Renegotiating after survey - Help Please!!!

Sweetcaz_2

I would like to also ask what the point is of spending £500+ on a survey if the attitiude is tough cookies you will have to foot the bill for any work that needs doing. If you were buying a car and it needed work you would adjust what you paid for it accordingly wouldn't you? Also if the problems are work the seller should have addressed and has choosen to neglect they should at least agree to meet some of the cost or adjust the price if you have offered on the basis of the property being in good move in condition. Obviously if a house were advertised under the premise of needing modernisation this would be different.

Surely getting a survey report done would be pointless if you simply just paid the accepted offer price regardless?

The whole point of a homebuyer's report is so the buyer is informed, before their purchase, of any major problems that the average viewer would not see. I have recently agreed to buy a house and have had two 20-30 mins viewing and you cannot simply just have a good old poke about to assess some of the major areas that should be checked before buying the house.

chickmug

tek-monkey wrote: »

Telling me to make an offer on a property before I had a survey that was then non-negotiable, regardless of what the survey returned, would make me suspect the worst. Maybe I'm wrong but I always thought you were making an offer an the assumption that there were no issues? Otherwise how can you know what to offer?

I'm not a surveyor, I can't know from the 10 mins I spend in a house what issues there may be. Thats why I spend nearly £500 getting someone qualified to do it for me. But I won't send them to every property I view, only one I want to buy that agrees a price I'm happy with. Otherwise I'm down £500 on every property I like the look of before even knowing if they'll sell it at a price I would buy at. Therefore to me we agree a price, and as long as the survey does not turn up anything unexpected we exchange at that price. The price should always be further negotiable should a problem arise (in my case the drains), saying it is not seems a very strange idea to me?

I am however a FTB, maybe this is not how its done, but telling me that my offer is final before I've even had someone check the place isn't in danger of falling down would put me off a lot. I would also offer lower than with someone who allows renogotiation, to try to pre-empt any problems.

Is that making sense? Maybe I'm just a tad coloured by the problems my survey has found, if you were the EA I'd have walked before now. Instead I'm paying half for a further survey to establish exact problems/costs, but I will expect a reduction if the problems found warrant it.

I assume within this post you are still talking to me.

Did you read my other posts and my post 9 - if you did why are you still harping on as if I was defending the OP's EA's actions when clearly I am not.

tek-monkey

chickmug wrote: »

Here’s the agents perspective on this situation - that's me.

All valuations given (well at least mine) will reflect the condition of the place and take into account the likelihood of work needing doing that the survey brings up.

In our case when we agree the sale we do something I doubt many other agents do? We explain to the buyer verbally as well as in the initial letters and memo of sale that the price is fixed regardless of the results of any investigations such as a survey. And that the price is based on the age and condition of the place. This doesn't always stop buyers trying to re-negotiate but when we introduced it there was a significant drop in this happening. Remember though we act for the seller.

Sometimes, regardless of what we had said, the buyer still tried to get the price dropped. Most sellers were sensible but some would 'cut off their nose to spite their face' and wouldn't budge a penny but most would go part way but very very few would expect to foot the whole to the bill. It can though depend on the specifics and there are items that in my opinion the sellers should probably agree to foot the whole cost.

So whilst the buyer is entitled to offer whatever they want they MUST respect, at the same time, the seller has the SAME freedom of choice in agreeing, disagreeing or going part way.

I often read suggestions of tell them 'to take it or leave it' even where the OP has said they love the house. This is not the way that property negotiations take place, in the real world, day to day. I have seen it but rarely and had to laugh when the seller, being a tough cookie, has instructed that the buyer be kicked off as they don't want to sell to them at any cost now as they feel they are too much trouble. So be warned being tough can backfire. Being sensible and negotiating more gently often gets you further.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, thats the bit I have issues with. A buyer cannot know about problems before a survey, so refusing to negotiate after the survey to me seems wrong. Thats why I'd have walked if you were the EA, trying to tell me I can't negotiate despite a survey showing issues with the building would make me not want to deal with you. You can't say the price reflects work needed if the buyer is unaware of the work needed, they have to either be made aware from the start or the price must be negotiable after the survey. That is the only way the buyer knows the state of the building after all, and you have happily admitted you are not a surveyor so why should your valuation be law when you too are unaware of structural defects? It just feels dishonest to me, sorry but thats just how I am. Trying to bully me into a corner doesn't work, I'd not deal with you again regardless of the properties on your books.

Maybe I'm naive, but I just don't work that way. Like I said at the start, this is why I was confused. All other posts off you have made sense, this one just screamed at me as wrong. But I suppose you're the salesman, its your job to screw me for your client.


EDIT: I keep re-reading this, am I missing something? I can't understand how you can base a price on work required when neither you nor the buyer know what work is actually needed?

EDIT2: Re-reading yet again your last sentence makes perfect sense, and rings true with what else I've seen you post, but the highlighted sentence still seems wrong to me.

Hailstorm

Chickmug, I also have big issues with that sentence.

