Our house purchase has just fallen through

[crapbarry]

unless the vendors can pull a full PRC certificate out of the bag, which they have so far refused to do [bangry], we can't get a mortgage on the property. [bsad]

so we're not only losing the house we wanted (it was perfect for us, absolutely perfect), we're losing solicitors fees, survey fees, mortgage fees, electrical survey fees. I feel a bit sick.

has anyone else been in this situation, and if so, what did you do? DH and I are both feeling wretched, and we're not sure where to go from here. [bsad]

This is for concrete homes, right? If you love the house and you think it is reasonably priced and you don't want to lose it why not offer to split the cost of a PRC cert with the owners? If you can get the EA on side to explain that they are going to have this problem time and time again if they want to sell, they might be willing to go ahead.

I lived in a concrete house but we sold before the mortgage lending criteria became so tough - it just took a visit from a specialist surveyor to say it was fine to satisfy the bank. I think that getting a PRC just means a surveyor/engineer drilling a couple of discreet holes and digging into the footings a bit to see that it has been made from a decent concrete mix and that it is stable - can't cost that much surely?

it costs ~ £3000. the vendors got an unrecognised surveyor in to do a cheaper survey which our lender is rejecting (unsurprisingly). and yes, it is a concrete home. it's such a pain! we're a bit worried that if we split the cost of the PRC cert and for some reason it can't be certified, we'll be throwing MORE money away, but will discuss the idea with DH. I did suggest (to him) that we up our offer, so in effect pay for half of the cert - so if we offer £1.5 K more for the house on the understanding that this certificate is produced, they will end up paying less than full price for the certification process. not sure if this is a normal way to approach the problem though.

I think that is a really good solution as that way you don't lose anything if the house can't be certified. If the vendors don't want to do that, then they are being arses and you will just have to walk away knowing that they can only sell, at a discount, to a cash buyer which will be some comfort even if it doesn't give you your money back.

at #3,000.