Sellers won’t budge after survey price negotiation

[Montysmoon]

Hi everyone,

We had our offer of £735k accepted on a £750k house a month ago. The house was on the market a while - about six months and had no proceedable offers in that time (other buyer were needing to sell). It’s a probate.

While the house is old (100 years ish), no major alarm bells rang during our viewings.

But our homebuyer survey flagged urgent issues like gutters in disrepair that are causing damp throughout the property. The electrics are 40+ years old so the house will need rewiring, and the boiler is also old. There are other minor issues too like decaying woodwork etc.

We have asked the vendors to consider taking £10k off the sale price as this is what has been quoted to us for the repair work to the gutters and damp. This does not include anything for electrics or anything else.

Vendors are refusing to renegotiate price. I want to push back because we simply won’t have the money to do this repair work otherwise, plus they’re not exactly inundated with other offers so they’d be silly to risk losing us.

I’m also selling so I appreciate that it’s not always straightforward just lowering the price, but given the obvious defects in the house I think it’s a reasonable sum. Does anyone agree/disagree? Advice very welcome 🙏

The wiring should be obvious, an 80s fuse box looks very difficult to a modern one.

If I were the seller I'd be telling you to jog on.

As a buyer I've never renegotiated a price based on a survey and have had much bigger things come up - I either want the house and will do the work over time or I walk away.

Doesn't sound like the house is unliveable if you could see or smell the damp.

What's urgent? Does the boiler not work and you were told it doesn't did? Are the electrics dangerous?

Nothing you've said screams urgent to me, and the electric and boiler should have been obvious on.viewimg or you could have asked before offering if they'd have made a difference.

Why?

I do think that the OP is trying to buy more than she can afford, but if a survey shows structural issues that affect is worth, why shouldnt the buyer renogtiate based on that?

If I view a house and offer asking but the survery shows that it needs immediate work costing (say) £20k then whats wrong with lowering the offer?

It's rare that houses needing £20k of immediate work isn't a) priced accordingly b) obviously in need of that work or c) both.

If as a buyer you don't feel able to see things like this then you either need to take someone with you who can (you can pay professionals for this service) or take a thorough list of questions and not offer until they are answered.

A survey showing serious structural work that is not obvious is needed is rare.

It will only be priced accordingly if the work is obvious. Something that only comes up in a survey is very unlikely to be factored into the price.

*As a buyer I've never renegotiated a price based on a survey and have had much bigger things come up - I either want the house and will do the work over time or I walk away+

Thats an odd take ime!

No I’m really not, but please carry on 🙄

£2.8k mortgage a month is quite a lot in these times. I’d be extra cautious for this reason alone.

This is s really good way of looking at it -(indeed any decision! 😀)

You still don't know what the house is worth or how keen they are to sell . They might not care about waiting, despite extra costs.They might have had interest from other potential buyers which this buyer doesn't know about. They might actually be reluctant to sell, perhaps because of sentimental reasons or disagreements about what to do with the property. In other words, you don't know all the circumstances.

I bought a probate house 120 years old which hasn’t been modernized and everyone told me to play that silly chicken game but it was obvious that it had been priced to take account of the fact that it was unmodernised, and likely hidden issues. I didnt bother with a survey because the location was perfect and houses rarely come up for sale in that location. The asking price 650 was just under half of what Zoopla estimated (1250) ( obviously Zoopla would not have sight of the condition and difficult to value a horse that hasn’t been sold by in 120 years) so effectively any money I spent on it would clearly be an investment rather than a cost. I am now into 300k worth of building work - painful but definitely worth it.
As an additional bonus, I am now good friends with the executor who sold it -as it had been in her family for all those years I now have a link to its past, and she has a link to its future.
( Not everything is ‘the art of the deal’ as many buyers seem to fancy themselves as Trump /type ‘hard-ball’ negotiators)
I didn’t have a survey because surveys never tell you anything really worth knowing -too many caveats and over/cautious , and the house actually was been perfectly liveable without the work, just a whole lot nicer with it.
On the other side, I was selling a properly last December to first time buyers who were a nightmare playing games, and assuming I must be desperate to sell to them. After a very cheek try-on reduced offer after they visited the property with a builder just before exchange, I told the estate agent unless we exchanged and completed on the date day at the original agreed price, I would take it off the market and re-market in the spring with another agent (and maybe at as reduced price) and the sale then went ahead. (Tho’ I worked rather not have sold my lovely flat to those cheeky CFs, would happily have sold in the spring at as low price to nicer people😀)

I think it would have been evident when you viewed it was a property that needed work doing to it. You got a £15,000 reduction at the outset. Are you/partner able to do the work because getting trades in is very expensive. Can you really afford it?

We are currently selling a house that needs a few things doing to it. It is priced in reflection of that. Without us knowing the market in the area it would be hard to give you feedback.

The survey always lists things that need to be done immediately or in the near future. My 20 year old house had many thousands in upcoming work - for example new windows- this was no reflection of the state of the windows but simply that the useful life of windows is 15-20 years so expect to replace.

surveys never come back with - brill house buy now! Luckily I have access to a construction firm in the family and have had someone to go through surveys with me and tell me what genuinely needs doing and what is advice or something you can live with (never anything that genuinely needs doing btw in a number of houses purchase including doer uppers)

things like boilers don’t “need doing”- one doesn’t expect to buy a house that isn’t new with a new boiler in it. Until it breaks it doesn’t need replacing.

