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.

The survey on our house said we have rising damp

So we had a specialist in

No we don't have a problem worth worrying about

Glad to hear it's all going ahead. Surveys always make it sound like your house is falling down and old houses always have ongoing issues but they are beautiful to live in.

Do NOT 'damp-proof' an old house. It needs to breathe. If it's been standing for 200 years, it'll easily go another 200. I think you're being unreasonable. They've priced it to sell and you're already getting £30K off.

The sale is still ongoing- it's been a slow process, and now the next issue has popped up (found by the solicitor): the oil tank is non-compliant. What has rubbed me up the wrong way is the vendor's response, which was basically to say that it's not an issue - it works perfectly well and it just means that if anything was to go wrong in future then we should replace it with one that's compliant with current standards. As far as I can tell, with a non-compliant oil tank, I'd struggle to insure the property, and even if I could, if something went wrong then they wouldn't pay out, so it's not a small matter.

Now, when we tried to negotiate following the survey, the vendor was entirely dismissive about the survey and told us they already knew about certain things we pointed out, but said they'd had quotes for a fraction of the price - then why didn't they have the work done if it was such a cheap fix? They've written us a couple of condescending letters about how much they've loved the house and if we're frightened about taking on an old house then maybe it's not for us. In an early letter, they also told us they weren't in a hurry to move and that they were happy to wait for the right buyer, whereas a couple of weeks ago they wrote to say they were doing everything they could to speed things up as it was in their interest due to them being under strain by having to pay for two houses (they're not living in the cottage).

Considering the survey recommended almost £50k of urgent repairs, they only agreed to drop the price by a further £5k. We'd made peace with this and accepted we were going to be out of pocket getting the place fixed up. However, this further issue followed about by the irritating response has really given us cold feet. I wonder how many other issues have been hidden and are going to pop up. We're nearly at the point of arranging an exchange date which we'd started getting excited about, but now we're at the point of walking away.

I've told the solicitor this, but what should I be doing next? Should I be speaking to the estate agent? Considering how little we negotiated off the price, I'm not willing to have to pay another £4k or so to also replace an oil tank.

There's no chain, so only ourselves and the vendors would be affected.

Honestly, on the basis of the tiny amount of info here and my own experience, I'm totally on your vendors side here. (Obvs I haven't seen the survey so I could be making false assumptions). Surveys are full of cut and paste scaremongering that is often completely inappropriate for the house in question. Current building regs are not relevant for older properties - being different doesn't mean it needs correcting. Structural materials and techniques are different - again, different, not wrong. I would guess that maybe the point is that this oil tank is not compliant with the regs as would be required to install it today, but that doesn't mean it wasn't installed properly and safely when it was done. Surveys will be full of "roof is fine and in good condition, but it it deteriorates it could leak and cause damage and cost thousands to repair...". You need to learn to read the survey intelligently and be able to understand what's bullshit, what's arse-covering, and find the rare nuggets of useful information in there.

I've recently undertaken what the survey on my house listed as around 6k worth of repair work on my property. All-in it's cost me about £600 to do.

I feel sure vendor is correct, the oil tank is fine, it just would need to be done slightly differently to meet modern regs if it was replaced.

I think you need to ask your solicitor for advice and investigate the rules re oil tanks (it's not something I know anything about). If the work brought to light in the survey is genuinely urgent and you have only negotiated 5k off for 50k work, I would have pulled out then. Have they covered these major problems up with nice decor, etc? Question your surveyor again because you really don't want to be stuck with £££ of work and lots of stress in a falling market.
It doesn't sound as if this is the house for you for several reasons and the sellers don't sound particularly keen to sell. Let them go back to market if that's what they actually want. You will find something that suits you better.

I agree that the tank is probably fine, but that doesn't help me get insured.

I think we should've walked away at that point, and the only thing stopping me now is feeling terrible about pulling out at the last minute. It's not a reason to get lumbered with a property that will cost me more than it's worth, so I need to weight that up.

You need to make the correct long term decision for you. That is the most important thing. You can't make what you think is a financial mistake because you feel a bit guilty!

