To buy a house with asbestos

[BigFishLittleFishy]

Help! Been searching for a house that I can renovate and make my own to get on the property ladder, and finally found one in my price range but it has some asbestos in the ceilings - would it be better to get the seller to remove it and fix the ceiling or offer a lower price and buy as is and get the asbestos professionally removed seeing as I’m going to be renovating anyway?

If it’s artex you can remove that yourself. Or you can overboard them. There’s no legal requirement that you have to use a licensed company for that. If I was selling the house, I wouldn’t remove it.

If it’s artex just cover it up with new boards and reskim. If it’s sheet asbestos in a garage or similar removal is fairly straightforward

Hi,
Many houses had artex finishes on walls and ceilings in the 80s. If the seller hasn't taken action while they lived there, I can't imagine they would remove and replace asbestos ceilings when selling or drop the price to absorb your projected costs.

Since you're planning to renovate the property you could make telephone enquiries with local companies for removal or boarding quotes to give you an estimate of the cost. Then you can decide if the cost is within your reno budget and make an offer or continue your property search.

I wouldn't be prepared to do something like that as the seller. It's something you can sort out after you've bought it, perhaps before moving in if you have anywhere else to go for a few days.
It's up to the seller whether they accept less for it. That will just depend on demand for the house and whether they can afford to.

Depends on the type ?

How do you know if it has Asbestos? you cannot tell visually.

I wouldn't touch a house with asbestos.
We found it 6 months after moving into our house in 1996,
Cost £12k to remove almost 30 years ago, and we had to move out for 2 weeks.
We sued the surveyor and won but it was a stressful 2 years.

My advice would be either don't buy or get an expert to chk the type of asbestos and how prevalent it is.

What kind of asbestos was it?

Because we just had artex with asbestos removed from a 4 bedroom house, and the ceiling reinstated and plastered, for about £9k. And we only had to be out for 2 days for the actual removal. Moving the furniture was a pain in the arse though.
We are renovating and knocking walls down so couldn’t just overboard and leave, so thought we might as well do the whole house.

Enormous difference between licensed asbestos removals and artex removal. I wouldn’t buy a house with notifiable ACMs in (I’m assuming you did) but I wouldn’t bat an eyelid at artex. Im an asbestos surveyor and analyst as well, so I know what removal entails.

Honestly just about any house that existed during the 20th century is likely to contain some asbestos somewhere. I've never lived anywhere that didn't have something I knew or suspected to contain asbestos.

At least in this instance you know where it is and can take suitable precautions to avoid creating and inhaling dust from the ceilings.

@SquashPenguin has the answer.

You'll be hard pressed to find a house in UK housing stock (especially a renovation project) that doesn't contain asbestos or suspected asbestos. It's common and not a legitimate reason to lower an offer.