L3 property survey - what to do next?

[Niceplacestolive]

We had an offer accepted (about £30k under asking price) on a house we love (on for £670k). It's a couple of hundred years old, so we had a full structural survey carried out. It's come back with needing around £50k worth of work needing urgent attention (dampness, roof work, drainage, etc). When offer was accepted, it was on the proviso that there'd be no further price negotiation on survey (which was a red flag at the time, but EA assured me they weren't expecting there to be any problems).

There's no way I'm happy to carry on with the agreed price now, but how do I play this? Do I share the survey report with the EA? If vendors won't negotiate further, we'll have to pull out, but we'd rather agree a better price, considering the amount of work and upheaval it'll cause us. We have £600k in mind as our max. Any advice would be much appreciated as we have no experience with this sort of thing.

How much of the work which has been recommended was visible before you made an offer? Is the roof leaking? Is there damp in the ground floor?

Would it be worth getting proper quotes for the work to see if they come out cheaper than the quotes on the survey?

The reason why I ask is that often things are a lot cheaper to get fixed than surveys suggest.

Have you spoken to the surveyor about the report? A house we bought 30 years ago was supposed to need a new roof but 20 years later it was fine apart from a few minor repairs. Damp can often be fixed by checking gutters and ground height issues outside - old houses do not need damp proof injection courses if anyone mentions that.

surveyors have to cover themselves in the report but if you speak to them they may be able to advise that a lot of things dont need doing straight away - just keeping an eye on.

Take additional 20k off

Show them the report…. Be prepared for the process to collapse

If the vendors thought the house was priced to reflect its condition and they've accepted £30K off that, and communicated that no further reductions will be entertained, they're unlikely to be interested in any further negotiation. That shouldn't stop you asking, once you've done what the other posters above suggest (talk to surveyor to see what's really what, get proper estimates), but be clear in your minds in advance whether you will accept the house at the price agreed before the survey or whether you'll pull out once the vendors turn you down.

Absolutely share the report, we did that and negotiated a small chunk off the price to cover the cost of the repairs. That is why you pay for a Level 3 survey to highlight the issues that a buyer won't always notice. But be prepared for the vendor to reject your new lower offer.

Speak to the surveyor and see what they say about extent of the work required. Speak to the EA to let them know that you'll need to view the property again. Then get in the relevant specialists to give you an indication of what needs doing & rough costs.

Expect vendors not to budge on price.

Where did the £50k figure come from, have you been given quotes? If not, I would get those done and then probably ask for half the cost off the original agreed price. If none of the issues were known/disclosed to you then it seems a bit unreasonable for them to refuse any further negotiation outright. I sympathise as we've recently gone through similar issues on both our sale and purchase!

I've read this before about damp-proofing! This was what was stated as being needed in the report. Do you have any more info about damp-proofing/what the alternative is?

House looks like it's been completely refurbished; we didn't expect to have to do anything. We noticed a damp smell on 2nd viewing and EA insisted there was no damp - it was just condensation from having been empty whilst vendors were overseas.

Our price negotiation was due to other factors which we felt significantly devalued property, such as no private parking.

None of the work was visible or mentioned on viewings. There's damp in the ground floor and from roof/chimney breast.

The £50k is the surveyor's estimate (with a breakdown of costs) of the urgent works that need to be done.

@Niceplacestolive a survey found an issue with our roof, we had two separate roofers to provide quotes and both came in around a fifth of the price the surveyor estimated.

If the house is 200 years old it shouldn't be dampproofed - particularly not with any sort of chemical damp proof course. Older houses need to be able to breathe - they often are slightly damper than modern ones but it would damage the structure of the house to put in a damp proof course.

I'm interested in a comment you have made re old houses and not needing damp proof courses. Can you explain this please? Sorry if I sound like an idiot, it's a genuine question and there's a reason I ask!

Sorry for the derail - we're in a similar situation and I'm also interested in the PP's comment about older houses not needing damp proofing!

@Niceplacestolive

read this about old houses.

https://www.heritage-house.org/damp-and-condensation/managing-damp-in-old-buildings.html

I second the advice to look at Heritage House, from personal experience. By and large, the very last thing old houses need is a DPC- if they need one, they'll have one. DPCs rarely if ever need replacing. And I'd never even consider buying any property that had had an 'injected' DPC, or tanking- both often recommended by dodgy 'damp' specialists. (exception for tanking, where part of a wall is underground it may require it, but you need a proper specialist chartered surveyor in that case.

Also, before you share any part of any survey, check the terms on the survey. You generally need the surveyor's permission.

