Buyer has pulled out after being spooked by survey

[BunnyWilliams]

We're absolutely devastated. Our buyers pulled out today after getting their full survey back over the weekend. Surveyor was from Countrywide and sent by Nationwide to do a valuation and he also did a level 2 survey.

Apparently, he has stated that the house is "liable to collapse" and the roof needs extensive work. We've already had a roofer out and there are a few cracked tiles which we're replacing. Definitely not extensive work needed! He was doing a level 2 survey and has made these claims with no evidence or further investigation to back them up.
We only moved in 4 years ago and had a level 3 survey which raised none of these issues.

Our buyers were getting a structural engineer round tomorrow because they'd already been spooked by his initial findings but they've now cancelled it.

I am devastated and furious (with the surveyor) in equal measure. Our buyers aren't willing to have a conversation about it. We've already said we'd cover the roof repairs and I'm getting 3 builders out this afternoon to look at the one ceiling that has cracks to quote to repair/replace it.

I'm sure we'll now lose our onward purchase. Of course, we'd completely fallen in love with it. We've already done all the searches. Our survey is booked for Thursday but I think we'll probably have to cancel it or we'll be liable to lose a further £800. Our house was on the market since September and we only had 4 viewings. The market here is beyond dead. Nothing new has come on in the bracket we're looking at since November!

There absolutely should be. I could make a complaint but I'm guessing it would fall on deaf ears. That seems to be what happens when I've read other stories about similar happening.

I'm hoping we'll be in a similar position 🙏

I have a feeling that whatever we say, our buyers aren't going to accept it. We had been briefly keeping in touch on FB messenger and she's now blocked me. I hadn't sent her any messages since we found out they were pulling out, it's all been through the agent.

What I don't know is how you pre-empt some of the surveyor nonsense? I had all the paperwork for various 'issues' that weren't actually issues and had sent them out to lawyers and the estate agent before the survey. But I wasn't in the house at the time and had no warning it was going to happen, so had no way of telling the surveyor that I had planning permissions, building regs, gas certificates, etc, so he wouldn't have to 'mention' in his report that they weren't available and get the buyer all nervous (he doesn't speak brilliant English and doesn't entirely understand the system of house buying here).

Glad I didn't go with Nationwide now! I can see why people would get nervous the way some surveys read. We have never done one before but initially it does look a bit scary. We have one main issue with ours but have given the vendors chance to try to sort it. I guess if your buyers have shut down there's not much you can do.

Problem is, if the surveyor is from their mortgage company it makes little odds if they think it's utter bollocks too. The bank simply won't offer them the mortgage above the valuation.
We got nobbled like this with our first house and couldn't find the extra £5k. As it turned out the whole chain agreed to take the hit so we were very lucky.

God, I feel for you. I loathe surveys and surveyors. I clearly remember when I bought current house 17 years ago, the surveyor commented on the lathe and plaster ceilings and said they should all be replaced because they'll probably collapse. I ignored that at the time because the ceilings were fine - not even cracked. 17 years in the house and not a single ceiling has cracked or collapsed. I'm selling now, buyers paid for a level 3 survey which was shared with me and this time the ceilings didn't even get a mention. Suveyors are so totally inconsistent - there's no science in it, you just get wild statements based on what ever that particular surveyor has a bee in their bonnet about.

Our surveyor claimed when we purchased our house that there were wiring issues with the type or wires not being ceiling insulated and various other small items. Not only were those items completely wrong, but they completely missed a deteriorating roof (started leaking the day we moved in), a circuit breaker box that was dangerously overloaded with scorch marks on breakers, wiring that wasn't correctly earthed, an air conditioner that literally was not connected to the building etc. BIL is in proprety sales and notes that a lot of surveyors deliberately miss items/overvalue as otherwise banks and agents stop working with them. It sounds like complete potluck which kind you get. Insanely frustrating!

When I bought an old house the agent made it clear to me only to use a surveyor who was experienced in old houses.

Am currently looking at the cracks in my ceiling and walls which are unchanged in the past 15 years and now like old friends.

Your cracks are barely there! So sorry this has happened to you.

Thank you all. It's reassuring to know we aren't alone, even though it doesn't help the heartache tonight. I'm cuddling my babies and reminding myself that as long as we're all here and healthy, that's all that really matters.

Just had the contractor out to look at the ceiling. He seemed confused as to why he was even there when I pointed out the cracks. He said it's actually plasterboard and not lath and plaster in that particular room. The ridges are where the plasterboard is joined and they haven't used a mesh tape. Purely a cosmetic thing. The cracks are caused by the room expanding and contracting because of temperature. He said he sees worse in new builds. I got him to check every other wall and ceiling in the house just to be sure and there's NOTHING. I told him what the surveyor had said about the house being liable to collapse and he said, "Excuse my French but that's a crock of sh*t."

I had the same!!!! Had to pay £5k for work which had to be done by only one company that they said it had to be = felt massively ripped off but was so desperate to keep the sale, I just had to suck it up

How come you have 8 slipped tiles anyway? That is bound to attract attention. Are they not visible from the ground?
With the sloping floor, something has moved, is the exterior looking ok? Old houses with their high maintenance and low EPC are becoming a potential liability not to be ignored for most purchasers. How old is it?

