no garage door key

diesel100

In process of buying house with a garage which has a up & over garage door.

each time i visited the vendor made an excuse not to open it, saying agent had teh key in their set.
When i spoke to agent they dont have a key for it. Vendor admitted he has no key and cant find it.
Its getting surveyed this week, is it something the surveyor should check and test the door works?
I dont really want to incurr the cost of changing the lock or door.

tom9980

diesel100 wrote: »

In process of buying house with a garage which has a up & over garage door.

each time i visited the vendor made an excuse not to open it, saying agent had teh key in their set.
When i spoke to agent they dont have a key for it. Vendor admitted he has no key and cant find it.
Its getting surveyed this week, is it something the surveyor should check and test the door works?
I dont really want to incurr the cost of changing the lock or door.

erm quibbling over £20 replacement? seriously!?

Hedgehog99

There could be all sorts of problems with the garage. The vendor should get the lock working before the survey so that the garage can be included in the survey. If the vendor doesn't make the effort to do this, they are not worth dealing with. I once had an estate agent who conveniently couldn't find the keys to the conservatory. The look on his face when my Dad found them was a picture! Turned out the conservatory had subsidence & none of the doors or windows opened properly. If your vendor had nothing to hide, he'd show you the garage. besides, if he's getting ready to move, the garage would be great storage for packing up, so why isn't he wanting to use it? Very suspicious.

Davesnave

diesel100 wrote: »

Its getting surveyed this week, is it something the surveyor should check and test the door works?
I dont really want to incurr the cost of changing the lock or door.

Don't worry, your surveyor will almost certainly find costlier things than this for you to quibble over.

But seriously, do you not know that most people change the locks when they move to a new property? While your vendor may not have the key, someone else might!

diesel100

tom9980 wrote: »

erm quibbling over £20 replacement? seriously!?

erm...not quibbling the transaction over this, but great if a lock can be changed for £20 (better than cost of new door). But i have not seen the door operable, so potentially if the door is mechanically not operable it will need changing or fixing.

diesel100

Davesnave wrote: »

Don't worry, your surveyor will almost certainly find costlier things than this for you to quibble over.

But seriously, do you not know that most people change the locks when they move to a new property? While your vendor may not have the key, someone else might!

yeah plan was to change front door key, back door is bolted from within. I did plan to fit a lock to the inside of the garage door in anycase.

eddddy

Presumably you've seen inside the garage through another door, and the surveyor can do the same...

I guess the seller could be hiding something - e.g. the up-and-over door mechanism is knackered and needs replacing.

You could politely tell the EA/vendor that you want to check the door mechanism works before exchange - or you will have to reduce your offer by £500, to potentially cover the cost of a new mechanism/door.

JimmyTheWig

As I said on another thread recently, if you don't get answers then assume that things are as bad as they can be.
So the key for the garage door is lost.. Someone has suggested £20 to get that fixed, so take £20 off your offer. [Obviously it's not worth quibbling about £20 so either forget it or add it in to a list of things that might need doing when the survey comes back.]

You haven't seen the door open and you don't know when it was last opened. Could have been some time ago. Quite possibly the whole thing has rusted up, in that case. So you need to factor in the cost of getting that fixed.
If the vendor can't open the door he can't remove his stuff from inside it. So account for how much it will cost to dispose of his stuff.
You won't get the door fixed the day you move in, so account for not having the garage for some time.
You, nor your surveyor, can see inside the garage to check its condition. So assume the worst. Probably damp, in a terrible state of repair, maybe even falling down. Without being able to look you might want to factor in the cost of pulling the garage down and rebuilding it.

Put that lot to the estate agent and ask them to pass it on to the vendor. Tell them that you'll start getting quotes for the work to be able to take the cost of the work off the offer price. If the vendor still refuses to spend the £20 to get the lock changed then your assumptions about the state of the garage must have been correct!

davidmcn

My experience of up and over garage door locks is that they can be opened by almost anything being shoved in the slot...but otherwise I agree you'd be safest to budget for changing the lock, the garage being in terrible condition and perhaps left full of the vendor's stuff.

diesel100

thanks for replies.
Garage is accessible from the house and there is a side door.
Vendor is not living in the house, it was rented out. I am buying vacant posession for my personal use. my concern was if the door is broken i will incurr a cost to change (which no buyer wants to incurr)

molerat

Does the door not open from inside, locks do not usually prevent the inside handle from working.