difficult situations for the vendors

sammyjammy

Tricky. My "cut off your nose to spite your face" go to response would tell them you're walking away..... It's such a poor attitude and i would want to punish them for it

What is their situation? Are they buying another house?

cookie_monster_2

Yes they're buying another house. Everyone in the chain is sorted now - all we were waiting for is this particular survey.

We have discussed walking away. We feel their attitude is unacceptable. They have point blank refused for anymore viewings or specialist surveys to be carried out.

We have invested a lot of money time and soul into this property. We love it but we want to know what we're taking on.

Curlywurli

Their attitude is ridiculous. A house purchase is huge and to buy a house and not know what you're taking on would be a nightmare. Some of those house shows where people have taken on more than they can chew is scary. Anyone buying their house would want to do further investigation. They'll never sell when they're being like that. If it was me I would be walking away.

cookie_monster_2

Really?

We are really not wanting to do this but fear we have no choice.

Is an intrusive survey a ridiculous request on our behalf?

katejo

I would also walk away. On buying my first place a survey revealed serious rot in wooden window frames . Owner had painted over them to conceal. They would not budge on price. I pulled out and later found out that they had overpriced due to negative equity. Found a much better place.

andthethreebears

It's a messy, but not a huge job. We've just had ours done - £1.5k for a huuuge flank wall.
The issue you may have is that a lot if mortgage companies won't lend the full amount on properties that need wall ties replacing. (If the property has wall ties that haven't been replaced with stainless still in the last decade or so, they're likely to come back as needing replacing on the survey)

Fwiw I don't think it's an unreasonable request at all. It's literally just a case of taking a brick or two out and then putting them back. Presumably the contractor has insurance so they'd be covered of anything awful happened.
I wonder if they know there are other issues - and that's why they don't want further investigation? Or if there is already movement in the wall that subsidence is more likely that wall ties?

andthethreebears

Also if it's 120yo stone - are you sure they are cavity walls?

cookie_monster_2

The wall tie problem isn't for the whole house - only the extension on the back which is still quite large.

The surveyor is now refusing to carry out a survey as he doesn't trust the vendors.

Could it be subsidence? There's a lot of clay around all the houses. They're quite few and far between - a semi rural area on a very steep hill.

The mortgage company have valued the house at what we are paying for it, there is no retention on the mortgage.

ladeeda

I wouldn't walk, I would run. There is no logical reason that I can see for the vendors not allowing a full survey (including brick removal) except that they know something you don't.

Campervanman

Sometimes when we love a property it blinds us to the issues. There are so many alarm bells going off that I can hardly hear myself think. Walk away would be my advice. It sounds as though there are other issues with this house and the vendors are trying to be awkward so they wont get discovered.