To ask for a price reduction following house survey?

[User174099]

Hi,

We are buying a Victorian mid terrace property in England for £475,000. It needs work doing to modernise it, which we accepted upon making our offer. However some issues have come back like windows needing to be replaced and asbestos which we didn’t fully anticipate but can accept with an older property needing modernising, and therefore do not intend to dwell on this.

On the other hand, we have been told we need to urgently remove the cement render from the back of the house as it’s causing all sorts of damp problems internally and it is has blown with cracks. We have had the wall assessed by a masonry contractor who has done a survey for us and the quote is £13,500 to remove the render, re-render in lime and limewash. Our building surveyor advised this work needed completing as a priority and as soon as possible. This is not something we had anticipated.

Our building surveyor didn’t value our property but we feel this is something we might want to go back to the vendor about regarding the purchase price. We are wondering whether to ask for £13,000 off, or maybe half an ask for around £6000 off. I feel very uncomfortable doing this and was very unimpressed when our buyer asked us for £2000 off our house due to a leaning chimney and we told him no and that he could pull out if he wanted as we had a lot of interest. It’s just a lot of work we had not budgeted for and had hoped it would be more like £5000…

Two things:

1. Would you be heartbroken to lose it for £13,500? If the seller refused, would you walk away?
2. What will it be worth when renovations are finished vs the cost of the work?

I would do the sums - cost of house plus cost of renovations vs projected value. The house should have been priced to account for work needed. If the sums don’t add up, it’s overpriced so ask for a reduction. That’s not unreasonable.

If you’d be heartbroken to lose it then decide in advance how much you are prepared to pay for it and set that as your maximum. You should have some idea if people are queuing up to buy it at the same price or not and if you are risking annoying the seller so much that they will pull out.

Yes you can use the survey report to negotiate price down, as they'll have same problem with every other buyer.
There's modernising and work on an old house that you can see, general upkeep stuff and something unseen like this render issue on back wall

Discuss with estate agents to advise vendor of this. I would expect to get at least £10000 off the agreed offer price.

I say that as someone selling my old house, I wouldn't except money off for things seen when they put in offer- but have a built in £10,000 in price that I can move a little if someone I didn't know about comes up. Id be glad to know (but sad to lose money on my house sale)

Depends if the 475k was a very fair price or not.

Is that what similar properties in need of modernisation go for, or ones in a good state of repair.

Are you able to find out?

Sorry I meant there's a difference between stuff you can see and something urgent structural for house that only surveyor picked up. The latter is why you have building survey before you buy.

Legally, if they put it back on market, they have to disclose there was an issue with concrete render at back identified on previous survey.

I'd be more concerned about the asbestos removal than the render which you've had costed. And yes I would ask for a reduction.

I would ask for a reduction if the price of the house didn't already take this into account. They may say no of course

Presumably only if the OP shares the survey, and it’s been done by a proper chartered professional?

Asking because I genuinely don’t know, not saying you’re wrong.

I have had the survey done by a chartered surveyor and it was the full building survey. I have not shared it with vendor or estate agents.

I'd definitely ask for a full £13.5k reduction in price as the property is damaged. Does the £13.5k include painting etc afterwards? Bear in mind if there's been bad damp there could be other problems with the house you'll find later on.

We renegotiated years ago after a survey because the value given by the surveyors was lower and it affected the mortgage lending.

I think the £13.5K is just the start, I will have to get building regulations involved and they will likely make me take down all the plaster board on the internal wall, insulate with cork and replaster. However, in my opinion the house is priced very well and modernised would go for around £550,000. So I'm very torn.

If the house is priced very well and looked like it required updating on initial viewing then I wouldn’t ask for the money off. If the vendor has priced it fairly they will likely just put it back on the market.

