Late survey

yorick_2

Hi all. Advice welcomed please.

I am selling my late Mother's house with no forward chain, and have a cash buyer (also with no chain) and we agreed a price about 6 weeks ago. All has been going well and we are about to exchange contracts and complete - on the same day.

However, I have now heard from my EA that at this late stage the buyer has decided to have a survey done on the house :shocked: before exchanging.

I thought it was mandatory to do a survey BEFORE making a firm offer on a property or getting to the exchange stage, and am worried that the buyer is hoping that the surveyor will value the house at less than the accepted price. Can they lower their offer once it's been accepted and contracts drawn up?

Are they trying to pull a fast one? I accepted their offer which was approx. £10K below the original asking price as I want a quick sale and don't want the house standing empty for longer than necessary.

Thanks for any feedback.

hazyjo

We're in a similar boat. Investor buying my house, told us he wanted it exchanged within 3-4 weeks and completed shortly after. We're now in week 5 and he's still not had a bloomin' survey done! We've chased several times but have been told he's out of the country on business, that he's paid for the survey, that we'll get a call within 2 days (over a week ago), blah blah... one excuse after another. Grrrr. I don't know if it's a common thing that they get you as close to exchange as possible, then have a survey, then drop you 'cos you're so far down the line and they think they can get away with it... We're still waiting on some forms from the vendor, and we need to answer a few questions, but our survey and mortgage offer are all sorted, but until we're ready to exchange, we don't want to nag too much as he might overtake us on things and start rushing us again! Once we're all done and ready to exchange, we'll start making timeline demands! Have told him the vendors need 3-4 weeks between exchange and completion, and he was demanding it was all done by Christmas, so that's really leaving us this week to get it all done. Ain't gonna happen! We might end up exchanging on both on the same day, but having a longer completion date on our purchase - and we'll live in a travelodge for a couple of weeks, probably over Christmas. Oh what joy!

The survey's often done within 1-3 weeks of a pretty standard purchase. Unless you're talking about Scottish law or something, there's certainly no obligation to get a survey done before making a firm offer. All offers are 'subject to survey' anyway and some people do seem to drag their heels over getting them done. We're actually crossing fingers our buyer doesn't get a survey done! He owns a couple of properties in nearby/adjacent roads so maybe he'll take the gamble and buy as seen...

Until contracts are exchanged, pretty much everything is flexible as far as I know.

Jx