Try and renegotiate or no? Possible garage flat roof issue on survey

[KimGa]

So we just received our full structural survey back on the property we are hopefully purchasing. It is surprisingly ok considering it’s a 1930s property. The only ‘urgent’ issue is that it doesn’t have smoke alarms which will be easy and inexpensive for us to add.

In the next category of issues - not urgent but will likely need attention - is the fact that the flat double garage roof looks like it may not be weatherproof as there are signs that it might leak. I guess it was hard for the surveyor to confirm given the lack of rain at the moment.

We intend to convert the garage into a home office in future so will definitely need it to be watertight. I find the fact that the roof will need looking at unsurprising and something that we will deal with when we go about converting it. Dh wants to try and get money knocked off for this. What do you think?

We have paid significantly over asking to beat the 9 others who wanted this house - the sellers are so happy with our offer they have agreed to stay with family and break the chain so we can get in by the date we need it (for school application).

I don’t want to jeopardise that. I think as it’s not been listed as an urgent issue on the survey it’s not something that’s appropriate to try and renegotiate over - our long term plans for the garage aren’t their problem.

I also don’t really know how to go about getting an investigation/price on it. Local roofing companies say they charge £200 for a quote if you don’t own the property yet. I think I’d rather wait and get a quote for free once we’re in…but I guess if we pay out and they quote £3000 (for example) and then we split the cost with the seller it will have been worth it. What would you do?

No this is not something you can ask for a reduction for. Its a secondary "cover your arse" comment. So a garage roof leaks, surprise. It won't cost £3k to fix. Say it costs £1,500 which is what I've just paid including VAT for a new roof it's not really worth pissing off the vendors. You're going to want a better roof for home office than standard garage roof so you can't ask them to cover that cost. So no, don't do it.

So there are 9 other people who would also like to buy this house?? LOL, go ahead. They’ll tell you to stuff it, go to the next buyer and offer it to them if they can meet your offer. If I was in their position I’d think you were deranged for asking for money off for something that ‘might’ be needed. If you really want this house you say please, thank you, and get their signatures on the dotted line and get them out of the house asap because they hold all the cards.

Good lord no. It’s non urgent, you are intending to do renovations to the thing anyway because you want it as something it is currently not. 8 other people offered on the house. If you came to me to ask for money off for something as non urgent and minor as this I wouldn’t even respond to you other than to tell you I’d actually decided to sell to someone else instead.

It's only a possible leak, not even confirmed. Even if it needs repair it may well be something that can be patched up without too much expense. If that's the only major issue on the survey then you're doing ok for the age of the house.

I definitely wouldn't try to renegotiate in the circumstances. Actually probably not even if there wasn't lots of other interest and time pressure.

Would you be prepared to walk away over it? Suspect not. I would not try to negotiate.

I wouldn't, no.

I wouldn't unless you're prepared to walk, although if the garage is as old as the house ( or 1960s as is more likely) I'd check the roof isn't asbestos as that would be expensive to fix.

No I wouldn’t. A potentially leaking garage that you are going to convert anyway…even if you weren’t, it’s a garage roof - not especially difficult or highly expensive to deal with unless it has asbestos in it. Which presumably your surveyor would have noted is a possibility, IF, it is a possibility.

Every house survey I've ever had has said any flat roof will fail in time, that's entirely standard IME. A flat roof will always need replacing at some point. I'd wait until you are in there and then get a quote. Especially if there is a string of eager buyers behind you ....

Oh God don't jeapordise the whole thing over it.

Just go at the inside of the garage with a couple of tubes of expanding foam to make sure it's fine for now and then sort it when you can.

Like a pp said, if you're converting it you'll need to be doing a hell of a lot of work to the roof anyway.

If someone tried to haggle the price down when I'd had so much other interest I'd laugh and send them on their way. It would sell again within a day.

This came up on our survey 6 years ago. The roof still hasn’t leaked. We’ve had a new house roof and the roofer said the flat roof did t need replacing yet. So no, you’re the one who’s desperate to move asap.

Thanks for the unequivocal response everyone - helpful for helping to persuade my husband not to rock the boat. We won’t raise it!

I know you’ve decided what to do @KimGa but we were in a very similar position about four months ago.

Our survey found a small amount of damp in two downstairs rooms (probably caused by the broken drain pipe outside). We were initially inclined to ask for a chunk off but in the end we didn’t. The reason being that we are extending the property right away and both the damp walls are being knocked down. It felt wrong to get the vendor to pay towards something that wouldn’t actually matter and like you, the house was very sought after. I didn’t want to piss the vendor off - he was wonderful and so helpful in lots of ways. I didn’t want to ruin that or risk losing the house for a cheeky request.

I was just quoted 2.3k approx to recover our double garage roof, create new guttering around the circumference (currently only 1 down pipe and no guttering), sort the soffits and facia too so just making it waterproof will be less I'm sure (I'm in an expensive area in the midlands region )

I do get a bit 🤯 with house purchase, people want to shave money off for literally anything that just need attention regularly. I'd only quibble if it's being sold as perfect and breaks the ceiling price of the area

If you’re thinking of converting the garage in the future then you could consider replacing the flat roof with a hipped roof (we did this when we converted our attached garage).