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 🙏

As someone who recently sold my house, I'm deeply pissed off with all the reducing the agreed price.
The price set by the estate agents was lower than we wanted but reflected the small areas of refurbishment needed. Nothing was hidden and all the basics were in good order. So we agreed the price.
The survey by the buyer was the trigger for a major remediating of the price. It did not highlight anything tangible but suggested that something could be amiss. Eg, properties of this age often have asbestos in the garage roof. (We didn't have any asbestos.) And, although we are unable to test for damp in this area, Victorian houses often have damp proof courses of slate that have broken down.
We had been trying to buy the house we wanted for many months by the time this survey was commissioned. We finally sold for something like £30k less than the estate agents lowest estimates.
I still feel slightly sick about the whole business but there were pressing reasons we needed to move

You can't tell if a house needs a new boiler, you can only tell how likely it is to need one.

You can do this by turning on the hot water tap and seeing if the water runs hot and the boiler fires. Also see how old the current boiler is and look up the average life span of that make and model, but a guide would be a 7-10yo boiler will likely need replacing in 5-10 years.

Plus a boiler service/ inspection is about £60 so you could always get one of those if you are really bothered.

There should also be a booklet listing the service that have been carried out on the boiler. You could ask to see the last invoice to see if any work was required. One house we bought had a new boiler but simple investigation revealed that it was far too small and would need to replaced immediately.

Sadly my l3 survey had the boiler listed as working well, though the pressure was low. The sellers said they’d not had it serviced in 4 years they were there but it worked great. It was 9 years old and bam, a few days after moving in I repressurised it and the leak they were hiding/maybe unaware due to negligence exploded everywhere due to corroded pipes. queue 10 days without heating /hot water in winter and £5k for a new boiler and work!

They should have the boiler serviced. However old electrics and an old boiler are just part of buying a house to me. If the gutters are actually creating an issue then you could suggest they need to get them fixed for you to consider buying the house. People think guttering costs a couple of hundred quid not realising the cost of replacement runs into thousands. They may not have appreciated this.

@MowingMachineno, I’m not new to this, I have bought countless properties, and we have recently bought our forever home using this approach. 25% off asking price. We also accepted an offer from someone who couldn’t offer what we wanted on the house we were selling because she absolutely loved it and I knew she wouldn’t mess us around. I was right

Was your buyer cash or mortgage?

Yes, when markets turn reality is harsh on the overleveraged. The OP"s seller is being reckless in my opinion by taking the chance on losing a buyer over 10k in this market, they will probably regret that decision.

I agree, we've always been very careful not to borrow more than we needed to, we saw friends get into trouble in the 1980's, some lost their homes or had to sell whilst in negative equity. It's hard to fight your way back from that.
It's a bit different for people selling homes they've inherited. Rather than accept the reduction in the sale price they could probably run the house for several years on the equivalent amount - assuming they don't have to pay back a mortgage. If the house was correctly valued, which sounds likely when the OP discusses the values of renovated vs unrenovated property, it might make more sense to pull out.

We know of several properties in this area which were left empty or rented out after people died, and sold several years later.

Since it is a probate house there may be more than one executor/beneficiary and they may not agree.

Good points, the government are making it harder to leave property empty now though with all the council tax hikes if you leave it empty?

If you’re buying a 100 year old house and can’t afford to replace the gutters then I agree you probably can’t afford the house. I’d be annoyed if I was the seller about you wanting a price reduction for the electrics and boiler as the house will have been valued taking their age into account. Like others have said the age doesn’t mean they need replacing either. My electrics are probably 40 years old, they’re fine!

You could ask for the gutters to be sorted, they might need unblocking of leaves, any joins tightened up, etc.

my boiler is service annually and I have no booklet. I get sheets of paper from the bloke who comes though.

Or learn some basic diy ? Can't beat old houses imo.

This all seems like so much nitpicking on a near three quarters of a million place. They either want the house or they don't.

You either agree or walk away. I don't know what advice you expected !

Yes, twice normal council tax in many areas - but the asking price appears to have been sensible in the first place, the seller had already accepted a price below asking and now the buyer wants a further reduction, total £25k, that would easily cover the council tax for several years. Obviously no guarantee that the house will sell then but I think it's worth a try.

The seller has no other buyers though, it just isn"t worth losing the buyer over 10k on a 700k plus house, there are other costs over and above council tax as well, just keeping it heated over the winter is going to cost, and as we get battered by more and more storms you could be repairing roofs and all sorts, just get it sold in my opinion, take the small hit.

The house may be a legacy for more than one person and it only takes one to insist on a higher price to stop the sale. My BiL was 3 years selling his mother's house because of his greedy sister.

but that is your opinion.

Yes but the no other buyers, heating and maintenance, extra council tax and possible repairs are facts.

Did they get the price she wanted?

I haven't a clue it wasn't my inheritance, but she did hold up the sale for a long, long time.

Fair enough.

My partner’s father’s house has just sold after probate was granted. He priced it realistically (generously I’d say) and the proceeds will be shared with his sibling. I know that if the prospective buyers ask for a reduction after the survey he will walk away because he’s had two other higher offers since the first but he’s kept to his word and will continue this sale if the prospective buyers keep to theirs.