Roofing felt missing??

[supercatlady]

Selling late MILs 2 bed bungalow, built circa 1950s. She purchased 12 years ago - survey was fine.
Had an offer from a cash buyer which was £25k below the asking price. Estate agent said they may have priced it a bit high. Cash buyer so we settled at £20k below.
Buyer took his builder yesterday and they've told estate agent there is no roofing felt, newspaper instead and they'd like a further £5k off the asking price to remedy this.
Sounds dodgy to me - especially as buyer is likely to convert the loft.
We will probably have to get a builder in ourselves to check this out, but any ideas in the meantime?
Thanks

Not all rooves have felt - depends on the construction. Does your mum still have the survey and what does it say about the roof? There is of course no chance the builder is generating work for himself...which they might not realise.

We have no roofing felt under our 100 year old roof. It’s sound and does not let water in.
Roofs have to breathe, so felt under tiles is not always used.
5K sounds a lot anyway after a 20K reduction. How far along the process are you? They sound like ‘chippers’, the term used for people who chip away at the price until exchange and then ask for more off.
I’d hold my nerve and say no to any further reduction.

We had a house with no roofing felt. It was actually sold over the asking price and no deduction was asked for the roof situation

Is start saying no and I'd keep in on the market too.

Thanks everyone - we managed to find the survey from MIL purchase - roof sound - no felt but typical for the age of property.
My husband said the estate agent mentioned they'd known this guy for 10 years so staring to smell a rat and thinking of changing agents.
For now we've photographed the relevant page of the survey to send over. We will also get down to the property later to make sure they haven't dislodged any tiles.

We had accepted offer so sold STC currently. Conveyancer has just made a start on paperwork. Estate agent should know the area and these bungalows really well - as should the purchaser as I suspect he's a developer

Tell him to jog on re the additional price reduction for the roofing felt. It might be considered desirable (by some) but it really isn't essential, the roof does function without it, as you know yourself since the roof has performed all these years without it.

No felt on the roof of the house DS has just bought. Stone roof circa 1880. We know because we had to take the lat and plaster ceilings down. It’s absolutely fine.

My current house had no felt under the tiles when we bought it. Roof was sound, it's usual for an older house....never crossed my mind to ask for a discount.

The house isn't "missing" anything, it's not like the original builder forgot to felt it.

Oh and we felted ours when it was reroofed as did our neighbours at the same time. Neighbour has been plagued by condensation in the loft since and blames the felt!

Pisses me off no end when buyers start asking for discount because they'd like to do stuff to the property. It just doesn't work like that. Jog on.

Hmmm, roofs are fun for a grumpy.

We used to live in a 1930’s semi in London with a tile roof that was unlined. I.e. roof was only made of tiles and had done its job since built. The roof was fine if bloody cold in the winter leading the pipes to freeze in the bitter cold. To solve this I stapled builders paper into the rafters, killed off the draft and the frozen pipes in one hit.
I sounds rather like your MIL did the same with newspaper.

As the roof was old we eventually needed to replace tiles so re roofed it entirely. We were told by Building Control all new or replaced roofs must now have felt fitted. We therefore used a high tech air permeable felt (like Goretex in coats) and in 9 years next had no condensation.

My question is, can you tell if the paper wet or stained from water? If not then the roof is probably sound. I doubt I would be lowering the price.

Completely as an aside, I have come across newspapers used for many things in houses, especially under flooring. They are a terrible distraction because it is more interesting reading the old news and ads. rather than getting on with the job.