WWYD? Try to negotiate or pull out now?

[Lapine]

Sold our fairly 'new build' house (around 15yrs old). We need somewhere a bit bigger with future potential to extend. Current house doesn't have that potential.

Slim pickings though, and the only way to achieve it on our budget in the current property market (sky high mortgage rates) is to buy an older property.

Found older property - owner passed away, left to their DCs who are now selling it. Obvious it needed modernising in an aesthetic sense - old decor, kitchen cupboards falling off hinges, old knackered timber doors, old tatty carpets, parquet flooring missing blocks, scratched up etc. We accepted that, but offered lower than asking. They ran us up, but still we got it for lower than asking. Not much lower though. And actually we still thought they were taking the piss, but we really need somewhere a bit bigger.

However, when we went to view we were surprised to discover it had a converted loft that had been used as a hobby room (model train sets). It wasn't on the particulars, not on listing pics or the 360° walk through, not mentioned anywhere. So while the extra room would benefit us, it was suspicious it hadn't been mentioned at all. Solicitors have asked for building reg certificate in their enquiries, but vendor simply says "no paperwork available".

So we had a level 3 structural survey done. To ascertain if it's a safe and sound conversion that meets building regs.

Turns out it isn't safe, doesnt meet modern building regs and is causing problems to the roof structure. This is along with a VAST list of other stuff that the surveyor deems as requiring "urgent and/or immediate attention" Basically the garage is a dangerous wreck, the porch is a dangerous wreck, the roof is at risk from a poor loft conversion, all the electrics are unsafe and a total rewiring of the house is needed, no chimney ventilation following installation of a gas fire, no ventilation to the bathroom, black mould, lots of pipework and plumbing is old and brittle so needs replacing, lack of guttering to porch and conservatory has causing water to soaking into the structure causing render to fail and disintegrate at a rapid rate and just pool onto the floor as also no drainage. And more that I won't bore you with as too long.

We WON'T be buying it for the current offer they ran us up to. After getting this survey, we know its not worth that price. And we cannot afford all those renovation costs.

But WWYD. Would you get tradespeople quotes and try to renegotiate the price? Because if renovated this could be a good home for us in the end. But it would mean until certain works are completed, we won't be able to live in it and will have to not only pay the mortgage, but also rent somewhere until the place is safe to move into.

OR would you just walk away now? Let your own buyers down, who are newly wed FTBs currently living with the DHs parents and desperate to have their own home together. Who may say they've had enough of waiting and pull out from purchasing our place. Or if they don't, we have to start the whole process again of having to look for somewhere else, secure a mortgage on it, get a survey blah blah blah, running it all on for another several months.

I'm torn. DH is torn.

WWYD?

Sounds like a bit of a money pit tbh. I would probably walk, it doesn't sound like they have cared about doing things right at all.

Don't feel too guilty about the FTBs. They chose to spend money on a wedding instead of putting it towards a house, that's their call. I have been engaged for four years, we know marriage won't be a reality for quite a while, the house has to come first.

I would pull out. I would feel sorry for my Buyers but not so sorry I was prepared to go ahead with this scary purchase for their convenience.

It sounds awful. Surely there are better properties on the market? Maybe you will need to compromise on something like widen your search area.

Structural surveys do always find something to scare you over. But this amount of work is ridiculous for anyone not looking for a full renovation project with loads of spare cash.

Run. Immediately.

They’ve essentially been dishonest, and there will be other issues hiding in the woodwork.

Walk away. That’s going to be very expensive to put right. Structural issues can be a nightmare.

There's not a chance in hell i would buy that. I bought an older house with a fraction of those problems and it's been years we still aren't done with fixing it to the way we want it because we are on a shoestring.

I wouldn't be pursuing the purchase, too much structural work - decor rennovation is one thing but the surveyor highlighting so many issues of that nature would have me running a mile.

I would definitely pull out.

