Estate Agent demanding copy of the survey

DRP

em_9187 wrote: »

it is valued at what we have offered BUT we haven't even discussed negotiating prices yet.

the estate agent is so aggressive, i don't want her quoting the survey to me saying this is what it is worth - i know that! But the surveyor ain't paying for it, i am and I'm not willing to pay for a big job as soon as i move in.

If you're not trying to knock some £££ off the accepted price, then there's no reason for them to see it.

If you want to justify negotiating, then by all means let them have a look at your copy.

DRP

LEJC wrote: »

Welcome to the world of home ownership....your thread seems very similar to another one in recent days where some excellent advice was given


To put it into context...your report has come back stating that the property is worth what you are paying for it...it may require additional work to bring it up to spec but thats something for you to fund and consider over time its not for the vendor to drop their price in order for you to be able to get the work done.


home ownership is a complex entity sometimes and even the best surveyors reports dont highlight everything...sometimes you do have to pay for a big job when you move in...and further down the line no doubt too.....

whilst i agree with this, even if the valuation is ok if the survey has highlighted a big, expensive job is imminent then the OP is well within their rights to try and negotiate - for all we know OP has stretched their budget to breaking point and now finds out that the roof is !!!!!!ed or the electrics need doing.

The vendor may wish to knock 5 grand off rather than lose the buyer.

laidbackgjr

The estate agent can demand to see it all they like, but they don't have to be given it.

You can demand a price reduction all you like, but the vendor doesn't have to give it.

Demanding things in a negotiation isn't going to get help conclude a successful negotation.

Likewise hiding / using parts of information from the other party isn't going to help conclude a successful negotiation.

To successfully negotiate you need to be clear as to what you want and why, and also understand the other parties perspective on what you are asking for.

For me by all means ask for a price reduction, but the survey as it's valued the property at your agreed price, is not the tool to use to negotiate the price.

LEJC

DRP wrote: »

whilst i agree with this, even if the valuation is ok if the survey has highlighted a big, expensive job is imminent then the OP is well within their rights to try and negotiate - for all we know OP has stretched their budget to breaking point and now finds out that the roof is !!!!!!ed or the electrics need doing.

The vendor may wish to knock 5 grand off rather than lose the buyer.

But realistically with the senario you suggest if the roof/electrics need doing and the buyer is stretched their budget then the overall cost of the house is too expensive for them to maintain


I was recently in the dilema of whether to sell a property as a doer upper but decided against it as the property was clearly going to attract a set of buyers who perhaps were not competent to do the work required on it....in my situation the potential asking price very clearly reflected the work required,and as such I would not have wanted to accept an offer and then be asked to reduce the price again once the survey had been completed and highlighted the already accounted for issues.


Very often buyers see a property and like it because of what it can become rather than what it is...but its not always the case that they have factored in the cost of repairing or creating their new home.


In our case we went on to refurbish our property and spent somewhere in the region of £42000 its now worth the market value of similar properties in the area plus the rise in house prices...so no substantial gain as such other than we have bought back to life a tired house.

princeofpounds

Interestingly, RICS actually have an opinion on this subject:

http://www.rics.org/uk/knowledge/more-services/guides-advice/disagreeing-with-a-prospective-buyers-survey/

"A seller doesn’t have any right to see a copy of the buyer's survey report because the report is the basis of the buyer's ability to negotiate."

The claims that getting hold of the whole survey to validate it as genuine is nonsense, as any validation can be done by contacting the relevant MRICS surveyor, with the client's permission.

They want the survey so a) they can get a free survey without having to pay for it - useful for correcting/hiding defects if they need to go through the process again and b) they can extract any positive information from it to use as return negotiating points against you, or against any subsequent buyer and c) sometimes they - unlawfully - then given them to future buyers if you fall though, to 'save them the cost of the survey' and make the property seem relatively more attractive.

I'll say it again; normal practice is to give them the relevant excerpts, plus any pages that provide relevant context.

