House needs full structual engineers report

wends01

Hi,My sister and I are in the process of selling my late mother's house.House was valued by 3 estate agents at around £100,000, we have accepted an offer of £95,000. The buyer has a large deposit and requires a small mortgage.He has viewed the property with a local builder who identifed a small damp problem which we knew about.He had survey done last wednesday and today estate agent rang to say he has been told verbally that the house needs a full strucutal engineer report,a roof report and a damp report. The buidling society will not value the house without these.He will take a copy of the survey report into estate agents when he gets it and they will then get in touch.So what kind of problems are we looking at? House is a mid terraced, needs some modernisation,houses in the street all look ok, none have had any obvious work done - roof etc, no history of subsidence etc.There is a garage at the back of the property(attached to the house) that needs to be pulled down, there was a leak in the roof last year that was fixed. Am begining to get worried any advice would be appreciatedthanks

1echidna

Try not to worry at present. If as events transpire it appears that you have a picky purchaser or purchaser's mortgage provider wanting to reduce price substantially I would take a hard line and ditch him sooner rather than later and put the house back on the market.

Fire_Fox

What level of survey has been completed? Valuation, Homebuyers Reports or Full Structural Survey? It may be that the surveyor is covering their rear, or it may be that something significant has been seen, you won't know until you have seen the report.

wends01

Thanks for replying, have no idea what survey the buyer had done, asumed it would be the basic/cheapest as he has had a builder round and only needs a small mortgage. Thing is if this falls through,we will be in the same postion with any other potential buyers

Fire_Fox

You need to confirm what level of survey has been completed and then come back to us - assumptions are no good - a basic valuation may mean the surveyor was covering all bases as he wasn't paid to do a full survey, in which case you don't have to pay for any extra reports.

wends01

have been on to the estate agent, they were a bit vague when asked about the orginal survey.just told me to wait for the report, but they did add the buyer would probably not want to pay for the engineers report and that we may have to - said it would be around £250.00?, you can tell i am new to all this, my house was a new build so didn't have these sort of problems!

g_attrill

I thought that the buyer should always instruct their own surveyor, so that the contract should be between the buyer and them, not you.

I would personally refuse to pay for the survey, because it's for their benefit not yours, especially as they will most likely come back and ask for a lower price when they have seen the report! From your point of view - let's say it came back saying it needed a lot of work and the buyer walked off, you would be left £250 down and no buyer.

1echidna

EA does not sound good to me. He is acting on your behalf and should be giving you full information. Fire Fox knows more about these things than me but my question would be why pay for any survey reports? These are done for the benefit of purchaser. Just what has been found that would lead to the conclusion that a full structural survey is needed? If the house is not new a purchaser will find lots of grey areas on survey and if he is picky can collect a lot of high estimates to drive the price down in an essentially unjustified way. All depends on what is found of course. It seems to me your position is weekened if you pay for surveys. How much difficulty did you have in finding this purchaser? It is true that the same thing could happen with a new purchaser but it depends on what is involved but to me purchaser not willing to pay for surveys is a bad sign.

Fire_Fox

wends01 wrote: »

have been on to the estate agent, they were a bit vague when asked about the orginal survey.just told me to wait for the report, but they did add the buyer would probably not want to pay for the engineers report and that we may have to - said it would be around £250.00?, you can tell i am new to all this, my house was a new build so didn't have these sort of problems!

If your buyer has paid for a full structural survey and this has thrown up the need for an engineer's report then it is usual for the vendor to pay for, or contribute to, this as it's your house that has the problem.

If your buyer has had a basic valuation carried out and it's been suggested that a more detailed report might be in order I'd tell the buyer to take a long walk off a short pier, as it's down to them to pay for a proper survey. The estate agents are working for you they aren't doing you a good turn, make them find out what level of report has been done if this is worrying you.

wends01

Hi,yes estate agent could be better but that's a whole different story!They are doing the viewings as me and my sister both work, we have had around 9 viewings in 2 weeks but the fact that it needs updating has put a lot of people off - by updating - it needs a kitchen!I thought that the surveyor would have been sent by the building society. I assume once the written report has been seen by the estate agent we will know what we are dealing with, I will be back then!!, thank you all for your help so far

1echidna

I would be very wary of any EA who remotely thinks it is reasonable for you to pay for further survey without full information in writing. I have to say I would begin to feel that he had lined up a kickback on money saved by purchaser.