Your surveyor will not have found all the problems either - more stuff will appear when you start stripping things out and pulling carpets up.
I'd have a rough guess at the cost, add on a hefty contingency for the stuff you don't know about yet and make a final, non- negotiable offer. See what happens.
There are a lot of other factors in play too - how long it's been in the market, how keen the sellers are to get their hands on the money, what's happening in your local housing market.
Make a low offer that you are confident leaves you with enough money to renovate, but don't be afraid to walk away.

Sounds like the house is only worth the land it is built on.
Probably cheaper to knock it down and start again.

Hi @Lapine
Just from the description of the house i would walk away.
But on the other hand, you have a buyer for your home, mortgage in place, survey completed. I would get quotes from builders, then make a decision. All the best, hope everything turns out ok x

You're easily looking at over £100K of renovation costs to make it safe. If you can't afford that you can't afford it. At the end of the day even if they did reduce by that £100K you would probably just be taking it off the mortgage rather than having tbe cash to do anything.

Sounds like one for a builder or property developer to take on, not a family looking for a home right now. Do you have the experience and contacts to get the work done?

You do also have a further option @Lapine which is pulling out of this purchase but going ahead with the sale of your own house.

Yes it is a lot of hassle but if you can find somewhere suitable to rent for 6/12 months, you would be in a great position to pick up something much nicer than this housewreck in a few months time.

Run. Seriously, you aren’t in love with the house, and this will cost a bomb to put right. Probably half the cost of the house again. You didn’t think it was worth it at the asking price, you definitely won’t think it is worth it when you have spent £100-200k over the asking price in rebuilding costs.

Walk away, its a money pit, I've been there and lived to regret it.
Your buyers aren't really your problem. You will just have to explain what's happened. Last time I spent almost £100,000 on just the basic renovations and that wasn't the end and my house wasn't as bad as yours.
It really does sound like the kind of property only a builder or a very experienced "flipper" should be buying.

Can you do the work yourselves? If not back out that is not general DIY stuff.

Thanks for everyone's replies. Just to answer some questions:

@Twiglets1 "Surely there are better properties on the market? Maybe you will need to compromise on something like widen your search area." Unfortunately not. At the time we searched, we said we were prepared to move within quite a large radius of where we already are. But we found nothing suitable within our budget until we found this place. We're absolutely gutted tbh.
You do also have a further option which is pulling out of this purchase but going ahead with the sale of your own house...if you can find somewhere suitable to rent for 6/12 months, you would be in a great position to pick up something much nicer Unfortunately, in our county, renting is around double what we pay in mortgage. We can't afford to waste money like that. We threw so much money away on renting for years. The only way we managed to get on the property ladder was through a sum of inheritance. Without that, we'd never have managed it. It was impossible to save anything when renting. We just can't go back to renting again in a financial sense. We're in a small 3 bed semi at the mo. Even if we rented a small 2bed flat (we have one DC, so need at least 2beds), it would still be hugely over our mortgage rate, and we'd also have to factor in renting a storage unit for all the stuff we couldn't fit in the flat.

@AndWordsWhen I'd have a rough guess at the cost, add on a hefty contingency for the stuff you don't know about yet and make a final, non- negotiable offer. See what happens. Yes, this is our thoughts actually. Although we'd either pay for an estimate of costs from our surveyor, or arrange for quotes from tradespeople. And yes, we'd definitely add on extra for renting another place to live on top of any 'contingency' money for things the surveyor hasn't found.
Make a low offer that you are confident leaves you with enough money to renovate, but don't be afraid to walk away. We don't want to walk away, because we truly need the extra space and as previously mentioned, the market is pretty awful at the moment in our county. And if flipped, this house could be exactly what we wanted. But if the vendors are going to be unreasonable, we will most definitely walk away with no regrets.

@HowcanIhelp123 "You're easily looking at over £100K of renovation costs to make it safe" A £100K??? Jesus Christ, really?! 😱 They very reluctantly accepted £350k after days of back-&-forth negotiating. Which I still felt was overpriced and had said that was our best and final or we'd walk away. If they hear we now want at least £100k off that original offer, they'll drop through the floor! But, so be it. If that's what it'll cost, that's what it'll cost. And they either accept that reduction, and more for contingency, or we most certainly walk away.

