Renegotiating price post survey results

[Blu2Seine]

Hi,

We put an offer on a 3 bedroom (2 bedrooms and a box room) semi 1930s house in the southeast. We knew the house would need replastering, redecorating, new kitchen, bathroom, floors and new boiler. We also budgeted for an extension to connect the kitchen diner area, have a bathroom + utility downstairs and ideally another bedroom upstairs (either loft or above the kitchen).

We've just had a L3 survey done, and from the things we hadn't noticed from the viewings, it's found damp in the kitchen, in a bedroom, windows need replacing, but what worries us is there is lath and plaster ceilings and walls that the surveyor said were at the end of their life and need replacing. Also says the loft is inadequately insulated. Unsure if there was asbestos but said there might be in downstairs toilet and potentially in the chimney flues. There were many other issues mentioned (render etc.) but these aren't as concerning.

Whilst we know surveys come back with a long list of problems identified and that sometimes they sound worse than they are, and that you have to differentiate between what's urgent vs what's not, we are still concerned about the lath and plaster issue.

We thought we would be able to live in the house whilst it's being redone but if needs new ceilings, and new walls then we're worried it's going to be a money pit and that it'll be too stressful to take on because we'll have to live with family, also whilst we are planning for a family. We'll renegotiate and offer less, but if they don't accept, we're prepared to walk away.

Based on the above, how much would you suggest knocking off the asking price? We're in a good position because we're chain-free. To note as well: the vendor is eager to get things going before any changes in capital gains tax.

My feeling is, this house isn’t for you.

The remodelling work you are planning is immense and from other threads on here, very likely costs will spiral and it will take months and months. At the end of the day, it’s a 1930s semi - I’m very familiar with these and trust me there’s only so much you can do, it will never feel too spacious.

I would find the survey results worrying in terms of how much that’s all going to cost. The fact the vendor is now starting to push, means you are probably not going to have a comfortable vendor/buyer “relationship” even before you renegotiate (which yes, I absolutely do think you would need to do).

If I were the vendor, I would however be glad to know what the survey threw up - they can be better placed for the next offer that comes along. Their risk is, if they lower the price accordingly pre sale to accommodate works needed (which they may have done already), depending on their circumstances they might not have much more wriggle room.

If you are dead set on the house and eyes fully wide open about the building carnage ahead, absolutely lower your offer now. If it helps, our window quotes have come in around 30k, that’s for 16 windows and doors.

Personally, I would be walking away from this one.

That's not necessarily true - re factored into the price. We are trying to buy at the moment and the one we've had an offer accepted on was on for £1.1m which is the ceiling price for the road. There are major problems with it - just waiting for the structural survey to come back. Some agents and vendors just try their luck and a lot of people don't full understand what fixing things / renovation costs. Our offer was accepted on the basis that we saw a few problems when offering. If it comes back saying you need a new roof (which is a possibility) then that will have to be negotiated as we didn't factor that in.

60k for all that work is unrealistic. I was going to go on about doing your sums etc again, but in all honesty 1930’s semis are everywhere and constantly come up for sale. I’d wait for a better one to show up.

It is good you’ve shown how unrealistic some asking prices are. This house needs 100k spending on it plus months of work. There will be many people paying 5% under asking and thinking they’ve got a bargain.

@Haggia Thanks for the advice. Yes I think you're right. I was personally really set on this house because the garden was big, and the location was perfect, very desirable, it was the best house we'd seen. I don't have the energy to do viewings all over again, and bidding wars (we live 3h30 away from this location, so could only do weekends).

But I think I need to have a reality check and tell myself it's not worth the money and the stress, and that I just need to patient and wait until the right house shows up and hope we're fortunate enough to get it.

@HellsBalls and @kirinm Thanks. Agree with both of you.

Also prior comments on the thread made me feel like I was overreacting to the survey results and all those issues were visible when we viewed the house which it really wasn't!

Anyways, thanks everyone for the really useful advice. I think I need to be realistic about this and probably move away and wait for the right one to come up.

I don't think you have the right mindset or experience to renovate this kind of house. Maybe start looking around again.

I don't think the movement in the bay windows would have necessarily been visible. I'd want a bit more info about that. Water damage is a bit vague to be helpful too. Rebuilding a bay is expensive.

A lathe and plaster ceiling wouldn't bother me though. Things happen to old houses and that is the risk of buying one. You can't expect the vendor to pay for maintenance that might be needed in x years time.

The movement will depend if it is historic or recent - if historic it wouldn't bother me, especially if you plan to put new windows in. The brackets seem to have sorted the problem and so to me that does seem to be historic movement - if you wish to investigate then find out what caused the movement.

Lath and plaster ceilings - so many people get in a tiz about them, both potential buyers and surveyors, when they are not a problem. Either leave them and decorate as required or board over them.

Water damage - where, how much and why? Could be anything from a slipped roof tile or blocked guttering which has already been fixed and is just a cosmetic repair to cover the water marks.

In the nicest way I think you are trying to justify paying a considerable less amount for this house - I think offering £60k to the owners is not a good move, by all means ask for a reduction but do not be surprised if the vendors do not comply. You may be lucky and they will compromise on some reduction but the survey results seem more like an older house maintenance issues coupled with the plans you wish to do in order to renovate it. A vendor is not there to pay for what you want to do with the house.

