Advice required on buying a house

nomorekids

I apologise for the essay but if you could just spare a few minutes to read on.

Houses are going around our way very quickly due to a shortage of them for sale. We found what was probably the last 3 bed for under £200K in the whole area and offered full asking price. EA continued to show others round and they had a matching offer of full asking price and played us off. We went £5K over and its now ours. The survey outlines immediate remedial action required to the roof and quite a few necessary remedial actions to the masonry for 45 degree cracking, guttering and roof. Then some observatios like the door openings are out of true, the floors significantly undulating, replastering required in places. Also just had phone call from vendor to say she would be taking every appliance, curtain, curtain pole and light fitting which I know is her perogative but we are paying her £5 over the asking price.

We would like it still but with this lot wrong with it, no longer want to pay an extra £5K for the privilege. What I would like from more experienced housebuyers is your thoughts on how to get the price down.

If we try now, the agent will simply sell it to the other interested party in the hope they only get a valuation survey done. Could we wait and spring it on them around exchange of contracts in the hope the other interested party has found somewhere else to buy. The estate agent is also doing her conveyancing.

Do we pull out on what could be a lovely home once all the work is done and we have bought another set of curtain poles etc and waste the £300 for the survey or do we try to get the price down, other houses have dropped price in the area, this one however had loads of interest, mainly because of the new curtain poles and curtains and funky light fittings that I assumed would come with the house.

Your thoughts will be much appreciated.

jeffmasson

if its been said once its been said a millon times try your luck they can only say no.

i ea will know a bird in the had is worth two in the bush plus its not up to him its up to the seller put the boot on the other foot if you where selling and your buyer found a lot wrong with the place would you take the hit or rick trying to find a new buyer who will most likly do the same as you anyway. get quotes for all the work so you can show it to the buyer this will help i got 3k off my flat after a bad survay

Fire_Fox

What did your valuation come out at? Have you had builders in to estimate for remedial work and how much will this work cost? Is there any retention on your mortgage? What was the basis for your accepted offer, did you not specify what fixtures and fittings were included? What fixtures and fittings that are now being taken were mentioned on the estate agents particulars? Why are you discussing things directly with the vendor?

Chinkle

I have been in a similar situation with another bidder sitting waiting for things to fall through. We did manage to get our price down a little, but we're constantly being threatened with "well the other buyers are still interested". Depends how badly you want this place.

But as recommended do you homework, get the quotes and put your reduced offer in a professional way, so it doesn't sound like you are just trying it on. While the vendor could decide to reject you for the other bidder, its a gamble for them as they could find themselves in exactly the same situation if there is genuinely a great deal of costly remedial work on the house.

nomorekids

thank you Jeffmason, firefox and chinkle for your thoughts. I guess we can get estimates for the outside stuff and try to get the price down.

The vendor rang me to say she had only just bought the lounge light fittings, curtain poles and curtains throughout and had no intention of leaving them. Apparently she is within her rights, I guess I had better check she is leaving the kitchen sink.

I don't know how to fix severely undulating floors and ceilings or "out of true" door openings. The vendor is a very hard woman, she also denied me access to measure the windows so I could look out for more curtains

nomorekids

Chinkle wrote: »

I have been in a similar situation with another bidder sitting waiting for things to fall through. We did manage to get our price down a little, but we're constantly being threatened with "well the other buyers are still interested". Depends how badly you want this place.

But as recommended do you homework, get the quotes and put your reduced offer in a professional way, so it doesn't sound like you are just trying it on. While the vendor could decide to reject you for the other bidder, its a gamble for them as they could find themselves in exactly the same situation if there is genuinely a great deal of costly remedial work on the house.

Chinkle did you wait until further down the line to negotiate or do it straightaway? Paying £5K over and then more to do the work is making me a right mug.

Milliewilly

nomorekids wrote: »

thank you Jeffmason, firefox and chinkle for your thoughts. I guess we can get estimates for the outside stuff and try to get the price down.

The vendor rang me to say she had only just bought the lounge light fittings, curtain poles and curtains throughout and had no intention of leaving them. Apparently she is within her rights, I guess I had better check she is leaving the kitchen sink.

