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Original poster

Structural survey has destroyed my sale and my lovely house

218 replies

Rosser · 16/03/2022 06:24

I live in a lovely mid terrace ex council house in a sought after area. I sold in jan to a FTB, I turned down higher bids as I thought a FTB would be quickest and we didn’t want to lose the house we were hoping to purchase. The FTB apparently lives on this road in rented and loves it and wants to stay here. It’s a long road 320 houses so I don’t know who it is. We were also FTB when we brought 12 years ago so it felt right.

We are only moving because my Mum is coming to live with us. It’s a lovely house but it has no room to extend.

FTB has had a full structural survey which brought back loads of issues but all are totally normal for one of these houses.

They boiler is 10 years old but has been serviced every year and is in good working order. But the engineer has suggested they might want to change it for longevity. Same with electrics, which we had partially rewired (to regs) and are totally fine.

Gaps in the loft party wall apparently make my roof liable to collapse. All of these terraces have the same gaps and it’s no job to brick them up if you wish.

We removed a wall to make a kitchen diner (with a structural engineer, a steel, building regs) and apparently that could potentially cause movement upstairs in the long term. Again, nearly every house on the road will have done it as we’ve got tiny galley kitchens otherwise.

They’ve pointed out every single hairline crack that have been here as long as we have. Again, every house has them or has been freshly plastered or is covered in textured wallpaper. We ran out of money when decorating so didn’t manage to plaster every room. They’ve said our one squeaky floorboard could possibly mean an issue with the joists. Again, it’s been squeaky as long as we’ve been here.

Long story short FTB are now running a mile, we’ve lost our onwards purchase and we have to declare issues with the previous survey although there is nothing actually wrong with the house. The FTB is making a big mistake and I do feel bad for them as I’d probably do the same but the whole situation is ridiculous.

Anyone empathise or offer any words of advice. I’m so worried we won’t be able to sell without a massive price reduction now and our onwards purchase is dependent on the sale price. The valuation was ok. Just the survey.

OP posts:
implantreplace · 18/03/2022 10:33

@Helloevans3

It’s just a matter of sticking with it and with your price. Sold a house where the surveyor said the roof wanted doing. The whole roof and they reduced the offer by 12% to cover cost of sorting roof. Managed to sell it for for the right price but it did take a few more months. 20 years later the same roof is still in place with no repairs. The stress that surveyor caused was so unnecessary.
How do you know the buyer hasn’t undertaken repairs?
FrankieStein403 · 18/03/2022 10:46

if they miss something and it turns out to be a prob they can be sued

No they can't - read their ts & cs carefully - you'll find it's all about protecting them not you - based on standard rics templates - so it's general.

Had full structural on last property - surveyor completely missed 12" wide hole in kitchen floor caused by water damage - vendors has vinyl floor and had positioned small table across hole.

Full structural is only to give you a list of possibles - and Google will do that just as well.

mamabear715 · 18/03/2022 11:18

@FrankieStein403
Absolutely! Folk just need their senses - does it smell of damp? Does the roof (or whatever) look dodgy? Will this window frame sink in due to rot if I press on it?
It's not difficult.

implantreplace · 18/03/2022 11:37

[quote mamabear715]@FrankieStein403
Absolutely! Folk just need their senses - does it smell of damp? Does the roof (or whatever) look dodgy? Will this window frame sink in due to rot if I press on it?
It's not difficult.[/quote]
Grin

implantreplace · 18/03/2022 11:38

When I was spending £650k - I needed a bit more than a sniff and a glance

Kennykenkencat · 18/03/2022 11:42

@middlingnot

I don't expect surveyors to lie but don't understand why some of them exaggerate, sow seeds of doubt with words like 'potential' and over state the smallest of issues without context.

I had a battle once with a buyer over a poorly worded alarmist survey which their solicitor ran with. It's understandable to want to know key concerns but frankly it misrepresented the property and caused a lot of trouble.