OP also doesn’t seem to be reviewing the work with a practical critical eye. You paid a surveyor to look for risks. They will always find them.

If a fully specced equivalent on the same street would go for £900k, the sellers will think they’ve already discounted by £150k. That’s the problem.

In their heads they think you've already got a bargain. Some people really believe the value they put on their house is the true value. When it's not.

For this one which was probate, they really believed it was worth as much as a 4 bed, fully modernised property up the road. Of course it wasn't.

You've gone back and they've rejected it. I'd move on. They may still come back to you.

They've priced £150K under top whack to account for condition, and then accepted a further £15K reduction on offer?

They sound reasonable tbh. Round here most people would be trying to sell something like this for the full £900K.

You can call their bluff and walk away. If they are stubborn and/or feel you're taking the piss, that will be the end of the deal.

Make sure you and your family members are truly content with shacking up together beforehand!

That is what a survey is for, but all the things the OP mentions could be seen on a viewing.

A boiler you can tell by looking how old it is, and the EPC will tell you how efficient it it. Ours was switched off so I can the taps and shower to check it fired and see what the water pressure was like.

We could see the damp as black mould was on the walls and curtains and the gutters can be checked by looking out the window. We could also smell the damp.

Ours is a probate property and had been empty over a year. The surveyor said the mould was from no heating and lack of ventilation

. The only think we didn't know the cause of was some cracks that could have been subsidy or another cause. The surveyor said cavity wall ties failure and we got an extra survey to price this, which is £700

We went in the loft, we opened every cupboard, we lifted carpets and checked the chimneys.

We are first time buyers with no experience, I downloaded a blank rics survey and viewed the property with that in hand. We didn't miss anything, and only wall ties was an expense we didn't factor for in the £25,000 under asking we offered,

I think the O P dudng do a very effective viewing

I think you are being unreasonable. It should be obvious when you viewed the house that the boiler was an old model. Replacing gutters and rewiring are also quite common in an older house.

If the house was already priced to reflect the need for upgrades and you also got 15K under this asking price so the sellers are right to tell you no...

It might simply be that an old house that needs work is not for you.

So assuming this is also a three bed the property is already priced 150k below top price as a probate sale in need of some updating. They have then accepted a further 15k reduction. Now you want another 10k off for guttering (which I assume is gold plated - I’ve never had a quote anywhere near that price for guttering). 150k below top price allows for an awful lot of updating already.rea

If the 10k is make or break then it sounds like you really can’t afford the house. Its not just old houses which come with costs, you always need a “slush” fund. However you could get some proper quotes for replacing the guttering and a proper electrical report. I’m surprised that any qualified electrician would diagnose a required rewire on the basis of one photograph of the consumer unit - I would expect them to recommend a proper check since “old” does not automatically mean “needs replacing”.

If you told me my house needed rewiring without a full electrical report and that you wanted 10k off just for guttering without a proper quote then I’d assume you were trying it on.

The last thing anybody should do is sit on an empty probate property for a long time, especially in an uncertain market.. Council Tax, insurance, standing charges for water, gas electric, even paying to get the grass cut are all costs that mount up. for the sake of £10k on £700k unless it was already a bargain basement price I would let it go. £700k on deposit would get interest of over £10k in 6 months, with no costs involved. Depending where you are in the country £700K + is a big property, round here people with that sort of money don't want to do major work, or want somewhere with a couple of acres of land.

It’s fairly uncommon nowadays to fully rewire a house. Usually it’s an element of tidying up and as you say, replacing components.

I quite agree, but houses can only be acquired for what buyers are prepared to let them go for. So, here, they have waited six months (not that long in some parts of the country, and given the current cluster that is property taxation) for reasons that are apparent - they are not in a chain, they are not living there, it's not a massive leap to assume that they may be compromises being made as to what they are prepared to accept as another poster has pointed out - they are not in a hurry.

The OP seems to think that because she has treated them courteously and moved quickly (which it's clear the sellers are not concerned about) she is entitled to a reduction because she needs it. She's not. They clearly don't care about timing and are prepared to wait. We looked at two houses round here that have lingered on the market. One sold at asking price, after about 18 months. That was in probate and they were prepared to wait. I would only have been prepared to pay 2/3rds or so of asking because of the work that needed doing, so we didn't even offer. But it was worth asking price to someone else; they just had to wait for that person. The other one has been reduced by less than 5% and I don't think will sell at that price (though it is stunning) but the sellers are in no rush to sell. So they can wait to see if it is worth what they think it is worth to someone else.

I would also say, that if you buy an old house without a big "buffer" then you have to be prepared to live without some mod cons, and with some inconveniences. So the OP could do three things: (i) look at cheaper old houses so she has a buffer; (ii) accept she will not be able to do all the work immediately upon moving in; or (iii) look only at newer houses where this is less likely to be a problem.

But the sellers don't owe her a discount because she would want to complete all the work upon moving in.

Exactly. Full rewire is rare unless done as part of a major refurb and if the house needs that its visible to any viewer.

Fundamentally the sellers have priced 150k below top to allow for updating/refurb, have accepted 165k below top and are now being asked to drop further to 175k below “done up” price.

In many areas council tax does not kick in on probate for 18 months, the running costs of an empty house are not that massive. Faced with accepting a price 175k below the “done up” price for the road I’d suck up the run cost for another six months and put it back on the market next Spring.

There's nothing in the OP which wouldn't be obvious on viewing.

Plus I said it's unlikely £20k of necessary work wouldn't be obvious.