Reduction in offer price for House

[Weightypenguin]

Hello!

Long story short, I am in the process of buying a house. When we viewed it, we asked the obvious questions around gutters, roof, boilers and if there are any known issues or previous surveys that highlighted serious risks to the agent, they said no and we followed that up with an email to them where in writing they said no. When we viewed the house we were told: boiler was recently serviced and not to turn any lights on (red flag and that should have gotten alarm bells ringing).

We made an offer, had the survey done and it flagged the roof as an issue, list as long as my arm of defects. But also mentioned that the boiler was faulty and electricity is dangerous. Had a specialist electrician produce a report and he confirmed it is dangerous, failed the safety and said downstairs lights don’t work.

Agent insists lights do work, which is a lie. One of them came to the house with me a second time and tried to turn them on and failed. When i mentioned the survey results, she now tells me that the seller has always said the wiring is a relic and belongs in a museum. None of this was mentioned to us until we did the survey. When I told her that her boss refused to let us turn the lights on, she says it’s standard practice when viewing property. A lie I know as I’ve visited close to 50 properties before this one.

I want to know am I unreasonable in asking for a reduction in price to remedy the issues identified?

TL:DR - estate agent lied about defects of the house I’m buying, paid for survey results that prove I was lied to, am I being unreasonable to request a price reduction?

The estate agents aren't qualified to tell you about the safety or condition of anything in the house. They have walked around the house a few times and that is all - they don't know what works and what doesn't, why would they? I don't know why you would ask them and expect a reliable answer. They are trying to sell you the house after all. It's up to you as buyers to satisfy yourself with the condition of the house.

There is nothing stopping you re-negotiating the price you are willing to pay, or pulling out entirely if necessary.

Totally get that, I know the agents can only tell you the bare minimum as they aren’t experts. It’s more the fact that they knew there was issues with the house and we asked do they or the vendor know of any serious issues and I find it hard to believe that the previous people in the process never discussed the electrics, which has been flagged as a serious risk. But you’re right, we will be asking for a reduction. Thanks.

So, they are bound to tell you of any known defects. There’s plenty of estate agents being sued for failing to disclose materials facts that should have been mentioned to prospective buyers (Google £32m house infested with moths) I don’t claim estate agents are experts but what I do think is that they should have told the truth, as they are meant to, when it came to asking about known defects.

I would honestly walk away from this transaction. How can you trust anything in the TA6 if they’ve lied about so much!?
Of course you won’t pay asking price for a property in such a bad state of disrepair. At best you should be significantly reducing your offer, but I would absolutely walk away.
If you have a lender involved, they will conduct their own assessments and likely down value the property based on its current state.
My concern with offering a reduced price, is the EA and seller have already shown their hand as untrustworthy. You could get further along in the process, spend more ££ and they demand the price is raised. Personally these aren’t people I’d be doing business with.

I don't think I would reduce my offer so much as I would pull out of the purchase altogether tbh

How would the agents know about the defects?

The other buyers may have only had a basic valuation survey and not a full survey and the other buyers might not have shared information.

You're getting worked up for no reason.

You have made an offer which has been accepted.
You now have a detailed survey to support your revised offer. The seller may accept reject or negotiate.
You either buy the house or walk away.

You want that house regardless of the work so I'm not sure why you are angry.

Ask for the reduction and see what happens. You need the agent on your side. They are the go people between you and the house you want. They want to sell to you so they get paid.

That feels like a stretch on the described version of events.
The EA specifically advised not to turn on the lights. And electrician then certified the electrics as dangerous and the lights as not working.
Clearly the EA was aware there was a defect, and omitted to follow through with an explanation of why the lights should not be switched on. They intended to mislead OP which isn’t acting in good faith.

Absolutely negotiate - the circumstances have completely changed.

And definitely go for 100% of the cost - this isn't the time to be 'nice' they've tried to con you! Why on earth should you pay for it.

So, they are bound to tell you of any known defects. There’s plenty of estate agents being sued for failing to disclose materials facts that should have been mentioned to prospective buyers (Google £32m house infested with moths)

In this case, it was the seller and property developer rather than the estate agent which was sued. An estate agent's job is simply to market a property on behalf of the seller and if you read the small print, it's all ass covering; eg only take floor plan measurements as a guide so people don't order carpets etc based on them and sue them for them being too small etc. It seems like the seller omitted certain information during the solicitor searches which is why the buyers were able to pursue legal action in the moth case.

I think faulty electrics and roof and guttering issues would fall under 'buyer beware' during the legal checks, so the onus would be on you to make sure you're happy with them. They're all fairly common things you'd expect may not be up to code if you're buying an older house. I know when we bought our house, the roof wasn't actually attached properly, the electrics had been wired to the wrong trip switches and the boiler had a part installed backwards which made it unsafe (and that had been installed within the past couple of years by a gas safe engineer). All part of the joys of home ownership!

if you dont have a renovation budget I wouldn’t do it.

You do realise its a high chance that everything will need redoing because once you have to start pulling walls apart to rewire that includes new plastering, new tiling, kitchen, bathroom, flooring!

