Renegotiating price after survey

[Housen]

Hello all, advice please! We have just had a pretty disastrous sounding survey on a property we were hoping to buy. I know surveyors are always negative but this seems more than average. Most things are given a red rating. concerns have been raised about rainwater pipes, gutters, drainage, structure of roof, ceilings , all windows need replacing(!), deflection of extension , (potentially) rotting floors and rising damp 🤦🏼‍♀️, to name some but not all of the issues identified. Also the valuation came back as 40k under what we offered! (NB the property had been on the market for a while and we were negotiated up on a blind bidding process - to be fair we probably over offered because we were over anxious).

For context, asking price was 700,000 (had already been reduced , not sure from what- but had been on the market for a long while), we know they had two previous offers of 650k and 660k. We ended up offering and having accepted 705k after a blind bid. surveyor has valued property at 665,000 and has highlighted all these major concerns.

What would you do in these circumstances? We would like to go back to the estate agent and show them all the concerns flagged in the survey, and re-offer the price as valued by surveyor. We want to be both decent and sensible here, but not really sure what the right course of action is.

Help!

@BlueMongoose this is what he said about roof:

The roof has been panelled over and the floor boarded and it appears to be used as an informal room. It is unlikely this conversion complies with regulations as the floor is not strengthened and the roof frame may weakened by the removal of collars. Roof timbers are slender with limited cross joists and there is evidence of sagging mid slope.
The party wall has been built up in brickwork but is not complete and all openings/gaps should be sealed to reduce the risk of smoke spread in the unfortunate event of a fire.
Water tanks in the loft are not properly supported and I would recommend checking and upgrading the vulnerable overflows.
Roof lining felt is torn where visible and there is a risk of leak. The felt should be repaired or replaced.
The roof void is not ventilated and at risk of condensation build-up.
Insulating quilt is laid to between 25 and 50mm and is insufficient by modern standards.
There is some evidence of animal activity either bird or mice /vermin.
There is a second loft hatch to the back of the house at first floor..
This roof has slender rafters which are widely spaced and it is unlikely that this frame complies to modern standards. Therefore you should check that the construction also met with Building Regulation approval at the time of construction.
The roof slopes are lined with sarking felt. There is a nominal thickness of insulating quilt and again I noted evidence of animal activity.

Re, electrics there was mention of some live wires that needed checking and of some insulation covering wiring that could get overheated…

So sorry to hear about your dog 😢

First roof. Torn felt, water tanks, insulation, party wall, animal activity = all easy fixes.
Removing supports, sagging, no ventilation = more difficult. You would need to support the rafters once more, and add ventilation. I’d suggest that means basically removing that room and returning it to a bare loft with a boarded floor.
Second roof. Sounds like it needs to be supported with extra purlings, not terribly difficult.
Electrics. Could just need an electrician for a couple of days, or could be terrible and need a rewire. You should get an electrician in for a survey before continuing.

Sounds like you need a builder to come and quote for the work that needs doing, before you go any further.

Thank you, from the report it looks like the surveyor is recommending we get : a builder, a joiner, a damp specialist, an electrician, a plumber, a gas engineer and a timber specialist all out to take a look 🥴 . All of these people will obviously charge.. I guess most important would be a builder at this stage…?

Yes, a builder will answer most questions.
A damp survey is likely to find damp, unless you get an independent not working with and damp proofing companies.
Unless it has obvious damp, mould. Wall paper coming off, ask the builder his opinion.
Soft / bouncy floors should concern you.

Your problem is going to be getting all these people to come along to quote for a job that might not even happen because you don't own the house. Tradesmen are in very short supply atm.

I'm so sorry you love this house and there's so much wrong with it. It's a horrible time to be buying a doer-upper.

That list isn’t anywhere near as bad as you made it sound - a lot is indeed arse covering.
I’d drop £40k personally if you otherwise like the house

Are you seriously saying you would still buy a house that basically needs rebuilt. Withdraw withdraw withdraw!!!!! Lots of mistakes already been made and now survey adds to the huge cash pot your gona need to fix this place. You could build your own and still have change

My house was built in 1804 the survey was horrendous. Your pooh wee went down the loo into an open gulley and wombled down to the cess pit. Kitchen was an add on corrugated roof open a drawer, cupboard in there and a mouse waved.

Bedrooms anything made of leather was green in three months .

We persevered had roof, guttering fixed, new septic tank, hacked off and dry lined every room. Floor boards up and replaced where necessary. Insulation between floors. Central heating and new bathrooms throughout. The cost back in 1990s around 100k. We had twenty happy years there. So long term it's worth it

❤️. I think after the initial panic and then posting here and getting some perspective, I’m feeling a lot less catastrophic about it. It sounds like these issues are mostly typical for an older house that hasn’t been recently renovated? Just a lot of them all together which all add up. Given that, I’m now thinking we don’t necessarily need to pull out but asking for a lot of money off might still be financially necessary? Especially given the valuation..

