Buyer wants to renegotiate after survey!!

BitterAndTwisted

I wouldn't want to risk losing a sale and possibly the house I wanted to buy for the sake of a mere grand.

geordie28

im a first time buyer and will be buying in the very near future. i personally wouldnt want to risk losing a place i like for the sake of the change in price mentioned but on the other hand i dont see why a buyer should have to share the survey. i know its pie in the sky but i think the seller should get a survey completed and show this to all prospective buyers rather than each interested buyer having to fork out individually. why dont you ask him for a full copy and pay him half of the survey cost?

Gonzo33

As a buyer I wouldn't ever share a survey report that I have commissioned and paid for.

It is quite normal to have negotiations after survey, as sellers we all just hope that it doesn't come to that!

frankie

Ask your EA to take a hit on the deal too. He should be negotiating on your behalf to ensure you get the best price and he gets the best commission.

MacMickster

I would be pretty certain that the reason that he won't let you see the survey is because it values the house in its current condition at the sale price.

I can be a bit of a Victor Meldrew, but I would certainly tell the buyer that you won't budge on the price.

If you just cave in to this now, he may see this as an opportunity for gazundering (dropping his offer by a few thousand just before exchange of contracts).

I know that selling a house is a stressful time, but he will be equally stressed and won't want to lose his dream house (and legal fees, survey fees etc) over £1000. He is just trying it on.

betmunch

Point 1: Tell then you have accepted £5000 less than the asking price because you knew there would be a small element of maintenence for the new owners.

Point 2: Accept that you dont want to lose a buyer for just a grand.

You can agree anywhere between those two points.

I would suggest you try and get hold of the survey, including the bit that say the property is worth £xxx,xxx in its current condition. They wont want to give it, but you dont want to negotiate down without seeing it.

Personal opinion is that they are trying it on and the summary will have valued up or the mortgage company would have been the bad guys for not lending them enough.

Good luck with it

JQ.

Gonzo33 wrote: »

As a buyer I wouldn't ever share a survey report that I have commissioned and paid for.

Why, what exactly do you think they are going to do with the report?

If you want to renegotiate on price, you have to provide some evidence of the basis of the renegotiation.

OP - DO NOT accept part of the report, you need to see the whole report. It is commonplace for reports to highlight problems (sometimes with rough costings), but then conclude that the value of the property is still the agreed purchase price, as the issues are reflected in the price being paid.

For example, the report commissioned on your house could easily highlight problems and suggest that they would cost circa £2,000 to resolve. It may then conclude at the end of the report that the current value of the property is £124,500 and upon completion of the works the house will be worth £130,000. If you only get the part of the report that states £2,000 worth of work required, you could end up losing out on £1-2,000, when there was no need.

pimento

Gonzo33 wrote: »

As a buyer I wouldn't ever share a survey report that I have commissioned and paid for.

It is quite normal to have negotiations after survey, as sellers we all just hope that it doesn't come to that!

Really? It wouldn't bother me if I could get some money off by showing it. What do you think they're going to do with it? Another buyer wouldn't trust a survey carried out by the vendor, would they?

DVardysShadow

yllim wrote: »

.... The things mentioned were not something that you would see on a viewing unless you knew what you were looking for - one was a rotten fascia board and the other was cracked brickwork in the front porch.

Well, now you know what the issues are. And if you look for them you can see plainly whether they are valid concerns or not. So really, you do not need to see the survey report. You would only need to see the relevant section if it was an issue which the buyer could not adequately explain.

Survey reports typically contain a statement that they are private to the person commissioning the report and not to be communicated to any 3rd party. I suspect you have an inexperienced but over worried buyer. On the whole the fascia looks cheap to fix [so fix it] and the brickwork is possibly more cosmetic than a structural issue [so defend it as cosmetic and state that the buyer had sight of it on a viewing so it cannot be that bad]. and be prepared to drop £300

JQ.

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Survey reports typically contain a statement that they are private to the person commissioning the report and not to be communicated to any 3rd party.

Technically that's not total correct. Reports contain a statement limiting their liability to the parties to whom they are addressed. The person who paid for the report can show it to whomever they like, what they can't do is allow the people to whom they show the report to rely on the information contained within it and therefore extend the liability of the writer of the report without their knowledge.