Our experience.
100 yr old house. A bit damp on lower walls, esp in one room (incidentally, where some idiot had done a superficial form of tanking).
We ignored the 'damp specialist' report (over 10K of tanking, plaster removal, + replastering, etc, virtually the whole house) as I thought it was clearly nonsense, and bought the house.

Just ventilating it properly was drying it out already before HH came to check it out. (we used humidity meters, not those so-called damp meters which are pants).
They advised various things, like removing wallpaper and painting with claypaint. Which really helped- I found the paste was holding damp. (I don't like wallpaper anyway, so it was for the chop in any case). They properly drilled into the walls and analysed the drillings for damp. In fact, only two walls had any actual damp, one tiny bit in one room (cleared up when we cleared all the accumulated dust/soil/mortar dust from the underfloor which was piled against the wall) and -wait for it- the tanked wall. I removed the tanking at their advice, the wall dried out, and 4 years on has stayed dry.

They gave lots of other good advice, which saved money too-like, yes, it needs reslating, but don't let a roofer tell you you need new slates, they should be able to re-use most of them.

We also had all the old salt-glazed drains taken up and redone in plastic. After that, the small puddles which used to stand under the house disappeared for good. Old ceramic drains are often cracked and leak slightly.

Only the drains cost anything much (about 7K if memory serves and we had a lot of long runs- and loads of rodding points put in) and I'd costed for more than that for drains when I estimated the costs before offering.

Ooh, thanks - I'll check the terms - hadn't even considered that I might need consent.

If you’ve had a recommendation of a damp proof course for a several hundred year old property, I strongly suspect you’ve hired a standard surveyor rather than one that specialises in old houses. I’d be inclined to see the recommendation as a red flag for the surveyor and be looking to get someone who has expertise in old / listed houses to take a look.

As a PP has said, older houses need to breathe. They are also designed for open fires for heat in the chimney breast to dry the walls. What they aren’t designed for is trapping moisture is the house the way a damp proof course would.

The EA is clearly a bullshitter who has lied in most conversations with you. The house needs loads of work doing, which tbh I would expect from a 200 year old house especially as you smelt damp on one visit.

I would share parts of the survey with the EA not the whole document. Just enough to prove that you are not being unreasonable in expecting the vendors to reduce the price. In these situations it’s normal for the cost to be roughly shared between buyer and seller because if the seller refuses to negotiate and the sale falls through, they risk exactly the same thing happening with their next buyer.

Sounds like it has been flipped by a renovation company who have made it look nice but not actually fixed any of the underlying issues.

The problem with damp is that if they have covered it up, they may have made it worse and it could be worse than it seems to be at the moment as they may have tried to just cover over the bad bits.

This isn't necessarily an issue but it depends where the damp issues are. You mention the chimney which is slightly worrying as chimney damp can be difficult to sort out. Also one of the more expensive ones as scaffolding is very pricey.

Damp on the ground floor can often be sorted out by ventilating the under floor spaces with a couple of bricks and sometimes digging to lower the external ground level. Sometimes it is as easy and cleaning or repairing gutters. Sometimes the internal walls need replastering with lime plaster so that water trapped in the wall can get out.

The issue is that it can take a while to track down the source of the damp and sort it out.

Definitely share the survey with the estate agents as they should know so that they are liable to let other buyers know.

You have been misled by the estate agent and the newly refurbished state of the house.

That statement not withstanding, a 200 year old house will always have some work that needs to be done. Damp is an issue and possibly always was and always will be! Old materials and buildings were designed to breathe and are not always compatible with new coverings and modern standards of insulation, wamth and heat conservation. Drains, roofs, plumbing, soil butting up against the building, grouting etc, are all things that nees periodic maintenance. The old houses link above is useful.

In my experience of old houses, 4 over 20 years, 2 had had roofs replaced, one needed the ground outside the house altered to expose the damp proof course, chimneys opened up and tiles / gulleys and gutters repaired and one had an annex built at the time of original construction that was not built with a damp proof course and everyone on the street had a damp / cold utility no matter what we tried.

I would be going back to them and attempting to negotiate but you should also consider if it is worth the price including the renovation work required and if you can afford these costs (and the ongoing maintenamce costs, because there will be more!!) as they may stick to their guns and say the house is priced based on it's current condition.

It will come down to who is prepared to conceed and how much this house is worth to you. Good luck!!

Just to update, We managed a little negotiation and sale is going ahead. Thanks for all the advice 😊

Ask them to have a damp survey

And quotes for a roof

Surveys are often bullshit

You're buying a very old house.. it wont be perfect and will need work but it may not be urgent

Maybe you'll be better off with a modern house