Basically completely everything.

It’s worth doing if that was what you wanted to do. But thats years whilst your living in it. It’s soul destroyingly messy, stressful, decision fatigue and expensive.

But you’re buying a house that is old and needs renovation. You would factor in roof, windows, electrics, bathrooms kitchen, heating and plumbing. You know the house is old and needs new electrics, just not the extent to how bad. You are already planning on living elsewhere and getting the work done, there is nothing to negotiate.

You can of course give it a go.

If you’re buying a new house or a house that has been recently renovated and priced as such you are perfectly within your rights to ask a reduction if you find out the electrics are unsafe.

You're buying a wreck and getting a wreck.

I think you might need to calm down 😂 where am I angry? 🤣. Are you the estate agent? 🤣

I think you haven’t read my post, which is probably why you’re making an uniformed comment. Whilst I agree, you only know what you know, the agents knew it was defective and dangerous, they disclosed this after we made an offer that was accepted and had done a survey. Do you see the difference? They knew information, they had an obligation legally to disclose this.

Walk away.
You're too nice to buy a house from liars.

Thank you - we have a small budget to make the house habitable. With some back up money for nasty surprises. But this is just an additional set of work that goes over our small back up money pot. I’ll see what the seller says and if they refuse then we will walk away.

Depending on the level of survey you had done could you not make a claim against the surveyors for missing so many things?

I think you’ve not really read my post have you? The offer we made factored a lot of things such as modernising the house, what wasn’t factored was dangerous electrics that we were told not to turn on etc. Not every house needs new windows, boilers or electrics. You’ve not seen the house, you don’t know what it needs or how old it is yet you’ve felt the need to make a general statement that is factually wrong 😂

I don’t disagree, which is why I’m glad I’ve done my due diligence and will go back for a reduction. I just think knowingly withholding pertinent information that has the potential to cause a fire isn’t right.

Thanks!

Plenty of people reduce their offer when a full survey has been done. That's completely normal. The person selling can then decide whether to accept the offer or not.
You need to reduce your offer by 100% of the costs to remedy everything that is wrong with it and bear in mind that there will likely be a lot of extra costs on top of that.
If you don't have a lot of money for renovations you would be better off pulling out of this altogether.
Dropping the offer by only 1% doesn't sound enough for everything that is wrong with it.
I think you sound too nice/too unsure of yourself and you could end up with a lot of financial problems trying to bring this place up to a habitable standard.

It’s not a bungalow in East Riding of Yorkshire is it?

I read the bit that said it was old and needed renovation, plus that someone old had been living there and assumed it was a wreck. Wiring need replacing every 25 years, boilers 10-15, windows 20 years ish so I do think unless it’s less then 25 years old or has been well looked after or recently renovated you’ll need to expect all this to be done.

The EA is full of shit though, I’ll give you that.

Give negotiation a go. The family will be looking to shift it. Is it priced fairly? Housing market is slow so you can definitely try.

I just think knowingly withholding pertinent information that has the potential to cause a fire isn’t right.

I'm not sure how the seller/EA can be expected to know it's likely to cause a fire unless they're a qualified electrician. You can look at a fusebox as a lay person and recognise that it's an old style one (use google lens on your phone to get an estimate of it's age) and that indicates the electrics are likely to need attention. I've been told plenty of BS by so called 'expert' tradesmen over the years, so I would take any previous reports done with a grain of salt if I've never been in contact with the person carrying them out. Unless they've told you the house was rewired last year or something like that?

Walk Away.

My advice would be to walk away from this. It's a nightmare and you don't have the money or the experience either to negotiate a price or to cope with whatever else you are going to find.

If you do choose to stick with it despite the agent's lies and the dangerous condition of the property, you need to switch your mentality completely, from novice buyer partner's 'nice' and your anxious supplicant stance of whether to 'ask' for a minimal reduction to hard headed tough customer who knows the reality that this place is a money pit, probably even more than you know about already, a headache for the agent and owner and that they need someone to take it off their hands for whatever they can get, preferably someone soft who makes the most common inexperienced timid buyer's mistake of offering too much.

You hold the cards and need to play them hard; firmly state your demand for a massive reduction, that it is not worth more, would cost a fortune to repair and update at today's building / materials and tradesmen's prices and that you couldn't possibly risk shelling out more than it would take to put it right, even with the things you know about, which they have already lied to you about, never mind the unknown other things you may find - or you will walk away.

Leave your offer on the table and see what happens. Whatever you do, do not settle for nibbling around the edges of a reduction because it would feel impolite to be hard and pushy for a more realistic and necessary risk-avoiding reduction.

It is very common to reduce an offer after a survey and as those defects sound very substantial and you didn't know about them when you put you offer in. I think it would be fair if your offer was a lot smaller than your original one if you still want the house as those issues will be expensive to sort out. Wbey house I have bought has said the roof needs replacing because I have bought old houses and they have been fine for years but you will have to sort the electrics and plumbing immediately.