Do the current owners have insurance that includes the tank? If so, that would suggest it's not a problem for insurers.

I've jjust insured our house with an older non-compliant tank. Nothing was asked beyond what kind of heating was in the house. I think one company said they need evidence of boiler being serviced annually but there wasn't anything beyond that.

Ok, so getting insured might not be a problem, but if your tank were to leak or cause another problem then I don't think your insurance would pay out, would they?

I think they would. It's like most people's electrics don't conform with new regs, but they update them all the time. We can't be expected all to rewire our houses every time. They would need to say in exclusions clauses if they won't pay out.

As I understand it ( haven’t had oil since 2019) the compliance is for newly installed tanks. If the current tank is damaged or flimsy then that will be a concern and it should probably be replaced, but if it is functional and well positioned and supported, it should be insurable.

if you have an insurance broker it would be worth discussing it with them.

When they say it's a non issue, what they mean is that it is a non issue for them.

FWIW the oil delivery people will refuse to decant the oil if the tank isn't fit for purpose, so you do have people with an expert eye looking at it.

Honestly you need to work out what you are prepared to do.

If the answer is £4000 more off to cover the oil tank or you aren't going through with it then be prepared for them to say that's fine and pull out.

Don't stay in the process because it's easier. Or quicker. Stay only because it's on the terms you are willing to accept for the house.

I will add though that I wouldn't be bickering over £4000 on a property worth that much. You'll spend half of it on getting another survey, solicitors costs etc.

A typical surveyor's damp meter works on electrical resistance between two pins. High readings don't necessarily mean the wall is damp, it could be picking up ash mortar, salts etc. High readings suggest that further investigations might be needed to establish whether there is actual dampness ('speedy' test (drilling into wall) and/or salt test). I wonder why the surveyor has recommended a damp proof course? There are to stop rising damp. true rising damp is fairly rare, and fairly easy to spot (tide marks, flaking, blistering paint etc). High readings alone shouldn't be a reason to recommend a damp proof course. After injecting a damp proof course, all the internal plaster needs hacking off and replacing up to 1m high, which will inflate costs. Where are you based, OP?

With the damp it depends whether you can afford to heat and open windows.

I would ring some insurers and oil people and ask. Also ask who they insure with and who changes the oil. Also speak to them

I do think there needs to be a certain flexibility and pragmatism with older properties OP.

Surveys always go worst case. Ours suggested roof issues but actually the roof is in good condition when we’ve done further investigations. We have some mild damp on an old chimney breast depending on the season and weather, it’s an absolute non-issue and sorts itself out (our house is 300yrs+)

Sometimes the gutters block and cause damp patches, once the blockage is clearers the damp clears.

Our LPG tanks are non compliant (a fence is too close) and we get it filled up without issue. They even replaced it with a new one to the same location without raising a concerns. Similarly our oil tank is too close to some trees, and similarly never once caused any issues. My parents also have a non-compliant tank and again no issues. Our friends have a non compliant LPG tank without issues.

Perhaps the owners do have a point re older properties not being for everyone. There will always be something, it isn’t going to be perfect or risk free.

Based in the south-west.

And what is your decision on continuing or pulling out?
The oil tank would not bother me as long as it was in good condition. They are usually located on or above a concrete catch pit, which will contain any leaked oil. It’s not like they split open and spill 1000l of oil. I’d be more concerned it has oil fired heating.
Coming back to a much earlier comment ‘It looks to have been recently renovated’. Did you dig into that a bit more?

Yes, @HellsBalls the comments here have been really helpful to bring me back down to earth, so we're carrying on.

I don't know much about oil-fired heating, but almost every property we viewed had it due to their rural locations.

The comment about recently renovated was probably misleading; it just looks well-kept, not like it's had a complete refurbishment.

How is the oil tank not compliant?
Is it on concrete, is it expected distance from inhabited building, are the pipes dodgy?

The vendor said it would just need to be changed to a double-skinned tank, so I don't think it's the location.