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 🙏

That’s irrelevant. The point is that hanging onto it costs the estate money, if this offer fails the next one may be less.

This op and in what state where the other houses that sold and for what amount.
People so so underestimate the cost of renovation and are not fully up to speed in the rising cost of builders coming in or things that come to light that need fixing.
Sellers and estate agents have still not woken up to the fact the market has turned and prices are reducing.
Quite a few sellers are also CF and put a house on that hasn’t been touched for decades at not much less than one fully dine up.
Quite honestly I think you are being far too generous only asking for £10 000 off based on the amount of stuff you now know needs doing without the cost of the unexpected when you do get in there.
I would seriously have a look into the cost of other similar houses in the area that have actually sold, done up and not done up.
You have tried to be good and done things quickly but I think you need to have a reevaluation about the actual value here.There are many CF who have not woken up to the turning market and why houses are sticking for many months/ a year.

Then just walk away. But I’m amazed you didn’t realise damp and guttering issues from walking round the house. Next time do a second viewing before making an offer and really look closely, notice smells etc. Surveyors don’t really tell you what you can’t see for yourself, frankly.

I live in a house built in 1877. It has a new boiler (this year). About to have new radiators upstairs (80s ones currently) and has them already downstairs. New sofits and guttering to front, about to do some at the back, but most is fine and about 30 years old (sadly, not cast iron, but you can't have everything). A 1930s house is not old (and they are better built than those put up after 1980) and the problems OP lists are not serious. There is no proof the electrics are 1980s (and if they are functioning and safe, so what?) and if the gutters are cleared the damp will presumably disappear. 6 months on the market is not long and if it's a probate sale then no-one is in a chain, presumably. They want the most they can get and have already dropped 15k from the price. Unreasonable to ask for a 10k drop IMO.

I’d agree with this too - whatever you have been quoted for remedial will be less than you actually go on to pay given the rewiring etc. have you added the 20% VAT on top of that quote? If not, you are already having to loo for an additional 2k.

You seem to have bid at the top end of your budget leaving no wiggle room for the unexpected so, unless you’ve also decided you can cope with living in it as it is, you need to be very sure you are up for this.

If it’s a probate sale I’m not sure why a price drop would be a problem. Wouldn’t you pay less inheritance tax if you sold it for less? There are bound to be further renovations you would need to make once you’ve moved in. I think I’d walk away if my budget was tight. Especially if I didn’t love the house.

10k off a >700k house isn’t very much

one time 10% off - 70k off would have been seen as reasonable

Surveyors generally say get a quote for a plumber for x, a builder for y etc.

So it’s important to take round a builder and get quotes for everything. They can tell you what is and isn’t relevant on a survey.

Having bought a few houses in my time, I find that there are ALWAYS far more issues with a house than first appears. Surveys never uncover everything because surveyors aren't permitted to pull up carpets, move furniture, peel off wallpaper. There's always things that have quietly rotted or deteriorated without being noticed, and that's just the stuff that hasn't been deliberately covered up.

I would think carefully about this one OP because if you are going to be counting the pennies to get this house, you're going to be struggling to put right anything dodgy you find. Trades work is much more expensive than it used to be, so if you can't comfortably afford to do it up at that price point, it might be best to start looking for another house in better shape.

Is a homebuyer survey as thorough as a full survey??
We bought a 100 year old house a few years ago and had a full survey which flagged up loads of stuff all over the house inside and out (but we loved the house so bought it anyway).
I wouldn’t buy an old house without a full survey at least you’ll have a really good idea of what you’re dealing with.

I am not sure why they would care what you can or can't afford?

This.

If you are only paying £735K for a house in an area where top spec houses are selling for £900K, it would seems it has been priced to acknowledge the fact it has things about it that aren't "top spec" already.
You seem to be wanting it both ways - offering a lower price on a house that has already acknowledged it could be improved, but then feigning surprise when the survey says 'this house would benefit from some work'. (Which, btw, every survey always suggests work could improve a house.)

Oh, and whereas the gutters may well need some work, suggesting the hose is damp throughout, but you didn't notice it makes me wonder what you were looking at before the offer. Damp is fairly apparent unless it is a small patch hidden behind some furniture or in the loft.

Also seems a bit odd to decide to spend £3/4 million without at least going back for a 2nd viewing.

If they’ve already said no, you can push once more but you can’t force them. Some sellers just won’t renegotiate no matter how reasonable it is.

Your survey findings aren’t small things though. Damp from failed gutters and a house that needs a rewire are big early costs. If you genuinely can’t afford to fix it after buying, walking away is better than stretching and ending up stuck.