Normally agents don't try to bully you into handing the whole thing over.

Why not ask your surveyor for his professional experience of such questions, I'm sure he would have an interesting opinion.

StuC75

If It is worth what you've offered after allowing for that work , then you may not have much scope to negotiate.

Unfortunately home ownership comes with such costs; have you asked the surveyor what it would then be worth if that work was completed - would it still be the same and its a case of maintenance work that's required (since most surveys say that at some point everything will need doing).

Or has it been down valued by that much, e.g. valued at 200k, 10k work needed - your looking for 10k knocking off to 190k, but with work done its valued would be 210k,,, I know what I would say to that as the vendor, even if they did the work you could still walk away.. what is the nature of the work needed?

You say that you cant afford such an early repair, but how would you afford it if the price is knocked down - i.e. 10k off the price would only actually save you the deposit part of that up front - with then a smaller saving off the mortgage each month.

Or do you have that lump sum available up front to do that work?

If not then this house is just too expensive for you to maintain.

em_9187 wrote: »

it is valued at what we have offered BUT we haven't even discussed negotiating prices yet.

the estate agent is so aggressive, i don't want her quoting the survey to me saying this is what it is worth - i know that! But the surveyor ain't paying for it, i am and I'm not willing to pay for a big job as soon as i move in.

Unitoons

I'm never sure why people go back through the EA when trying to negotiate reductions. As a buyer you will always be at a disadvantage as the EA doesn't work for you!

Whenever I have bought property I have had my survey completed, sent a copy through to my solicitor with any relevant points highlighted and my wishes (e.g. re-negotiate on price, happy to proceed etc).

My solicitor will then relay this to the vendors solicitor for negotiation.
I have never involved the agent nor do I feel it is appropriate to do so - if they are commission based then the likelihood of them playing fair is slim!

AdrianC

em_9187 wrote: »

it is valued at what we have offered BUT we haven't even discussed negotiating prices yet.

If you haven't raised the survey as a negotiating ploy for a reduction - whether numbers are being talked yet or not - then it's an irrelevance.

But, if you have, then - yes - of course it's only fair that the vendor (via the EA) sees the survey. If somebody said "I've got this piece of paper that says you owe me £5,000, but you can't see it", what would your reaction be? Yes, me too.

Have a read through of this thread from the other day...
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5007633

Remember - when you pay for a survey, a large part of what you pay for is the comeback if the surveyor got it wrong. That isn't transferable, so to anybody else, the survey is just one man's opinion. The full value is only to you. But, unless you're going to walk away from the deal, there's nobody else to whom it has anything other than nominal interest value anyway. Unless you're using it to back up a reduction in asking price. And if your "evidence" for such a demand doesn't actually say that, then you have no leg to stand on. And the usual reason people are reluctant to show their "evidence" is precisely that... Just as it was in that other thread.

Pandilex

I got my structural survey, told the EA there were 3 problems and what they were. I left that info with them for a week then I went in to talk to them and let them photocopy the report. Its only value was telling me what was wrong with the property, as soon as I'd read it, it no longer had any value.

Acc72

Unitoons wrote: »

I'm never sure why people go back through the EA when trying to negotiate reductions. As a buyer you will always be at a disadvantage as the EA doesn't work for you!

Whenever I have bought property I have had my survey completed, sent a copy through to my solicitor with any relevant points highlighted and my wishes (e.g. re-negotiate on price, happy to proceed etc).

My solicitor will then relay this to the vendors solicitor for negotiation.
I have never involved the agent nor do I feel it is appropriate to do so - if they are commission based then the likelihood of them playing fair is slim!

This is what I was thinking.


I have only bought one property and preferred to speak directly with the seller.


We agreed a price over the weekend and I got a snotty call from the EA on the Monday saying that the house was for sale for offers "over £x"

Fortunately, the seller did not listen to them and said that they would sell at the price we had agreed.