Advice on renegotiating offer

monkeyblonde

We are in the process of purchasing a house built in the 1960s which is a probate sale. Due to the age of the property we have completed a full building survey and drain survey which have revealed approximately £20k in repairs of which £15k are deemed as essential, including complete rebuild of the chimney stack, rewiring, new garage roof and over £2k in drain repairs.

We have proposed the full £20k to the vendors (executors) in the hope that with negotiation we will get somewhere close to the £15k required.

They have refused any reduction in offer, stating that with the property's age that these items are to be expected and should have been accounted for at the time of offer. We are not tradespeople which is why we instructed a surveyor, and the estate agent offered no information as to these defects so we can only assume that he priced it without knowledge of them. We offered £5k over the asking price to secure the property.

What is the general protocol on this? How should the EA be guiding them/us? We assume that should we not proceed with the sale that the EA is duty bound to disclose the results of our survey to any future buyers so the same issue will occur in the future.

Any helpful advice would be appreciated including renegotiating the offer with our buyers.

mrginge

Are you using a mortgage to buy this?

If so what is their valuation?

How does the vendor's assessment that the house is priced to include this work stack up? Any comparables?

Now i'm not saying this is the case, but it may look to the vendor like you made a high offer in order to secure the property with the intention of using a survey to drop the price. That may have weakened your position.

I suspect you may be able to get them down to asking price, but not much more than that.
The EA is not duty bound to reveal the contents of your survey to any other prospective buyer.

monkeyblonde

We are using a mortgage, they have valued the property at the agreed offer however we are talking about a less than 5% reduction in overall property value with the full repairs taken into account.

Can you explain what you mean by the vendor's assessment on the work? As they were not occupiers we are struggling to understand how they would know these things. The house decor is obviously dated but the property particulars do not say something in the vein of 'requires updating' etc.

You mention about us paying over the asking price. We were in competition with another potential buyer and this was the winning bid. I see how it may appear but we would have never offered this with the knowledge of the repair bill.

Do the types of repairs required represent a common type where price reductions should be at least considered? Having never been in this territory before we are not sure if we are being naive.

silvercar

We are using a mortgage, they have valued the property at the agreed offer however we are talking about a less than 5% reduction in overall property value with the full repairs taken into account.

SO the property has been valued, in current condition at what you offered.

The sellers would have expected anyone offering to take into account the age of the property. If it needs the decor updating, it would be reasonable to assume that more major items would also be dated.

What is the general protocol on this? How should the EA be guiding them/us? We assume that should we not proceed with the sale that the EA is duty bound to disclose the results of our survey to any future buyers so the same issue will occur in the future.

EA acts for the seller, basically to maximise price. If you pull out, the next buyer may well factor into the offer price work that needs doing.

You need to make a decision on what the property is worth to you.

monkeyblonde

Thanks silvercar,should anyone who has a full building survey and drain survey just take the results for their own benefit then and not consider a renegotiation?

mrginge

Ok, so the mortgage company value at the agreed price and this is *your* surveyor thats flagged up these issues. That would suggest the price is reasonable for the condition of the property.

What i mean is how does the offer price compare to other comparable houses that have sold in the area. For example, if the house next door sold for 20k more and didn't need any work then the price on this house would seem reasonable.

I think you are being a bit naive tbh. A 1960s house on a probate sale would immediately make me assume that there would be some work to do, so you should have factored this in. On viewing you should have been able to pick up the general condition of the property so that should also have flagged up potential costs. Obviously you can't get a clearer understanding until you get the survey.
Its not up to an EA/vendor to tell you these things.

If there's another party interested your position becomes even weaker and if the vendor is not willing to negotiate (and why would they when they have two offers at/above their asking price) you may have to suck it up or walk.