though. I want the house. I don't care about the issues. Hubby thinks that because these issues only came up with our survey, we are expected to knock him down.

If you’re a few months into the process you can ask
But if you’ve just started, they can easily move to another buyer from the loooong list.
I don’t think you can ask for the garage though, if you don’t disturb it, it’s fine. I think if the house is a certain age you could’ve assumed from the look of the garage that it’s asbestos when you made your offer.

Could you not tell there was damp when you looked around anyway? Smell or visually? How bad is it? - again if it’s that bad you could argue you knew about it when you made your offer. If it’s not that bad…does it really need fixing? (I would want it sorted too, but thinking from their perspective!)

I’d be tempted to just ask for half the cost of moving the driveway personally.

Ah just read your updates, I’d be annoyed if I was the seller and you got the results in November and only just officially asked now for a reduction.
Also if you can afford the 20k and it’s your dream house is it worth the risk?

Regardless of what you actually saw it would be entirely unrealistic to imagine that a house untouched for 40 years wouldn’t need fairly significant remediation.

That said, given your update you could try asking for a discount but couch it in terms of it being compensation for the further delay.

Only you know how much not losing the house is worth

Why didnt u ask for price reduction in Nov?

If its your dream house and you want a forever home, then id suck it up and not play games

Surely your survey alerted you to these issues before you offered?
An asbestos garage is not actually a big problem unless it is crumbling- so long as it is in tact you are at very little risk.
If I were the seller I would reject your reduced price and move to the next offer.

You should have had a structural survey not a valuation - the valuation is to show what the house is worth as it is right now - with these issues.

On the basis that they had 43 other people chasing for it I would say your chances are slim. They would just go back on the market. Prices have continued to rise since August too.

Our Victorian terrace house was 610 asking. Slight bidding war. We got an offer accepted at 629. Had the survey back and were not happy, settled at 625. It was a reasonable request. It’s worth asking but maybe don’t be too aggressive!

Actually wait I take it all back if you have been sitting on the survey for 2 months. YABU. Take the house as it is!

The seller said they expected you to ask for a reduction in November and you didn’t? Why the wait?

My late parents house a probate property is selling for 20k over the asking price
I spent around £1800 clearing the house and garden getting a gas and electric certificate and a key for the gates at the back
After the survey nothing major was found wrong they asked for 5k off for having to put the electrics inside as they just had casing on it and a tile was missing in the shower and one of the windows was difficult to shut
I said no as all of this was easy to see when they placed their offer and they had visited 3 times
They either stuck to the deal or it was going f back on the market
They are sticking with it

If the seller told you that they are expecting you to reduce your offer based on the issues they are aware of plus asked your to wait until the new year to do so…

I would contact them to meet to discuss it as per the last conversation you had. Then I would frame it as ‘these are the issues raised and the costs we’ve had to fix. We propose to leave the garage out of it* and would like to agree to meet in the middle on the rest. So we (seller & buyer) both cover c£10k of the costs which means a reduced purchase price of £xxx,xxx (£10k lower than your original offer)’

And take it from there. If they categorically say no you can decide if it’s worth it to you or they may negotiate a bit but it’s at least worth a conversation.

*as others have said, asbestos garages aren’t really a problem unless they’re damaged and they can be removed quite safely.

When I was helping my mum sell her house the buyer tried to get £6k knocked off and if we’d had other offers we’d have immediately told the buyer to do one. Because it immediately changed our view of them and from that moment we viewed them as flakey and not to be trusted. I think you’ll lose the property if you try to do this.

By the way if you want to ask AITA go to Reddit! But yes you are!

There is a home report prior to offer in Scotland.

You sound like you love the house. I wouldn’t risk losing it for 20k in the scenario you describe.

Re the drive needing lowering - can’t you just put in a french drain instead? If you want to replace the drive that is not the same as having to replace it.

Prices in the SE have only gone up since august. If you had to start looking again I bet everything has increased by more than 20k plus how much have you already spent on solicitors fees and full survey?

I wouldn’t risk it now if you love the house and are looking at it as a long term home.

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.

Why didn’t you, then?

I’d ask for a token reduction but £20K would be back on market territory, I’d imagine.

With 43 other offers, you're replaceable. Especially since it's empty and the owners have no need of a quick sale. If there's someone else out there willing to pay that amount despite the necessary work, then that's what the house is worth.

As a PP said: what would you regret more, losing the house or forking out the money? And will you get any more bang for your buck if you started searching again now?

You have my sympathy, though. It's awful.

I dont even think the issues brought up sound like they are emergency issues. It would surely have been ovbious in a house not done up since the 80s would have needed lots of things updating.
If the asbestos garage is in good shape, thats not an emergency is it. Its more dangerous to remove it surely? I think id maybe suggest that they pay for removal of the garage before you move in, but if you love the place then I think you need to be prepared to pay for these things. iT SOUnds really lovely

You're hugely unreasonable to flip the YABU from your OP question to your second post, so people might vote either way for either option. Why did you do that as it makes a total nonsense of the answers?

Anyway, very unreasonable to drop the price when you were in a competitive bid and the house owners are likely to drop you like a stone if you do that. I hope they do in fact, it's disgusting behaviour to change your bid after costing them time and money. Next time just work out what you can afford and only bid if you can afford to buy the property.

Given your update have a chat with the person you walked through with. See what they they think is reasonable given the survery. It is usual to modify an offer after survery, every buyer under you would do the same.

Given he set thetimescale and has already suggested an accommodation could be made meet him again, with the survey, and talk about it.