Years ago I had to have a survey for a beautiful early Edwardian flat that took up the whole of the ground floor of a double fronted detached house. It was up for auction and I had to be quick getting our finances in place. The surveyor they sent became obsessed with a tree in the garden, not even close to the house. Apparently the flat was worth £0 as it “could” have settlement issues caused by the tree.

I think surveyors do it to cover their own backsides incase they miss something. However it just comes across as they don’t know what they are doing and really anyone could do their job if all you have to do Is list all the things that a house could have wrong with it then phrase it with Could or Potentially at the beginning.

WWTD2020 · 18/03/2022 11:57

Tbh surveyors, like any profession, can be shit.
I have a terrace house too and one that came here made an enormous fuss about a redundant flue possibly causing damp. The flue he was on about was next doors!!! He didn’t look at or attempt to understand the location of things in the house (you can see where our chimneys go through the walls in the attic) just meh, flue, can’t see it coming out anywhere therefore it’s a priblem.

Kennykenkencat · 18/03/2022 11:57

[quote mamabear715]@Kennykenkencat are you me? :-)
We said pretty much the same![/quote]
Normally I get flamed when I say I won’t sell to ftb’s

My last house was a 4 bed detached house in an almost rural setting on the edge of London.
One of our viewers were a couple who were FTBs who turned their noses up at the place. They said they were after something with many more bedrooms and proceeded to describe the large mansion that was situated at the end of the road.
Only issue was their budget matched my 6 figure sale price and not the 8 figure price tag the large house had last sold for.

Blossomtoes · 18/03/2022 11:59

How do you know the buyer hasn’t undertaken repairs?

It’s pretty obvious when a roof’s being repaired, there’s scaffolding and a roof replacement takes a couple of weeks. If you live locally you’d see it being done. And a new roof would be visually obvious.

implantreplace · 18/03/2022 12:16

@Blossomtoes

How do you know the buyer hasn’t undertaken repairs?

It’s pretty obvious when a roof’s being repaired, there’s scaffolding and a roof replacement takes a couple of weeks. If you live locally you’d see it being done. And a new roof would be visually obvious.

Not necessarily

Reason I ask is that I’m having a patch done…. And it involves a roofer on a ladder on the garden for half a day

They would be doing patch repairs, which is what I’ve done over the years. Still have issues but didn’t want full cost and hassle of complete roof replacement in one go

ukborn · 19/03/2022 16:42

Those are minor issues snd also the surveyor was being a ridiculous. The whole point of building regs is to make sure any work is structurally sound, lofts of a certain age were often open along terraces, all houses have cracks, if a boiler works it works.
Not sure why you have to 'declare' anything - there's nothing to declare. You may address the loft situation. Just remarket.

Original poster
Rosser · 20/03/2022 18:21

Wow, loads of activity since I last checked! Thanks all of those wishing me well with the resale.

They came back late Fri with ‘renegotiation’ of a very precise figure in the region of 10% of purchase price for new roof, floor joists and boards upstairs, mains wired smoke alarms, a new boiler and bricking up the loft. None of which has been proven to need to be done, or in my opinion actually needs to be done, apart from the loft which I’ve already got someone coming to do for next to nothing next week.

I have told them where to go, I honestly don’t think they ever planned on paying what they offered (asking price), they just wanted it off the market so others couldn’t see it. We have been played! They just figured we’d be too far into our purchase to pull out.

Nervous FTB or dickheads? I’m inclined to go with the latter to be quite honest!

OP posts:
NoSquirrels · 20/03/2022 18:54

Well done, OP! Hope you get a boatload of better offers in shortly.

Nervous FTB or dickheads?
Either way they’ll have learned a valuable lesson. The estate agent isn’t going to want to recommend them to another vendor either - when we sold our last property we got 4 asking price offers and 2 offers over. Estate agent strongly recommended we turn down the highest bidder as they’d pulled out of a previous purchase at a late stage for autopsy reasons.

