Soffits and Fascias

witchy1066

DilbertJones wrote: »

Hmmm... This is interesting, my house (sold & nearing exchange) has its survey being done this week and I am aware the fascias will need maintenance/replacing. However, I have not hidden this fact as they can be clearly seen in the pictures and when the house was viewed so I would not expect to reduce my price because it is written down on a survey. I hope my buyer does not have the same thoughts as the OP's buyers!

surprising as it may seem many people wouldnt even notice , that is why we have surveys

I have to say and its not a dig at you personally but why do sellers not get certain jobs done before putting the house up for sale ,especially little minor things that surveyors just love to point out,

2 men and a pair of ladders could quite easily repair/paint wooden facias

but building company's for health and safety reasons now have to use scaffold and once its been highlighted by the survey the lenders will expect professionals to do the work

you could have a problem if the survey stipulates they need renewing, it will depend on your buyers lender, you might find they hold a retention and that depending on finances of your buyer could cause you problems.
but then again in saying that if everything else passes on survey you should be ok

for us it wasn't a problem because we are 75% LTV but if your buyers are 90% it could well be ,

tiggerkid

casperlarue wrote: »

If their request came after they had their survey done ask to see the section which recommends decorating the fascias. Bet you a penny to a pound the surveyor never went near the roof and is just putting in a blanket statement regarding the condition of the exterior.

How hard was it for you to sell? Where did the quote come from? If they provided it I would look at getting an alternative just to be sure. If you want to carry on with your vemdors I would go for meeting them halfway as a gesture to keep the sale on track.

The house was sold after 4 weeks on the market. And, no, the surveyor hasn't been anywhere near the roof because I was at home when the survey was done. All he did was go around the house taking notes. Apparently, he also highlighted the fact that the garage roof may POTENTIALLY leak. Again, we had some roof work done as part of the NHBC warranty as all our neighbours and pretty much the whole estate had the same issue, so basically the whole estate had a particular roofing issue fixed. When NHBC contractors came around, they told us there was no issue with the garage roof. They only had to do some minor work on the main house roof. This was around 2 years ago. The garage roof isn't leaking. We've not had any issues with it since we moved in. I am more than happy to let the buyers stand in the garage when it's raining and watch to see if it leaks just to demonstrate that there are no problems. For a surveyor to say that the roof may POTENTIALLY leak sounds a bit unprofessional to me because, in theory, anything can POTENTIALLY happen. So, we declined to discount anything for that straight away. This time, the buyers are threatening to pull out due to soffits and fascias!

Mallotum_X

Have you seen the survey, and what it actually says, Have they shown where this "price" comes from?

If the surveyor only looked from the ground and its only a cosmetic issue then i would expect the survey to have a caveat round whatever he actually says.

Personally as its not structural I would say no. Especially as you sold quickly in the first place.

DilbertJones

witchy1066 wrote: »

surprising as it may seem many people wouldnt even notice , that is why we have surveys

I have to say and its not a dig at you personally but why do sellers not get certain jobs done before putting the house up for sale ,especially little minor things that surveyors just love to point out,

2 men and a pair of ladders could quite easily repair/paint wooden facias

Personally, I hate heights & It is something that whilst I realised it could do with some maintenance, I also would have preferred at some point to replace with UPVC and we just never got round to it.

ValHaller

I would tell them no. Reduction on survey is for things which were discovered on survey. In this case, the state of the soffitts and fascias was obvious.

WestonDave

Unless they are a few tiles short of a roof, this isn't about soffits - its about closing a small gap in their finances through whatever excuse they can find. Might be worth having a chat with the EA and getting them to see if they can speak to the buyer and find out what's really going on. If they are £500 short on making the sums add up, then they may have to pull out if they can't find it (despite it costing them in lost fees) so at that point it will come down to whether you can be bothered selling it again for such a small difference.

bloolagoon

I would do it myself if I thought the price was unreasonable and wanted to keep the sale.

witchy1066

tiggerkid, surveyors have to point out these things its their job, and they are more picky these days to cover themselves from being sued years down the line , which is happening more these days and as annoying as it is some buyers are very nieve ,

if you had read our survey you would have thought the house was falling down, we showed it to our vender and he nearly cried

but saying all this the house was valued at the agreed price ,
and i was happy to proceed with the purchase

have you seen the survey report, I know the buyers don't have to show you this but if you have a good EA they should ask to see a copy or at least the sections of concern

has your house been down valued by the surveyor ?

are your buyers lenders refusing to offer mortgage unless these issues are addressed ?

if the answer to the above is no , tell your buyers no

tiggerkid

WestonDave wrote: »

Unless they are a few tiles short of a roof, this isn't about soffits - its about closing a small gap in their finances through whatever excuse they can find. Might be worth having a chat with the EA and getting them to see if they can speak to the buyer and find out what's really going on. If they are £500 short on making the sums add up, then they may have to pull out if they can't find it (despite it costing them in lost fees) so at that point it will come down to whether you can be bothered selling it again for such a small difference.

We've been told that they are a cash buyer and don't need a mortgage. Their main argument appears to be the fact that they had to give their buyer some discounts after the survey, so expect us to do the same! The thing with that though is that I have no idea what state their house was in and can't possibly comment on that! Maybe their buyer was reasonable in asking for discounts because it's possible that their house was falling apart! What has this got to do with us?

Yorkie1

bloolagoon wrote: »

I would do it myself if I thought the price was unreasonable and wanted to keep the sale.

It was only done a year ago.

Do you really expect to have to repaint soffits etc annually just because the cash buyer had to give the person next down the chain a discount and therefore feels that you should do the same?

I think the buyer is trying it on. I also wonder what he'll try on next.