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 OP said:

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)

So they had other offers, just from buyers needing to sell their own property. That would suggest its not overpriced to any degree and it makes more sense to keep it until Spring at least. Maybe one of the other offers will sell their own place, maybe the Spring market will find new buyers.

The OP says the “done up” price for a three bed would be up to 900k. Assuming its also only a three bed its already been priced to allow a fair amount of doing up - £165 below the “done up" price. Now the OP wants more off because fundamentally they cannot afford to do the work needed. 10k for guttering is bizarre and if a buyer told me to pay for them to rewire the house on the basis of a photograph, I’d assume they didn’t know what they were doing.

The fact that they didn't jump at the offer of £10k lower indicates they aren't desperate to sell.

In my experience, surveys on old homes always come back with issues or suspected issues. Sometimes, these are things that require immediate attention, while others can be saved for and dealt with later. Part and parcel of buying an old property is that you normally need to do something when you move in, it looks like the price reduction initially reflected this. You can say it's ten grand off or we don't procced, but you are souring the relationship and they may just think it's not worth it to carry on with people who are going to haggle over every last little thing.

Yep.

On our survey it said "the cellar shows significant evidence of damp". Well no shit Sherlock, it's an unconverted cellar!

The could believe that it was priced fairly, with modernisation work considered in the first instance and then dropped the price. It depends on a lot of factors so hard to advise but it depends how much you want it and whether you’re prepared to lose it. We’ve paid £19k for a rewire in the last 12 months and then 8k for replastering. It’s not for the faint hearted!

How are you able to afford a three quarters of a million pound house and not have 10k for repairs?

tbh I don’t think it’s that strange to put everything into a property purchase and accept the risk that comes with rebuilding savings in the years after purchase

It may not be strange, but it is stupid.

It's hard but you have to walk away, it might just not be the house for you.

It’s a risk. That doesn’t make it stupid. May people carefully asses risks and know their own risk attitudes and contingencies and mitigations. Just because you dont know the process they’ve undertaken before taking the risk doesn’t make them stupid

It’s strange to buy a doer upper without the funds to do the doing.

Rebuilding savings is one thing, rebuilding a house is quite another.

The OP and her DH have maxed themselves out to the degree that they have no savings, and cannot afford £10K of repairs. Let alone realising that there will be other repairs and maintenance needed down the line.

And assuming that they don't lose their jobs, everyone stays healthy...

Yes, I would call that stupid.

We've done it twice.

As long as the property is habitable, it's fine. Might not be nice, but it isn't dangerous.

Can you actually afford this house, OP? Maybe look for something cheaper and you will be less stressed.

Never said it was dangerous. Did you do the work yourself?

I’m not sure why people keep referring to it as a do upper. OP has made it clear that they didn’t intend to spend anything on the property post purchase

Everyone is different with house sales so I don't think you're unreasonable to ask, but personally once I've accepted an offer, that's it for me. I won't renegotiate and if the buyer walks away, so be it. I'm not sure why really, it's a bit of a psychological block I think, but once I have that price in my head, I won't sell for less, especially if I've already accepted under my asking price.
They probably accepted your lower offer because they knew the survey would throw up some quirks.

Just walk away. You can't afford the price they want (and in my experience of renovating old houses, it'll be far more than 10k).

They may not sell at the price they want. Let them find that out.

They may come back to you in a couple of months ...

No, she can't.

Because it’s a damp probate property that’s that’s selling 150k under a done one. Ergo even the agents can see it needs a lot of work.

That pretty much means you can't afford the house.

I think you have approached this the wrong way with the vendors. I would go back and say you really love the house and really want it etc but following the survey there have been some costs you hadn’t expected and the reality is unless the price comes down another £10,000 you really cannot afford to buy the house and have the remedial work done. If you appeal to their better nature, it may swing in your favour, especially if you are in a good chain and there has been little other interest in the property.

Are you new to this? The more you say you love a property, the less reason the vendor has to accept your derisory new offer.

Well she didn’t know it was damp. Maybe she thought she would replace the kitchen, bathrooms and do the redecoration in 5 years or whenever.

OFGS. A blocked gutter does not = "damp".

It may have cause some local dampness, but it doesn't mean OH MY GOD THERE IS DAMP!!!