The flaw with your arguement is that you cannot factually assess the condition of the property at that point. Whether implicit or explicit, maybe you are not even consciously doing it, but you are making assumptions about the condition of the property. If any of those assumptions can be proved to be incorrect then your valuation may potentially be invalidated.

Have you ever had a survey come back highlighting a problem that you didn't think was there? If yes, then at the time of the valuation you made an assumption about the condition of the property that proved to be incorrect.

Say you had two properties that you valued at £200,000. One has a survey that comes back with no major problems, the other needs £25,000 of work doing that you did not pick when you valued the property. Are both properties still both worth £200,000?

To be honest with you I think that approach is unprofessional as you are promising the cutomer something you cannot guarantee. Would you give them a written guarantee that the value of the property will not change as a result of the buyer's survey? If you valued a property for me and said that whilst another agent told me it is worth £abc assuming the survey checks out okay I will go with the other because they are being realistic.

tek-monkey

Further to this, the lender may well say not a chance in hell. If the survey says no, the lender says no. Surely you negotiate if a lender says the house isn't worth what you want it to be?

Maybe you don't, I dunno, but I still see the survey as an important part of the negotiation. If my lender said it wasn't worth the agreed price, I 'd walk away. As I said earlier, if my EA had said price was non-nogotiable I'd already have quit my current attempt. As it is I haven't, yet!

1echidna

I have recently been both a vendor and a buyer. As a vendor we suffered a down valuation on survey which we accepted although there was no specific quibbling over repair issues. As a buyer our survey revealed some issues (a few £Ks) which we shared with the vendor. It would have taken a bad survey indeed to make us walk away as our choice was limited and we didn't see anything we felt suited us nearly as well. We approached the question of negotiation over survey very gently as in the end we would not have walked away over a few thousand pounds. Whether it is right or wrong for a vendor to refuse to renegotiate is immaterial as it really boils down to what the buyer is prepared to pay and the minimum the vendor is prepared to accept.

chickmug

Let me be clear an EA often has to take instructions that they may not fully agree with from the seller client. This may include 'NO negotiations on price' once sale agreed. Or what can, and does, happen is that a seller will suddenly specify this when they have an offer beingmade. My stance is to tell the party, making the offer, that I have only just been made aware of this new condition.

I regularly buy and sell and have this phrase in my Sales Details. As a seller I can ask what I like, and do, and as an agent the seller can do the same. BUT I do not like the goal posts moved at the point offers are being made. However in my making this statement I also know the condition of the places I sell and all have been structurally fine otherwise I would not of bought them. But I will not listen to those who try and knock the price down because the flat roof may need replacing in 3 years or the boiler in 5 years type of issues.

"Once a sale is agreed the vendor would not be prepared to reconsider the selling price regardless of any valuations, surveys, or other investigations as the price has been set in accordance with all factors including the prevailing condition."

A lot of sellers may feel this is a good way to start out?

Anyway -- for Gods sake --- if you read my posts you will see I am an 'anti agent' agent often giving advice when posters are being unreasonably treated by their EA. I am on your side otherwise why would I post - I don't get paid to post

tek-monkey

chickmug wrote: »

Anyway -- for Gods sake --- if you read my posts you will see I am an 'anti agent' agent often giving advice when posters are being unreasonably treated by their EA. I am on your side otherwise why would I post - I don't get paid to post

I know, thats what confused me! However, I'm not talking about general maintenance. Everyone knows flat roofs need replacing, boilers need an overhaul etc. If its not a new build you can't expect it to be new.

BUT, if a survey shows up an actual problem, not a general maintenance one, you surely expect the buyer to renogotiate?

chickmug

tek-monkey wrote: »

I know, thats what confused me! However, I'm not talking about general maintenance. Everyone knows flat roofs need replacing, boilers need an overhaul etc. If its not a new build you can't expect it to be new.

BUT, if a survey shows up an actual problem, not a general maintenance one, you surely expect the buyer to renogotiate?

Did you read my previous post as below bit?

Yes of course I would expect someone to renegotiate but only if the issues were such that they should. I am agreeing with you.


"Most sellers were sensible but some would 'cut off their nose to spite their face' and wouldn't budge a penny but most would go part way but very very few would expect to foot the whole to the bill. It can though depend on the specifics and there are items that in my opinion the sellers should probably agree to foot the whole cost."

19vivat

Are you talking about the valuation or survey. Valuations may be slightly lower than your offer...However, if the mortgage company are talking about retention that is different. I have never heard of anyone saying no negotiation after survey. perhaps it is just because in the current market buyers have started to be silly and unfair. our agent told us you could put a proerty on for 10p and some people would want it cheaper. that was about 15 months ago and things are much better now.
I suggest that anything which is needing money spent immediately would be a thing to negotiate about. at teh end of the day you have to decide whether to risk losing the property. it's unlikely that if you offer 1-2 thousand less they will pull the property, and they might agree to reduce the price, but but there is always a chance. in some areas prices have gone up a bit so that might be a factor.
Isn't buying a house fun!!! good luck