A surveyor will always say the cement render needs removing and replacing with lime on those properties. They did on mine. It’s a professional standard. Doesn’t mean it’s a declaratory defect. And I wouldn’t accept a renegotiation - it’s just one of those things, and it doesn’t actually need doing, let alone urgently

So it’s already £75k cheaper than a modernised and presumably (largely) defect free one?

Why on earth then do you think they’ll give you a further £13.5k off?

We had a similar issue with render. It cost a lot more than £13,000. When the cement render came off there were all sorts of issues with the bricks underneath. Basically there had been nowhere foe water to evaporate off (which is why lime render is important) and the bricks were damaged.

I should add that our kitchen is a semi basement, which made the problems worse, and we needed a membrane on the inside as well.

All is fine now, but the cost was huge.

@StillSmallVoice what was the final cost (aside from the basement issues)?

When we sold our house the buyers survey identified some issues and the house was devalued as a result. Her mortgage company said they'd only lend the revalued amount so we were asked to reduce it to that. We weren't asked to consider any other amount.

I bought a 1960s house, I was told it had flat roofs redone recently and a bunch of other improv,ents.

my survey came back that the roofs had major defects and a whole bunch of other defects relating to their “improvement” works- surveyor actually said they either did it themselves badly or got cowboys in.

I wrote a letter with copies of the relevant “red” survey items that had come up, a copy of some of surveyors comments that he’d written and written estimates for that work.

I then stated the asking price I was willing to pay given that work was urgent and a defect and would need repairs immediately.

I sent to EA and pointed out that now they had been given copies of those defects they would have to declare to any other potential buyer.

The EA agreed to pass on, and then negotiated between us. I got about 75% of my estimated costs off asking price.

however, be warned, it took me a further 14 months to get the works started due to the lack of builders and trades. It has been a nightmare, and stressful. I am still 18 months later, waiting for works to be completed. In meantime the costs have gone up nearly triple. What discount I got form my vendors is touching only the sides. Whatever quotes you get now are not worth paper they’re written on by the time you get someone to actually do the work- especially if you have to wait for planning.

personally, I would stay clear of buying anything needing vital, expensive work that has to be done in next 2 years, and that you can’t do yourself.

If you really want it then I'd probably ask for a bit less off than the 13k (say 8/9k). From the sellers point of view, you are still possibly their best bet as you are offering some contribution.
At the full cost they may well think they may as well remarket.

It gives the impression of serious buyers trying to find a middle ground rather than chancers .

As others have said I think it’s quite standard for a surveyor so say render needs to be replaced to lime render.

We bought our first house, Victorian terrace, four years ago and this came up in the survey. We didn’t do anything to it. We sold it back in May and they got a full structural survey and they didn’t ask us for any money off and I assume it would’ve come up in their survey too.

I viewed a house with my dad who’s a structural engineer and he pointed out it had dry rot in the dinning room.

I made a reduced offer and stated my reasons why. The owner came back and said if I pay £5K over asking he’ll get it fixed.

I told him to get stuffed.

Sorry! was trying to create a thread!

Not sure how this is relevant to the thread or what you expect anyone to do…

You need to contact your dentist. My friend is a dental nurse at a private practice and she sometimes has to work the out of office emergency line and be on call. Surely you have the same service.

The condition of windows and the external render cracks were visible to the naked eye. (You, and other viewers, did not need a surveyor to tell you). So the vendors no doubt factored in those obvious repairs when pricing the property.

If they have other interested parties then trying to negotiate down the price is unlikely to work. Only you can decide how much that property is worth to YOU. Bear in mind that competitors may have more experience, and deeper pockets than you.

When buying run down properties, we'd be living in them as our family home while renovating, so all I care about is "are they safely habitable right now"... any obvious repairs improvements needed, can be done over years as and when funds allow.

I would be far more concerned about the asbestos report.
Removing and
disposing of
asbestos is a potentially very expensive
specialist job, not
for DIY.
It depends how much
asbestos there is, and where. Again, the vendors
may have factored that fault
in to the price.