Hi all
We have had our 500yr old (unlisted) house on the market for nearly three years. This year we've had 15 viewings - 5 x the previous years and our agent this time is much more active. However, we have had four offers in total over those three years. The three we've had in the past 12 months have pulled out after their survey showed "serious damp." One of them could not get a mortgage because of it.
We have lived very happily in this house for 14 years and it does not look, smell or feel damp other than a few patches of salts very commonly seen on properties of this construction and age.
A supposedly independent specialist damp survey was done by one of the buyers and of course it was in their interests to make it sound as dreadful as possible so that the quote they gave for them doing the work was as high as possible! Buyers just don't seem to get this! ANyway, just to appease future potential buyers we spent nearly £10K on getting a French drain system all around the house installed, but it's made no difference. We cannot afford to spend a penny more on it.
Anyway...we are now desperate and we urgently need to sell as we owe a lot of money and have to pay it back.
Has anyone on this platform successfully sold a "seriously damp" old property via auction and if so, how much did you have to reduce it by to get it sold and would you have any other important advice for me if we go down this route?