@Lovestodrinkmilk Do you have the experience and contacts to get the work done? Our current home was actually a doer-upper. We bought from a landlord at a lower price than asking because he wanted a quick sale after spending years of suffering tenants who didn't look after the property and avoided paying their rent. It took us a couple of yrs to do all the work ourselves. My husband is in the trades and pretty handy. I'm also not shy of being hands on and able to do a good amount of DIY. But it was all cosmetic stuff, not serious structural stuff that needed teams of specialist tradespeople. So, yes, we have experience and contacts, but we just didn't WANT to take on a project of this level, due to being busy with our own jobs. We ideally wanted another cosmetic doer upper, but not a full on renovation. And that's what we thought we were getting. I imagined us living here once we'd made it look nicer and refreshed the decor, put new carpets down etc. So gutted it's turned out to be a renovation instead of a DIY doer-upper 😢

Well, I've emailed their estate agent saying they have to at least be open to the idea of reducing the price after our survey has thrown up an awful lot of serious issues, or we walk away right now. But I haven't said by how much yet, as I want to know if they're even open to reducing first. Considering our offer was a reluctant acceptance, I've a feeling they will point blank refuse to even consider a drop. I think they thought they were giving the house away at that price, tbh.

If they don't refuse and are open to discussing a reduction, and then we deliver the hefty reduction we'll be looking for, I think they'll refuse at that point. So, in all probability, we'll likely be pulling out.

Humph!😠

I'd walk away OP. If you're in a 3 bed with 1 DC you can manage. The cost of renting and paying a mortgage would be huge and you've said rents are expensive in your area.

That said - if there is nothing else the size you want in a large area then I think you have some adjustments to make to your expectations. Which will either be to stay somewhere smaller, move to a cheaper area, to extend your budget (longer term mortgage?) or to do something crazy like live in a caravan on site while doing a complete renovation on a larger property....

1 dc and you need to contemplate all that expense and work for a bigger house? Not to mention the stress! They haven't been honest... Walk away.

Walk. 100%.

It sounds to me as though the house may not be liveable in while these renovations are carried out. Or at the very least it could be quite unpleasant.

If the market's as bad as you say it is, your FTB also won't have many alternatives available to them...

The rewire I'd have expected in a run-down house, so I'd not knock anything off for that. Some of the other things are fixable, and I would knock money off for them, though only for any that were not obvious on my first viewing. But unless my surveyor was able to assure me that fixing the loft and roof would be a straightforward job, and I could get a quote from a good roofer that confirmed it (which I would knock off my offer) the loft situation would be the final straw for me as a buyer.

Yikes the dodgy loft conversion would put me off. Obviously there are some structural issues there which you will need to rectify which I imagine won't be cheap.

But, I did buy my house whose survey report came back similar to yours minus the loft/roof issue. This was 10 yrs ago and mortgage rates, house prices were different back then. I was going to walk away but we had been struggling to find somewhere for so long and were desperate. The house was being sold by the mothers children following her death. We presented the survey to them, along with our position - love the house, family home etc but much more work required than anticipated and we cant continue unless we review our offer. We entered into negotiations, vendors position started off that they were budging but soon realised they would probably be in the same position with the next prospective buyer once they had completed a survey. We took tradesman to quote as did the vendor. The vendor wouldn't budge in price but did complete several of the big ticket items as condition of the sale.

We had to change our plans for the house initially as we couldn't afford to get everything done at once. We then had to make a 5 yr plan to complete everything else. The house wasn't livable for the first 6 months. One thing we didn't consider was that the house hadn't been touched in 20 odd years, we got a few nasty surprises when refurbing - plaster falling off all the walls was a big expensive problem. It was basically being held on by the 80s wallpaper. But it all came good in the end and with hindsight I do not regret the decision.

It’s £100k in work all day. Probably more, and I doubt the vendor will accept that.

If you’ve got a buyer perhaps move to rented for a bit while things get real and buy something else?

Budget a good 70k for a new loft conversion. You could just replace the structure but it would still cost a fortune. And get a reputable company in to do it not some random builder.