Any experience of window lintel fitting?

[Beakyok]

Hi
We are looking at buying a house which was built approximately in the early 1970s and the survey has come back with issues where the original wooden framed windows have been replaced with upvc ones as there don't seem to be any external lintels in the windows! People have assured us that fitting lintels into the windows won't be a big job or cost but I've just had the first quote back and at £400 + VAT per window (there are 12 in total!) that does seem a huge amount to me. Has anyone else had experience of this and what did it cost? TIA

We had this done on one window for the same reasons, just looked up the estimate which was £960+VAT (good builder in SE).

They have to basically take out some brick work, and potentially the window, whilst making sure the rest of the brickwork doesn’t collapse, then add lintel, replace bricks and replaster. It’s not major but not a quick job. Is it definitely necessary for all windows? We only had one where the brickwork above had moved, I doubt there were lintels above the rest of the windows but it didn’t seem to be a problem.

Have you considered asking the current owner to reduce the price to cover some of the cost?

We had this problem , no external lintels and once the original windows were swapped to uvpc , lintels needed to be put in. I think we paid £150ish a window , that was for stone look a like.

Thanks for the replies. All those suggestions are good...we are in the process of getting quotes to try to negotiate with the vendor but it's such hard work getting written quotes! I originally thought that we'd have to do all the windows but I'm thinking maybe just the ground floor ones as they would have a greater weight on them. There's a big difference between 150 and 900 though!

When I bought my house th survey came back with issues about th lack of lintels (mainly in bold and red!). I planned to get them sorted as soon as I moved in but in the end I didn’t, and over the last four years have had them added as I replaced windows/ had work done on the house etc. Ie my point is, maybe you might need/ want new windows anyway and can have them put in then.