Can a mortgage be reduced / delayed due to survey issues?

[CatAndHisKit]

Have had a long and stressful process selling my house due to buyer dragging his feet - they bought as a cash buyer than months later needed a mortgage.
I have some issues with damp in cellar - had an expensive repair a while ago which fixed it mostly (only gets worse with a lor of rain but not in actual house) but it did affect parts of the timber (proportionately small part) which ideally need to be replaceed / treated but I couldn't afford it back then.

Buyer is an investor and he saw this and his builder friend has advised him to buy the house - it's great value house for a BTL, large and very dry generally apart from cellar.
So now after waiting for all the mortgage // searches, the bank asked for specialist survey which of course confirms there are issues and the surveyor told me (when here) that they basically want to know the cost of repairs. The repairs aer not urgent but hesays need to be done within a year ideally.

I'm now hugely worried that not only the buyer wil be asking for discount after wasting months of my time which has hit my finances, and also he got a discount originally as a cash buyer, I most of all worry that the bank won't give the full amount or WORSE, as surveyor said, they sometimes ask to fix the issues before giving mortgage.

But how the heck could that be done if buyer hasn't bought it yet and even if I could reduce the price (which is really bad but not impossible) , I couldn't poss pay for the repair just before selling. I assume it's a few thousand.
What does normally happen in these cases? thanks!

Our lender attempted to put a retention on the mortgage when we were in your buyers position.

Yes we had this when buying our current house. Our lender says if we proceeded they would withhold a proportion of the mortgage until we had the ancient asbestos ridden roof replaced. We had to do this within six months and send proof.

Asdf just atttempted? So how did you deal with it - sounds like they've given the mortgage in the end - and did it take long for you to convince them?

Bobby ah ok! Do you mean they let you buy but with this condition, to deal with asbeatos within 6 mnths? That's really not too bad. Have they first tried to get you to ask the vendor to deal with it?

Yes they basically said fine as long as you did it. We could have asked the vendor but we were up against another buyer so thought it would be easier to buy then replace the roof ourselves. I've heard since it happens quite often.

So sorry to read this, I suffered similarly, be prepared. After the sale I found out the buyer kept on chipping chipping at the price because he'd actually bought TWO houses, and he travels between the two in his new BMW. Originally the buyer got his mortgage survey, to borrow £330K, and they valued the house at £0, saying they wanted a damp and timber specialist to visit and report back on the 'woodworm' (I knew it was all dead) and the 'damp' - which was because the builder hadn't used lime plaster.

I paid for the report at £300 and his mortgage company threw it out as useless for a period house.

The buyer then offered me the option of my doing £50K worth of renovation works involving reroofing and replacing all the ground floor boards - which his mortgage company would 'inspect' the works and if satisfactory lend him £330K - or he'd buy it as it was for £285K. Originally I'd had the house valued at £600K fully renovated, it was a horrible experience and I withdrew from the sale.

@CatAndHisKit

I phoned up and said their surveyor was a shyster, offered to increase the deposit to cover the retention which they knew we could afford to do, and made clear our own independent structural surgery had come to very different conclusions.

We were putting down 25%, could afford to increase that to 50% and the bank knew it. Their surveyor was pushing for the property care association who are a well proven con.

The entire phonecall took less than ten minutes, but I suspect our case was regarded as very low risk due to both loan to value and affordability. We borrowed less than half the sum offered to us.

Salome oh gosh, what a nightmare! have you sold it to someone else? And was the damp and woodworm in the house?
Mine is in cellar only apart from couple of small section of a damp wall in utility. So it's not unusual for period houses but obviously needs doing at some point. Yours just were unscrupulous. In my case there is an issue but not urgent and fixable - price of the sale reflects that (and he's saving on stamp on top). Same thing that he owns several BTLs already and has a lot of income already from that. So when he looked and saw the cellar he knew it wasn't anything too scary, but it's the bank i'm worried about as this will push him to ask for discount for sure (was hoping he might not if buying for cash as he hasn't so far).

Bobby but was it a surprise or did you know the roof was a problem? Hopefull your initial offer reflected the work.

Asdf very dodgy - hope you left a review online (or threatened to), can't believe they are allowed to do this. Yours was adifferent from my situatoin as I do know there is an issue, but it 's fixable and I hope they'll offer to do it the way Bobby had.

We knew it would have to be done but hadn't planned to do it so immediately. Once we were told we had to, we reduced our offer to reflect the cost and the vendors were happy to accept a bit less rather than have to do it themselves. We'd already spent money on the survey etc by this stage and wanted to carry on.

@CatAndHisKit I had had enough of this bully and went to auction. I'd had my own survey and knew £200K needed spending on the house, but this developer was out for blood. I remember my EA saying 'but the beetles, the beetles' - I felt she was working for him, not me. I knew I didn't have 'beetles' as I'd had my own survey carried out, I knew what needed doing. Unfortunately he offered the most at auction, and I let it go. I have to drive past on my way to the supermarket, I can hardly believe he's cut all my beautiful trees down. He was there yesterday, shredding and burning them, a remarkably ignorant man.

Salome oh God, what a horrid expeience all round AND you then had to drive past - he was determined though! Did he pay more via auction, or same as he offered you intially?

Bobby did you split hte cost with vendor? Presumably he knew about the issue and told you when you were viewing/offering? But maybe didn't know the extent of the work. Or did he not know and was happy to pay fulll amount?
I defiitely don't want to contribute as he saw the issue and so has his builder mate, I've spent already on repair before but also gave him a good discount as he was supposed to be cash - I've really lost money by not moving for 6 months+ while waiting for him (and still now waiting). And where I'm looking prices shot up in the last two months - nightmare. But at best, I may discount a couple of thousand.
You may have been a good buyer an dfast moving so vwndor has dicounted.

There are a few options that may happen here. Working as an estate I've come across it more than a number of times. They will either put a retention on the mortgage to say works need to be done before they will lend, they will downvalue the property and you'll have to renegotiate price or they will refuse to lend in which case you'd be back to square one.

If you have to renegotiate never say you'll get the work done if you have to split the cost take it off the house price (unless of course the work needs to be done before mortgage co will lend)

Most BTL lenders will want the property to be habitable so as long as it is then it should be okay.

Keeping my fingers crossed for you CatAndHisKit,.

I don't recommend auctions to anyone unless they are absolutely desperate for a quick sale, like me. Buyer paid me less at £275K - I accepted because I'd had 33 viewings for the auction, and was very worried the roof was going to go if we had another Storm Dennis type storm, that was a bad bad night for me. I had put a reserve of £315K and got bids on the day for £200K, and £235K. The next day the auctioneers approached all viewers, and one person offered £240K and £275K from the buyer. I hadn't really taken the cost of VAT on board - auction fees were a whopping £6,600 plus the solicitor at £1300. I feel lucky to be sitting in this bungalow with a bit left in the bank for emergencies, rather than worrying about getting hypothermia/the roof blowing off/windows coming in at the station.

Good luck!