Most surveyors will suggest you get in an electrician and a gas engineer at the very least as a matter of routine on any survey, doesn't mean they think it's awful, it's just out of a surveyor's scope, but do it. Damp specialists will usually tell you you need a new DPC and tanking etc., almost always that's untrue, expensive and lousy advice that will * up the house if you do it- if the damp is a real problem, get an old house specialist like Heritage House to take a look for you. And search this forum for PigletJohn's advice about damp. Knackered roof felt is common in older houses, when you reslate you just get it replaced with a breathable membrane. Old insulation is usually not thick enough, you just remove and replace it, a DIY job. Possible rot/infestation needs checking. The report saying the timbers are undersized/weak is another matter, you need a good roofer to look at that before you decide to buy or not. Housen's advice seems good to me.
Bouncy floors may well mean you need to replace joists, but you won't know until you're in and you take the floor copvrings up or get under the floors. Laminate floors on a sprung downstairs floor if combined with blocked underfloor vents can be bad for timbers. Ventilation is the watchword with older houses in every way- in the house, the bathroom, the kitchen, the underfloor, the chimneys- they were designed to have a lot of ventilation. Provide it. Cooker hoods, bathroom fans, open your windows a little every day, keep window vents open in your (new) windows in all but the most freezing weather. You will need to restore any ventilation under the floors that any moron has blocked up in the past.

What about the windows and ‘deflection’ with the extension?
What are the kitchen and bathrooms like?

It’s been discussed here, fixer uppers are much worse value than more expensive ‘done’ houses, in general.
What about previous sold prices in the area?

Thanks all.

im now completely confused about this damp stuff? I am also currently selling my flat which had a major damp issue- rising damp affecting all the walls. We’ve had a damp specialist out , and they are putting together a quote to treat it, but what’s this about damp proofing being a con and causing more problems? Im so confused 😐 . Should I not be doing this?

Yep most if not all damp proofing is a scam. You need to let a property breathe to dry out, not put more chemicals etc in to seal in the wet.

So most damp is caused by a defect. That could be underground leaks, broken/blocked guttering or down pipes, blocked ventilation, ground level built up too high, poor pointing, leaking plumbing, blocked drains, etc.
The damp companies usually recommend silicon injections into the brickwork at low level, and/or tanking the walls up to 1m.
Neither fixes the cause of the damp. While the silicone won’t cause any more problems, the tanking is usually a disaster as all the skirting is removed and replaced, and it is impossible to only replaster 1m of a wall invisibily. It will usually leave a very visible ‘join’ in the plaster 1m up the wall, or will trigger you to completely replaster the whole downstairs.

So in your damp survey, you want them to have identified the cause of the damp and proposed a fix, not just say ‘let’s see if we can keep this damp at bay’.
If you have damp in all the walls, including internal, I’d suggest this is caused by lack of underfloor ventilation, so air bricks blocked or ground level too high.
You could post a few pictures of outside, to include the ground and air bricks, from each side. Maybe you’ll get some insights from the MN hive mind.

Speak to the estate agent/sellers. Our buyers had a survey done on our house and subsequently pulled out. We were shocked, and after much persuading they agreed to send it to the estate agent - it was all absolute worst case scenario and the surveyor covering their backs by saying they should bring in specialists to review different things. If they had talked to us before withdrawing, we could have happily talked them through some of the concerns.

(I.e surveyor saying we probably didn’t have building regs for our loft conversion - we do. And giving wildly inflated estimates for repairs needed - but we have quotes which we would have happily shared.)

Some things were flagged which were true and which we hadn’t been aware of, and we would have renegotiated or agreed to rectify before sale, but the buyers had already been talked out of it by their families.

It you don’t want to deal with the problems associated with older houses, buy a new build! (Though you’ll have a completely different set of problems then…)

I’d suggest this is caused by lack of underfloor ventilation, so air bricks blocked or ground level too high

So how would this be fixed? 😨 I’m in a bit of a pickle as I really need to sell but the damp is an issue.

it’s a lower ground floor flat. Victorian semi that was converted into three flat. I’ll see if I can find some pics…

Thank you for this perspective! We would love to be able to talk directly to the vendors, but not sure if the estate agents would put us in touch. We are going to send them the report. I was definitely naive to how much money/ work it costs to buy an old house..

‘Lower ground floor’? So partially below ground level?

Yes sort of- wasn’t sure how to describe it. The ground is higher at the front of the flat and lower at the back.

So it’s ground floor level at the back with a garden. But at the front the street level is higher and you slope down to get to in

A picture paints a thousand words.

@C4tastrophe 😆 true. So here are two photos from the front and the back. I haven’t got any photos of the damp affected walls, but the plaster along the bottom of several walls is cracking and damaged, and there’s a large wet patch a couple of feet high on the wall in one of the bedrooms! I’m not thinking that this may have been caused by previous damp proofing?!? We had a damp survey done and conclusion was rising damp everywhere and a course to fix…

So front, need to see where the ground meets the wall and any airbricks.
Rear corner, couple of close ups there.
With that extension, are there any airbricks under the decking?