Probate sellers often care more about getting the number they want than doing repairs, so their stance isn’t unusual. Just decide whether the house is still worth it at the full price. If not, leave it and they’ll realise eventually.

No, EAs do not negotiate for both sides. They negotiate for themselves, in order to try and get the sale and the commission - from the vendor.

Honestly, are you new to this?

To me it’s priced to acknowledge it needs £150k+ worth of work. Which is what you’d expect for a house last done in the 80s.

I’m not sure where OP’s funds are coming from to pay for this.

You can’t always expect to take money off after the survey as some houses are priced appropriately. I’d be cautious if you’ve not got spare cash as it could cost a lot to get it back into good shape.

I'm sorry to be voice of doom here, but having just finished a renovation on a period property (1900), I'm acutely aware that everything spirals and ends up costing so much more than the surveyor indicates, or than builders and trades initially quote. Each of the issues you raise - the damp, the electrics, decaying woodwork, knackered boiler - has the potential to escalate in costs, and you won't necessarily know that until the contractor has started hacking away at the fabric of the house. I would not take this on if you will be going into it with savings wiped out. Buying at the very top of your budget, you need either -

1. a "turnkey" property, well maintained with nothing to do for a good while
2. a major reduction to create space in your budget
3. a willingness to live in a damp / cold property if boiler goes while you do things bit by bit (which ends up costing more overall), doing what you can yourselves (in and around kids), and taking the risk that you will be in trouble if anything goes seriously wrong, as you can't afford to fix it

This doesn't sound like your dream property, and you have the option to live with family and present yourselves as immediately proceedable for future purchases. So I think you should be ready and willing to walk away.

If you think it has already been priced to account for the work that needs doing, then there's not much you can do - you can ask for a bit more off, but if they are assuming that a buyer would be offering at a level where they have funds left over to modernise - you're not that buyer.

If you think it has been priced as if little needs doing - you can ask for a chunk off and be willing to walk away.

No point trying to second guess how sellers will respond - particularly when it's probate.

I’m in Scotland and we get the Home Report and Valuation in advance but I first bought under the old system when you made your offer subject to survey. But what gave you the rationale to lower your offer wasn’t that defects were identified by the surveyor but that they resulted in a valuation lower than the offer you’d made.

Maybe I’ve missed it, OP - did the surveyor value lower than your offer?

But either way, the seller is entitled to knock a reduced offer back.

And I agree with others that you are seriously overstretching yourself financially with this house.

It's likely that all those issues were taken into account when setting the sale price, so in effect you are asking for a double discount.

We enclosed a patio and turned it into a room and added to the square footage and flow of our home.
When it came time to sell, no one offered any more on our house than what we had originally purchased it for.
My brother in law was a real estate broker, and he said to me one day, “your home is worth exactly what someone is willing to pay you.”
My husband was away, we were divorcing and we basically ate that £25,000 we spent on that new room. It was a stressful time.

I also recall holding out a lot longer than 6 months.
I think it probably depends on how motivated your sellers are.
Good luck ❤️

Doesn’t matter whether we agree or not. It’s down to the seller to make the decision, and ultimately whether you love the house enough to proceed regardless of whether they reduce the price..

I think that this is true if a top spec is £900 then a decent one will be £825 so £750 asking takes into account that this is a fixer upper.

What you are trying to do is buy a house way beyond your means. If you dont have £100k in the bank for renovations, PLUS your own buffer for job loss, illness etc, then you really cannot afford this house.

I think you are being unreasonable. Most houses require some level of work when you move in.
My absolute pet hate is people trying to get money off after the survey. Buy a new build if you don't want to do work.

Depends where it was, how accessible the space was for viewing and whether anything had been done to cover it up. Damp can do a lot of damage before it reaches interior of rooms and starts to discolour wall paper or the like.

Since the OP has told us they did not see any damp on touring I will take her word for it because she’s a bit more likely to know what she saw than you are.

What did your mortgage provider value the house at? When we renegotiated £10k down on our £675k house, not only did we send them a list of major issues that came up on the survey but we also showed a letter that the bank had valued the house at £10k less than our offer. I basically said I wasn't willing to pay over market value for a house that needed a new roof within the next couple of years.

My initial offer was also asking price too, so I agree they may have factored the fact you've also asked for £15k off as reduction enough for repairs. Also if the house has the potential to be worth £900k then that price for a fixer upper sounds about right.

Also when I negotiated I had a motivated seller, she was 90 and desperately needed to downsize. If your sellers are just selling a property they have inherited they probably aren't in a super rush to sell.

I also only asked for the discount once, if they'd have said no I'd have probably just taken the hit because I wanted the house so desperately. If you're willing to walk then put your foot down.