Just a quick update on this in case it helps anyone else in the future: in the end the survey results and speaking to the surveyor who gave us his honest opinion (we trust him) proved very useful was we were able to negotiate knocking off £50k off our initial offer to factor in the £60k worth of invisible extra work (as we had already budgeted for replastering, redecorating, new kitchen and bathroom!).

While I know many in this thread felt this was ridiculous and we should know what we were getting into when viewing the house: I disagree. The survey revealed a lot of issues that were simply invisible to the eye.

Also what drove our decision to lower our offer price by £50k was doing our research on similar houses in the area, which confirmed that our house had been overpriced when put up for sale. Other houses with exact same footprint that were in better condition, slightly more modernised or already had a small extension we’re selling cheaper!

So if anyone else reading this thread who is in a similar conundrum buying a property:

1. If the property looks dated and will need modernising, get a thorough survey done. There are some issues that are just invisible and can’t be found even when doing multiple viewings. This will give you a really useful idea of what type of renovation work you’ll need to do and get a ballpark figure.
2. Check what similar houses in the street and area have sold for. Are they more modern or in similar/worse condition? Have they already been extended or have a loft conversion? This will help you get an idea of how much the house you’re buying is worth. Some agents get the asking price right and others (like ours) try their luck and ask for much higher.

We’re very pleased with our purchase despite all the work that needs doing, but we feel happy we got it for the right price.

Hope this helps anyone!

I'm surprised you got so much negativity on here re renegotiation tbh.

It seems to be accepted practice for vendors to try to hide anything they can in terms of structural problems and then scream "sold as seen" when a buyer finds something wrong with a place. I can't think of anything else you might buy that is as expensive and as risky. Maybe a supercar private sale.

The survey shows to you that the place is worth less than you thought it was. That's the whole point of the survey, to get an idea of the value. Not everyone is an expert and capable of seeing these things on first inspection with the first offer, even if they are fairly visible or obvious, unless the vendor explicitly points them out (they never do).

Once the problems are revealed and you get an idea of how much it will cost to fix them it's perfectly reasonable to renegotiate the price if you don't think it is worth what you offered originally. Much as it is perfectly reasonable for the seller to refuse and chance their arm with another vendor.

Well done and hope you are enjoying your new house.

if you where plastering you would have to do the lath ceilings and walls anyway as they would be damaged during removal. Its horribly messy (will bring down 95 years of dust from the attic) but is literally part of the plastering job. Boarding is easy.

Asbestos means nothing as long as you dont disturb it and then breath the fibers.

All surveys will say windows need replacing, most aren't modern compliant and most 'issues' like a blown widow don't effect the function.

Most lofts will lack adequate insulation, it will be too thin or flatted. Its a common job... if its spray foam then thats a nighmare but anything else should be fine.

All old houses have some level of damp, its mild enough that you didn't even notice so no big issue. Most damp issues are easy fixes like condensation or leaks (internal or external) or lack of venting (buried air-bricks etc...) and even if you do need some 'rising damp' proofing, dry rodding is an easy and cheap job and works wonders (hardest part is removing plaster but your doing that already).

We recently had some surveys done and found them very useful both pre and post offer to help us understand the initial challenges and then also afterwards in more detail too.

We managed to negotiate £25k off ours for £20k of work, because we said that we also would take a significant amount of time and effort for the work to be completed so would want a compensation for this.

Think depends on what it is on for and your position of strength in your negotiation with the seller.

We have some lath-and-plaster. All our surveyor said about them was that they had no obvious problems but that when they do fail, they tend to fail big time. That's a reasonable warning as people not used to older houses wouldn't know that (we did, I have been under one when it failed!).
I spoke to our plasterer about it and he suggested that if we did want to cover them ( they are bit wonky in places) he would board with very thin board and skim- but that he would screw the boards through the lath into the joists with a LOT of long screws. I have head of a case where plasterers didn't put in enough/long enough screws an then plastered in one massive go and the wet plaster and poor fixings brought the whole lot down.
We haven't bothered, as there are rather nice covings which even a thin boarding would interfere with. If it starts anything, we'd board as suggested. It's 100 years old and there don't seem to be any major issues as yet, I hope it will see us out. There is a very small area where the ceiling paper is holding the plaster up to the laths. Plasterer recommended how to deal with it, I'll get round to it eventually.
I dare not take down the wallpaper, though- soaking it off would, I suspect, do for the ceiling. I just panted it with a matt paint so the texture if the paper isn't so obvious.

Has anyone come across the digital property condition report? I feel like this would be helpful in this instance as you could have got a good estimate of works and also most of the issues and then you would not need to actually change the negotiate the price most likely

TBH I wouldn't go ahead unless you can access plenty of money to deal with this problems and any more that come up. Old houses do need more maintenance. If you're worried it might make sense to buy something newer (but not too new!!)

How did you get on? Would love to hear what worked and what tools were useful please :)

Saw you could post a picture of a potential problem and it uses surveyors knowledge base to give an overview costing called Brickwise was very helpful for me