NoSquirrels · 20/03/2022 18:56

autopsy = spurious Grin

Blossomtoes · 20/03/2022 18:58

I think they’re dickheads too. Let us know when you’ve sold it to some realistic buyers @Rosser.

FurierTransform · 20/03/2022 19:07

Just remarket it ASAP and get another buyer. First buyers loss if they want to worry about non problems.

HaggisBurger · 20/03/2022 19:21

Call their bluff and they might just exchange as is

Original poster
Rosser · 20/03/2022 19:34

We’ve not heard back from them yet since I said no renegotiations on Friday. Estate agent said they’d asked for the weekend to think. She was also pissed off at them. She said this kind of thing happens a lot but this is the most ridiculous survey and price reductions she’s ever come across.

OP posts:
Blossomtoes · 20/03/2022 19:48

I wouldn’t sell to them at all. They’ll probably try to gazunder the day before exchange like my FTB did. I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them.

HaggisBurger · 21/03/2022 20:17

@Rosser did they come back today after their nice big think?

SucculentChalice · 21/03/2022 21:45

@Rosser

Wow, loads of activity since I last checked! Thanks all of those wishing me well with the resale.

They came back late Fri with ‘renegotiation’ of a very precise figure in the region of 10% of purchase price for new roof, floor joists and boards upstairs, mains wired smoke alarms, a new boiler and bricking up the loft. None of which has been proven to need to be done, or in my opinion actually needs to be done, apart from the loft which I’ve already got someone coming to do for next to nothing next week.

I have told them where to go, I honestly don’t think they ever planned on paying what they offered (asking price), they just wanted it off the market so others couldn’t see it. We have been played! They just figured we’d be too far into our purchase to pull out.

Nervous FTB or dickheads? I’m inclined to go with the latter to be quite honest!

They're trying to pull a fast one!

Why don't they just buy a new build if they want everything new and guaranteed?

Utter timewasters.

Original poster
Rosser · 22/03/2022 05:36

I’m up early to clean for the open day!!!

Original ‘buyer’ hasn’t replied to the estate agents email which politely explains why we can’t and won’t accept 10% less than the agreed purchase price. I think they’re gone. I hope they’re kicking themselves.

Estate agent showed round one person (not a FTB) yesterday evening who has offered slightly over asking. We have 6 viewings today, 2 weds and 3 sat. Hopefully a few offers in and we will make a decision over the weekend.

I have a feeling our onward purchase will still fall through if we end up with someone with a big chain so we will have to take everything into consideration but I’m feeling a lot more pragmatic about that now. There will be something else for us an yes we’ve lost a grand or so in fees but that’s par for the course.

Thanks for the support!

OP posts:
FTEngineerM · 22/03/2022 06:01

Great news @Rosser fingers crossed you get a few more today and then you can choose the best fit. After ours went back on (after buyer pulled out about not having building regs cert for 40yo beam) it sold that day for 2% more than the first time🥳.

It’s a rollercoaster but definitely happens.

Twiglets1 · 22/03/2022 06:26

@Rosser

I’m up early to clean for the open day!!!

Original ‘buyer’ hasn’t replied to the estate agents email which politely explains why we can’t and won’t accept 10% less than the agreed purchase price. I think they’re gone. I hope they’re kicking themselves.

Estate agent showed round one person (not a FTB) yesterday evening who has offered slightly over asking. We have 6 viewings today, 2 weds and 3 sat. Hopefully a few offers in and we will make a decision over the weekend.

I have a feeling our onward purchase will still fall through if we end up with someone with a big chain so we will have to take everything into consideration but I’m feeling a lot more pragmatic about that now. There will be something else for us an yes we’ve lost a grand or so in fees but that’s par for the course.

Thanks for the support!

Good Luck with the Open Day and hope you get a better offer than theirs!
PegasusReturns · 22/03/2022 06:39

Good luck - this seems to be part of an attitude which is particularly prevalent in FTBs: a desperate need to get a “bargain”, by whatever means necessary.

I hope things proceed more smoothly from now.

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