They are extremely minor. They've just slightly moved. They aren't letting in water.

The floor is sloped because the building is old and will have shifted at some point in the 300 years it has been standing. The floors are solid and aren't bouncy. There are no exterior cracks whatsoever and no signs of subsidence or any other movement.

It's a very low maintenance house. We've had a 70s and 80s house which had constant issues. This house has been a dream in comparison. As today has proved, apart from the roof tiles, there is absolutely nothing of concern in the house and it is in far better condition than most modern new build houses.

Anywhere you can leave a negative review of the surveyor so other people are warned?

Also any way to lodge an official complaint with them?

Everyone is trying to drag purchases over the line by March 31st to avoid a hike in SDLT. I'd get tiles fixed, sort out the ceiling, get it back on the market immediately with a small price reduction.

Five years ago my DD was buying a house. His mortgage company sent out a surveyor and you've guessed it valued the house a lot less than the purchase price. DH had used every penny on his deposit and legals. He sent a message to the seller via EA to say he was really sorry but he couldn't pay the additional money himself because he was a first time buyer and had used all his savings on deposit and legals. He was very lucky the seller really wanted to move and didn't want to lose their new house so they agreed to drop the price. After he moved in the house next door went up for sale and sold for the full asking price. Same price he was supposed to pay. So it seems it's luck of the draw which surveyor you get.

No experience of Countrywide, but I did sell a house a few years ago that had an unexpectedly bad survey and the buyers were spooked, as anyone would be tbf. Fortunately, they were willing to share it, so we knew the survey included some complete factual inaccuracies and we also knew the name of the surveyor who'd done it. I did some digging and found that although he wasn't young, he was newly qualified as a surveyor, having previously been a builder. He'd also spunked a load of BS all over social media about sellers trying to pull a fast one with building regs/planning permission so it seemed like he had some kind of agenda (he'd argued with us during the survey about permissions for an extension, which was all in order and we had the paperwork to prove it, fortunately, but he refused to believe it).

Because we were in direct contact with the buyers, we pooled information and they complained to RICS and also got their money back for the survey, because it had contained so much rubbish. I'd like to think RICS sanctioned him in some respect but I don't know. The sale did go through in the end but we had to allow them to do all kinds of specialist surveys and inspections, because they were obviously nervous after all of that, which held things up and added to the stress for everyone.

I disagree that surveyors can't be expected to be experts - that's literally what you're paying them for, rather than just getting your dad to take a look and guess - but too often they hide behind disclaimers or just paint a worst-case picture to be on the safe side. Of course you may need a specialist opinion about something too, but they should be able to be accurate in what they do say.

I hope your buyers come back to the table and it works out for you after all @BunnyWilliams.

Just wondering as I'm a FTB currently, what do you mean they took the hit? Do you mean they agreed to wait while you sorted it or did they all have do lower their prices by 5k?

I was the buyer in your situation, although we used an independent surveyor and paid for the highest level of survey (I think: I was 9 months pregnant at the time but it was £2k or so). The house had been doubled in size by the current owners and the surveyor was very thorough in showing where a good job had been done and what would likely need more work. But, if I’m honest (I felt really bad about it, had a thread on it, as I felt awful for the vendors) aside from the survey pointing out c£50k of work we hadn’t anticipated as probably needing to be done (on top of the £40k of work we saw needed doing) , the day the survey came through a perfect house came on the market for us.

The vendors found new buyers super quickly, and sold at a higher price than we’d agreed with them. They completed only 11 weeks after we pulled out.

Urgh surveyors are the worst. I'm convinced they're all useless.

When I was selling my house the surveyor reported that the gas fire in my living room was a category 3 fire risk and needed immediate attention...I did not have a gas fire in my living room, which even a child would have been able to deduce from the bloody great electric wire that went from the fire and plugged into the wall! Cowboys.

What about the valuation? Was it lower than the agreed price?

Yes. It came in at 420k with no reasoning attached to it. Nationwide's own house price index listed it as a MIN of 440k. Similar but smaller houses in the village have just completed for 460/470k. There are a few on the market at the moment which are the same size as ours but with slightly bigger gardens and they are listed at 650 and 685k.

It has been undervalued but if they won't even entertain giving us a lower offer to enter into a conversation about what could be done, there's not much we can do.

We'll likely reduce the price when we relist it, although I'm not sure by how much as we need to consider our onward purchase if we can keep it. We were holding back 40k for renovations so we've technically got some leeway.

this is awful

Were they first time buyers?

Happened to us too

The buyers didnt even want to negotiate . They just ghosted us

Are you deliberately drip feeding us?
If you agreed 450 and the valuation is 420 then you have wiggle room. If you agreed 500 and they valued it 20% lower then that’s the reason you lost the buyer, not some slipped tiles.

What? I'm not deliberately doing anything. What an odd thing to say!

We lost them due to the survey, not the down valuation. We had already agreed on splitting the difference to make it up at their suggestion. They have now had the full survey back and pulled out because it's inaccuracies have scared them off.

We would be willing to talk about taking a lower offer to make up the full difference but they aren't interested in talking.

They quite literally said this morning that they are pulling out because of the findings on the survey, not because of the valuation which we already knew about last week.

House likely needs a total refurb if it hasn't been touched in 300 years...