What to do after survey

Catatonia

I've just had the homebuyers' survey on my potential purchase back. It's been down valued by £8k, and the surveyor also came up with lots of issues that I wasn't expecting. The problems rated 3 are a long list, but the worst issues seem to be the roof, which needs quite a lot of repairs, and apparently the concrete floor downstairs has moved quite a bit so we need to get a structural engineer in to see if it's historical or not, and then fix it either way.

What should my next move be? Should I ask the seller to cough up for the floor report or will I have to? Is it best to wait for the results of that survey, and then ask for money off, or tell the seller about the down valuation now and then ask for more money off depending on the results of the floor report?

poppysarah

Either decide to take risk on continuing with house purchase or not.

SE costs money. Structural problems can be expensive.

If the sellers won't reduce price then walk away.

ruggedtoast

You will also find it difficult to get buildings insurance on a house which has suffered structural movement. Unfortunately you are in the realms of non standard policies etc unless you dont declare it to the insurers. The more you investigate it the bigger the paper trail they could find if the house does shift in future and you try and claim off a policy you took out stating there had been no movement to your knowledge.

It may also be harder to sell in the future.

If you commission the seller to do an engineers report their surveyor (whoever they choose) will be working for them and not you. The report will go to them first and not you, and if you need to ask questions you may have to go through them to do so. I would much rather choose and pay for my own surveyor.

It sounds like there is quite a lot potentially wrong with the house. In terms of negotiating, they might just take the money off if they dont want to lose you. Otherwise you will need to get quotes for the work and use them as evidence to bargain them down.

Difficult to say without knowing any details of the house.

evoke

OP: your next move should be to find another property.

dizziblonde

If you've got an obliging surveyor it might be worth giving them a phonecall. Ours called us prior to mailing out the report because he knew they tended to panic people to give his opinion that although the survey showed everything written down he still reckoned it was worth buying, and then we called him once we'd got it (and I'd panicked) and he went through his more honest, less backside-covering opinions on everything in the survey.

It did scare the living daylights out of me seeing it all written down in black and white though - we also went through it with our new neighbour who was a builder who's done most of the work on the houses in the street for about the last 20 years and actually held the keys to this place while it was standing empty and he backed up the surveyor's opinions so we went ahead with the purchase.

We also were able to get some of the opinions of the surveyor about timescales for what he'd picked up - so yep, we know eventually we need a new roof, but that that's not a next year situation but more an "in this decade" situation... but we got very lucky with having such a helpful guy doing the survey. I'd be more worried if they'd found movement though - I get paranoid about cracks!

We had the valuation reduced a touch by the bank in response to the survey (think it was £2k they knocked it down by) because it picked up rising damp that actually since the place isn't stood empty anymore with only tickover heating on, doesn't seem to be a problem at all... the vendor dropped the price accordingly - but that took a few weeks of to-ing and fro-ing and holding nerve before that was agreed.

Swan_2

please click the Spam button on Seorawal's post folks

Catatonia

Thanks, all. I take your point, Rugged, but I'd not be too bothered about potential bias if the seller pays for the survey, as I doubt a qualified surveyor would lie. I'm just wary of paying out even more money for another report as it might just be cash down the drain if there is a big problem and the seller won't drop the price.

That was a very helpful post, Dizzi. I am definitely going to discuss it all further with my surveyor. The work (apart from the movement) isn't putting me off the purchase, but it is making me think that I need to get it for a lower price.