Help! Renegotiating property offer

[Charliechoco]

Me and my partner put down an offer on an apartment for a fair price, we came in at asking.

However, there have been several issues flagged from the survey report and management pack that has prompted us to renegotiate the offer for the property.

We were told the leasehold had 20 more years than what was documented in the management pack. The survey report also documented a number of problems. We were advised to source a structural engineer to determine a potential subsidence issue.

My question to the community is, how would you advise renegotiating an offer? Is this something we speak to the estate agent about or directly to the seller? how would you advise writing an email about this? And ultimately, if we have been misled regarding the remaining years on left on the leasehold, is it fair to subtract the cost of extending a leasehold to the offer.

You speak to the agent not the seller, but I’d run a mile.

Its highly unlikely to be subsidence... reports love to say that but they are covering their ass with the worst case scenario. Mosts cracks, sagging floor, bowing walls and damp are caused by much more common easy fix issues.

Truth is you don't have proof of anything except maybe a misprint in the advert about lease. You need an engineer to tell you if theres something ACTUALLY wrong and thats £300-£500.

I'm in the same boat at the moment, @Charliechoco. Would you mind updating us with what you did in the end, please? If you negotiated, I'd love to know what kind of amount you got off the offer. Hope you & your partner are nearly settled somewhere by now and it's going well.

How much is it worth to put it right? The leasehold is huge issue.

Hello! Yes, so I demanded they knock £10k off the asking which equated to an average leasehold extension cost (perhaps we asked a little more, but that was largely down to them wasting our time and mounting legal fees). We are indeed settled and love our space. The one thing I do regret is not paying for a structural surveyor, as they done a very good job of hiding awful underneath the floorboards damp! Incredibly cheeky.

@Charliechoco thanks so much for the reply! Really glad to hear you managed to get decent money off, although sorry to hear about floorboard damp.
We could see cracks in this house, which needed a lot of TLC so we did pay for a structural survey (ie level 3 not the usual level 2 homebuyers). So if it's any reassurance, we quite regret doing it. He was quite thorough but his report is remarkably similar to the level 2 surveys I've seen.

He also advised us to source a structural engineer to determine what he thinks is likely to be subsidence. We're worried that if we do pay for a structural engineer, and find out it is subsidence, then we'll either fail to renegotiate enough off and will walk away having spent a lot. Or, we'll buy and end up with enormously inflated home insurance.

I've seen some people say you have to get the seller to get the insurance ironed out before the sale goes through, but our agent seemed reluctant to ask him to do that. They seem to think it's all just on us if we want to take the risk!

House buying - so tricky!

Personally, me and my partner was looking for over a year and we saw many beautiful properties. But we ran a mile from any that we suspected had subsidence! Largely for the reasons you mentioned. The value of the property will be significantly affected and once a house has this on the report, you legally have to inform future buyers.

Cracks on the inside are normally less of a concern with period conversions, but I would run if there are cracks on the outside walls.

Your original offer was based on what you were told was the lease length. If what you were told was incorrect then it is entirely reasonable to reduce your offer accordingly.