How to deal with my buyer’s spurious surveyor ‘issues’?

[NormaSnorks]

We’re in the final stages (hopefully) of selling our house. It’s less than 20 years old and in good condition.

The buyer has raised some ‘issues’ coming out of the surveyors report. One is an easy fix (dislodged venting in roof space) although I’m a bit irritated as I believe the surveyor actually caused this problem when he entered the roof space, but ho hum…

But the other issue is completely spurious - all about how he couldn’t see properly, get into the space (it’s only a crawl space) but how some of the roof timbers looked like they might not be perfectly aligned/ attached, and how this could potentially (if true) lead to a problem in the short to medium term, and that the buyer might want to allow a contingency for this.

The buyer has come back with a request that we ‘fix’ these and I don’t know how to respond. As far as I’m concerned, apart from reattaching the venting tube there is nothing to be ‘fixed’. I strongly feel this is just the surveyor trying to find something to pad out his report, as there really was nothing else of concern.

Any thoughts about how to politely imply their surveyor is clutching at straws?!

Just say the house is perfectly fine and you won’t be addressing what’s only a potential issue.

Just respond back and say you've fixed the items that were specified as needing fixing.

Don't lie. Just go back and say there is no issue with the roof and you will not be attempting to fix something which "might" be a problem when their surveyor was unable to say there actually is a problem.

I would say that the surveyor is doing his job properly in flagging that he can’t see parts of the house and therefore there is the potential for issues. The past two houses we have bought were 20 and 40 years old, each built to the building regs of the time. Each time our surveyors pointed out that the roof structures weren’t up to current code (insufficient bracing to prevent racking) and therefore might cause issues in the future. We both work with buildings and know that this isn’t a problem we need to consider in depth in our decision making, so we were able to go ahead. If the surveyor hadn’t pointed that out, he would have been negligent in his duty to us.

I wouldn’t tell them he’s clutching at straws, but you could use the line about conforming to the building regulations at the time it was built, and therefore perfectly fit for purpose.

Tell them there is nothing specific you can do about the vague comments about what might or might not be wrong and if they are concerned they should get a proper structural survey done. Your solicitor should be able to word a suitable reply. And fix the vent.

I'm in the building trade - first observation is that in my 20 years of experience surveyors often don't really know what they are talking about.

A slight mis-alignment of roofing timbers is highly unlikely to cause problems, I've just been working in the lofts of a Georgian mansion, nothing is square or lines up, it has stood for nearly 300 years.

Second observation is that a survey serves to give the buyer a picture of what they are buying, and what they have to do, or may have to do - its not for you to correct anything, its for them to decide if they want your house or not.

To keep this sale moving I would say the roof timbers met building regs when it was built in X year and I would provide some photos of the access and into the loft for those timbers. I would tell them you are more than happy for them to stick their heads up in the loft space to view the timbers for themselves.

I'd say the same. They are welcome to get an independent roofer / builder to come and look if they wish but you don't believe there is a problem and the house met all building regs when built 20 years ago.

Surveyors always cover their backsides, by saying things like ‘I couldn’t inspect it properly, but this may be a problem one day. If your seller doesn’t realise that then they sound like a novice buyer. if they are that bothered, instead of asking you to ‘fix’ it, they should be commissioning a specialist roofing survey to confirm if there is actually a problem or not.

My response to the buyer would basically be on the lines of take it or leave it.

I would suggest you fix what you can and suggest the buyers get a full structural survey of the roof. There’s nothing you can do to fix a bit of misalignment. I’m assuming the timbers are if the required size and it would be odd if the roof was not sound,