I don't know how to fix severely undulating floors and ceilings or "out of true" door openings. The vendor is a very hard woman, she also denied me access to measure the windows so I could look out for more curtains

This would be setting of alarm bells of structural problems to me. Did your Survey recommend a structural surveyor's opinion?

Fire_Fox

nomorekids wrote: »

The vendor rang me to say she had only just bought the lounge light fittings, curtain poles and curtains throughout and had no intention of leaving them. Apparently she is within her rights, I guess I had better check she is leaving the kitchen sink.

I don't know how to fix severely undulating floors and ceilings or "out of true" door openings. The vendor is a very hard woman, she also denied me access to measure the windows so I could look out for more curtains

She can take those items if they did not form part of the sale (not detailed in the estate agents particulars AND not in your offer to purchase) - but AFAIK she cannot leave you with holes in the wall and bare wires, will be worth checking with your solicitor what the rules are.

You don't need to know how to fix anything and you don't necessarily need to actually fix anything that isn't a risk of deteriorating further. However get a quote for EVERYTHING and use that to negotiate a reduction. If the quote is £5k for external works and £5K for internal works, you ask for £10K and she finally acquiesces at £5K. You only fix the £5K external stuff and you come out on top.

If the vendor is awkward that is all the more reason not to negotiate with her directly. Tell (don't ask) the estate agent you need access for the builder's quote and to measure up for curtains and let them earn their commission.

Chinkle

We got quotes for all the works identified by the survey and negotiated from there, it was probably a good four or five weeks into the purchase and they were keen to move quickly so that gave us a little traction. I wouldn't say we got the best deal but the vendors knew how keen we were on the place.

I think people get too hung up on fixtures and fittings at the negotiation stage. Often you find come moving day with a full to bursting van, people get a lot less precious about their possessions (especially as curtains and poles etc won't always fit in the new place) and end up leaving stuff behind. This can be good - we got a free dishwasher, but bad too - the pile of forgotten junk in the cellar!!!

nomorekids

Fire_Fox wrote: »

If the vendor is awkward that is all the more reason not to negotiate with her directly. Tell (don't ask) the estate agent you need access for the builder's quote and to measure up for curtains and let them earn their commission.

She is scary, they are using the Estate Agents conveyancers as well so I do feel like David fighting Goliath

leika

nomorekids wrote: »

I apologise for the essay but if you could just spare a few minutes to read on.

Houses are going around our way very quickly due to a shortage of them for sale. We found what was probably the last 3 bed for under £200K in the whole area and offered full asking price. EA continued to show others round and they had a matching offer of full asking price and played us off. We went £5K over and its now ours. The survey outlines immediate remedial action required to the roof and quite a few necessary remedial actions to the masonry for 45 degree cracking, guttering and roof. Then some observatios like the door openings are out of true, the floors significantly undulating, replastering required in places. Also just had phone call from vendor to say she would be taking every appliance, curtain, curtain pole and light fitting which I know is her perogative but we are paying her £5 over the asking price.

We would like it still but with this lot wrong with it, no longer want to pay an extra £5K for the privilege. What I would like from more experienced housebuyers is your thoughts on how to get the price down.

If we try now, the agent will simply sell it to the other interested party in the hope they only get a valuation survey done. Could we wait and spring it on them around exchange of contracts in the hope the other interested party has found somewhere else to buy. The estate agent is also doing her conveyancing.

Do we pull out on what could be a lovely home once all the work is done and we have bought another set of curtain poles etc and waste the £300 for the survey or do we try to get the price down, other houses have dropped price in the area, this one however had loads of interest, mainly because of the new curtain poles and curtains and funky light fittings that I assumed would come with the house.

Your thoughts will be much appreciated.

I had a similar experience a while back. The survey threw up lots of remedial work to be done, some of it urgent. However the surveyor had valued the house in its current condition at the same price that I had offered so it was difficult for me to negotiate. We did get quotes for the necessary work, but the seller said that all of this was to be expected in a house of that age, that we had made our offer after two viewings during which we should have seen the defects, and that she would not reduce the price.

Had the house been unique in some way or if we had to move urgently we would have gone ahead, but we didn't. The house then stayed on the market for another year, with "under offer" signs going up and down, and eventually sold for less than we had offered (checked the sold price on the web a few momths after it sold).