Any positive/rational Japanese Knotweed house sale experiences?

mobfant

I've put an offer in for a two bed ground floor Victorian conversion flat. Then the vendor said that Japanese Knotweed was found in the neighbouring property's garden. It was treated in sept 12 and and sept 13 and will have final treatment in sept 14. It's clear from looking at the neighbour garden, which is a wasteland, whereas the property's I want to buy is fine.

Having become an overnight expert on Knotweed, I've sent a load of questions to the agent. The mortgage company are ok if it's being treated and if their valuer survey is content.

If it's been treated correctly, and having read up on the environment agency, royal institute of chartered surveyors, royal horticultural association, council of mortgage lenders websites, I'd be ok to move in, and if it did get to my property, to spend the c£3k to blitz it (presumably shared with the two other flats in the property conversion? ) As of this summer, guidelines have been agreed that means more mortgage companies are willing to lend than before

BUT my big worry is how it would affect resale. There are lots of less rational people than me who would read Daily Mail articles and be spooked (my mum being one of them! ). It's a terrace so the garden is small and only 5m wide, so v close to the neighbours property.

Any thoughts? Or experiences of sales where knotweed was known about but the sale went through? Should I reduce the risk by making a lower offer? Thanks!

Brazuca

You don't reduce the risk by making a lower offer.
You can pay less, but the problem will still be there!

mrginge

mobfant wrote: »

BUT my big worry is how it would affect resale. There are lots of less rational people than me who would read Daily Mail articles and be spooked (my mum being one of them! ).

Interesting choice of words.

Personally i would not consider a house with such a risk of JK, but i also don't read the daily mail so i'm not sure where i fit in your limited demographic.

mobfant

It doesn't reduce the likelihood of there being an issue but it reduces the impact - if I've paid £50k less for the property, that's £50k less I'm willing to accept when I sell it on if it proves difficult or there's an issue in my property

moneyistooshorttomention

Errrm...I think it may be being a trifle optimistic to think that "Because other properties SHOULD pay a share towards the bill" that they would do so in actual fact.

They may be either unwilling or unable to do so.

I think you have to work on the basis that it might be you and you alone that had to bear any "communal" future costs of dealing with this.

I know I can see "communal expenditure" work that needs doing here and, out of the people concerned, I would say that its probably the case that I don't know whether one household would be willing to pay their share, but I very much doubt they would be able to. For myself, I am willing to pay my share, but unable to afford it (as, obviously, work on my own house comes first and there won't be enough money for a while to cover that even and hence "communal costs" are even less important to me than my own personal costs).

hazyjo

But it's not a case of being spooked (like 'rumours' of things causing cancer, or people's ignorance such as with asbestos that's not been disturbed...), it is a major problem, many people won't buy if JK is/has been present, and many lenders won't lend.

So, yes, it will affect resale in the near future, but maybe not if you plan on staying 5-10 years and there's been no other evidence of it during that time. You can only but presume though - it may well pop up elsewhere!

Jx
PS I don't read the DM either

SailorSam

You may not reduce the risk by putting in a lower offer but at least it would mean you'd have the extra money in the bankat any time in the future if you did have problems. And the sellers may be willing to cut their asking price knowing lots of people will simply walk away.
My initial thoughts would be not to buy but i've seen quite a few programmes on Tv where they've had a jungle of knotweed but managed over time and at a cost to get rid of it.

mobfant

It seems common enough. Spoke to a surveyor today who's seen it all over the place for years and thinks it's only become such a big deal because of a few particularly scary incidents combined with mortgage companies happy to use any excuse not to loan. Everything I've read from the expert websites seems to validate that.

On the one hand, there are a million things that can harm or kill you, but on the other hand most people happily live until their 70s. The problem is that getting killed in for example a plane crash is a frightening prospect and that makes it seem like a bigger risk, even if millions of flights happen uneventfully. In the same way that knotweed has been in the UK for over a hundred years and is in hundreds of thousands of properties growing happily or being treated successfully but on rare occasions it can cause catastrophic losses.

The big question for me is, though I am concerned (subject to surveyor/solicitor confirmation of the facts), the much greater worry is others see it as a showstopper and in a less fluid market, it affects my ability to sell. And that's hard to predict 3-5 years in advance.

anselld

mobfant wrote: »

The big question for me is, though I am concerned (subject to surveyor/solicitor confirmation of the facts), the much greater worry is others see it as a showstopper and in a less fluid market, it affects my ability to sell.

That isnt a question though, it is a statement of fact. To many others it *is* a showstopper and that is unlikely to change unless someone invents some new miracle weed killer.

hazyjo

But if you're buying a house with JK already there, surely with your 'plane risk' comparison, that would be the equivalent to getting on a plane with a known problem and taking your chances?! :eek:

I would only make that comparison if someone was paranoid about the stuff appearing in their garden (or nearby). If it's already present, then of course it's a risk buying!

Jx

Ivana_Tinkle

Where in the country are you? I think it makes a difference as, if you're somewhere like Cornwall, where it's all over the place, people are less likely to be spooked than they might be in an area where it's less common.

On the other hand, if the neighbours are serious about treating it (which it certainly sounds like they are) and there's never been any in the garden you're buying, would a potential future buyer even find out it had ever been there? Surely you can't be asked to declare whether your neighbours have had knotweed, as that's not gong to be answerable for the vast majority of properties.

From my experience, if you do it properly, you can kill off knotweed in two years, so there's no reason to assume there'll be any left at all after your neighbours' treatment plan is finished.