Survey results- who pays?

[CharlieBrown65]

We have had an offer accepted on a house that was significantly higher than the asking price. The survey has come back and has highlighted about £3000 worth of repairs that need to be done "in the imminent future." I don't want to write what in case it's outing. These repairs were not obvious to us when viewing the property. So my question is what happens next? Who pays? Can we ask for some money off the house? We are FTB so definitely don't have £3000 lying around for repairs. We don't want to lose it as it's absolutely gorgeous! Any help would be great 🙂

You can make an adjusted offer, but if others were interested they might turn you down.

I wouldn't worry about £3k worth of repairs. All houses require maintenance and upkeep.

My dd was in this situation. She offered a revised price based on the cost of the repairs, vendors counter offered and they agreed on each ‘paying’ half towards the repairs, so the offer was reduced by that amount.
Don’t panic; £3000 isn’t very much, so it doesn’t sound like it’s a new roof or full retire! Most jobs can be done as and when rather than immediately.

Like anything else, it's up to negotiation.

You can present the findings and say you would like a discount. The seller may agree. They may say no, the price of the house already reflects any work required (which may or may not be true). Often there will be a happy medium between the two of you depending on how urgent these repairs really are - surveys are often very loosely worded.

You could also ask the vendors to get the work remedied but this is usually seen as a very bad idea as they will of course want it done as cheaply as possible!

Surveys deliberately present worst possible case. First off is there honestly anything major? You can offer lower but be prepared to lose the house if they have other offers so he polite. Usually £3,000 worth of repairs is a lot less in reality and you'd only expect to get maybe half off. So you could well be quibbling over a grand.

All surveys highlight things. And I can promise you it so t be outing if you post them.

For £3k and you don't want to lose the house, I'd suck it up. Its absolute peanuts

I think if you had to go significantly higher than asking price to get the house, then the vendors are in a stronger position than you are, so I would be wary of jeopardising the sale by asking for a reduction now.

There’s no rules about this - it’s up for negotiation.

Surveyors do err on the side of caution - they don’t want to be sued for not alerting you to potential problems. Unless it’s something hazardous, you don’t really need to do all the work straight away.

Something similar happened to us when we were selling our house. We offered to take the cost of the repairs off the selling price but the buyers wanted us to have them done before they moved in. This involved taking down a wall and having it damp treated. It was a pain in the arse but we wanted them to buy.

Depends what the work is.
My survey showed up £5k worth of repairs to the exterior walls and roof so the sellers got the work done before exchange.
It also showed various issues inside the property which are my responsibility to fix at some point, it just helps me know what needs doing.

I'd say £3000 is a pretty "clean" survey. Presumably you offered over asking price because you needed to to get it. I wouldn't play games for the sale of £3000.

What value has the surveyor put on it?

It would be expected that anything other than a brand new house has some bits that need doing.

It needs new windows in several rooms as they've blown and several new lintels as they are broken/damaged and causing pressure on the surrounding walls. Our offer was a lot higher than the other offers from what we can gather but we don't want to risk losing it! It also highlighted asbestos but have decided to just leave that and skim over it so we aren't factoring that into the money required.

Every survey ever done throws up repairs, it’s how surveyors cover their arses

As pp said, if you’ve had to go over asking, it’s a desirable house that will sell very quickly if the vendor wants to put it back on the market.

So you probably need to suck it up, get a builders opinion on how quickly the work really needs to be done, and work out how to save for it

But it’s part of the joys of home ownership. You are never that long away from an unexpected bill
£3k isn’t that far off what it would cost to get a boiler replaced if it suddenly failed, or to get a few windows replaced if they rotted
Sadly you just have to half brace yourself for these costs to arise from time to time

Ironically we had actually offered more but in a bizarre turn of events the EA persuaded us to lower the offer and use their solicitors as they were concerned it wouldn't be valued high enough. I think it sounds like we'll just have to try and get on with it and hope the windows don't blow in 😂

Just cause windows have blown doesn't mean they need replacing imminently. We had blown windows for over a year before we got around to replacing, doesn't stop them working

Blown windows aren't a huge deal, they just look unsightly and lose a bit of heat. If the frames are ok you can just replace the glass. I agree that 3k on a survey where they're looking for every little fault isn't bad.

3K sounds pretty low to deal with windows if you have to sort the lintels as well. Did you get a quote from a builder/window company, or is this just the surveyor's estimate?
We got a blown window just before we put ours on the market, so we had it sorted ourselves. A blown window isn't a big deal- we bought a place with blown patio doors, and they are not noticeable most of the time- presumably you didn't see them when you viewed, so can't be too bad. That's really a maintenance thing. We plan to replace the doors completely shortly for other reasons, so won;t bother replacing the glass. TBH it could wait a lot longer without it being even annoying. Lintels and walls- now that's a different matter, I'd want a quote or two for sorting them out rather than a surveyor's estimate. As for the asbestos, it depends where and what sort it is.

The £3000 is just from what we found online ourselves. Asbestos is in artex ceilings so we are planning on just paying for that to be skimmed over. The lintels seem to be the most expensive thing and will involve the most work! Not sure if we should be expected to foot the bill for them all seeing as they're already causing issues 😫

3K is nothing and I wouldn't worry or reduce offer - particularly if there was lots of competition.

We recently brought and although it was clear some work needed doing survey put it at just shy of 20k for the essential stuff, and there was plenty of non essential stuff highlighted too.

Granted it's a large ish house but it's reasonably modern (90's).

Houses are expensive and require you to budget continually and save for rainy days / issues / maintenance etc. It's normal to feel overwhelmed but it's a very small amount really.

Our current house has artex, not tested for asbestos yet. The reason you can't knock money off for it is because it's absolutely fine to live with, it's only dangerous if disturbed.
Have you had a builder look at the lintels as that will help you decide what to do - if a big job that does need doing immediately then you can negotiate with the vendor.

@CharlieBrown65

The £3000 is just from what we found online ourselves. Asbestos is in artex ceilings so we are planning on just paying for that to be skimmed over. The lintels seem to be the most expensive thing and will involve the most work! Not sure if we should be expected to foot the bill for them all seeing as they're already causing issues 😫

The asbestos in the artex should be fine if skimmed, so that's OK. Did they actually test for it anyway? not all artex had it, IIRC. I think I would get a quote for the lintels from a builder or a window firm who could deal with them, though. Just so you can plan with peace of mind.