Negotiating Price

PasturesNew

yellowkylie wrote: »

The house next doesn't have as bigger garden, and the house we like has big bay windows and brand new kitchen and bathroom.

Considering this would it be cheeky to say put a new offer of 119k in?

Big bay windows - priceless. Brilliant for the best light ever!
New kitchen/bathroom - great. Saved you more than the difference between the others/this one - and you didn't have the mess/hassle.

It would be cheeky. As you said, post-survey is not an opportunity to renegotiate.

But, it's a bit of a buyer's market. See what they say if you are prepared for them to say "no" and keep marketing it.

yellowkylie

I think we will try for nothing - can only say no I guess lol

yellowkylie

Nicki if your still out there, it would be interesting to know what kind of issues your buyers were trying to negotiate on? Tell me to stop being nosy if ya like, just trying to get an idea of what acceptable not acceptable.

Cheers
B

Nicki

They didn't have a good reason to negotiate just felt with hindsight the property wasn't worth what they'd offered. Their survey hadn't picked anything up, and other identical houses were selling for this amount so we told them to try and find another house they liked for the amount they were prepared to spend and good luck to them.

yellowkylie

Thanks Nicki for getting back.

Does anyone feel a house that needs full rewiring and has ancient central heating system and gas multi-point water heater that may not comply with current requirements a reason to negotiate on a house that has previously been offered the full asking price.

If we had offered say £4k less of the asking price and then had all this work to do i probably wouldn't bother haggling, but to pay full price for a house that needs a lot of work done even in time, seems a reasonable negotiation to me.

What does anyone else think??

B

dragonsoup

A house is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. If the vendors had 5 other offers they are quite likely to say no to a reduction at this stage (I know I would).

The survery report on our last purchase was quite damning - rising and penetrating damp in several rooms, dodgy roof ( original 200 yr old tiles), 1970's heating and wiring, conversion only partially completed etc etc. I actually rang the surveryor and off the record asked whether he would buy it - yes was the answer. There were however several offers at the asking price as it is definite one off and if we had tried to get the cost of the work knocked off we would have lost it.

In the event only the damp needed doing. The CH and wiring will need to be addressed one day and the roof is absolutely fine!

Nicki

yellowkylie wrote: »

Thanks Nicki for getting back.

Does anyone feel a house that needs full rewiring and has ancient central heating system and gas multi-point water heater that may not comply with current requirements a reason to negotiate on a house that has previously been offered the full asking price.

If we had offered say £4k less of the asking price and then had all this work to do i probably wouldn't bother haggling, but to pay full price for a house that needs a lot of work done even in time, seems a reasonable negotiation to me.

What does anyone else think??

B

I think that the original survey, if your first post accurately quoted it, doesn't say that this is what the house needs, or that this is the true situation in relation to the house, and that as a FTB you are now starting to panic!

Why not do what dragonsoup suggested and phone the surveyor and ask him to explain things to you. The written report is an !!! covering piece of paper for the surveyor and will always err on the negative side. The question you need to have answered is "Do these works need doing at all, and if so, when?"

At the end of the day if you panic and withdraw now (or try and fail to re-negotiate the price) you will lose your search and survey fees, and you only need to do this twice to end up worse off than you would be if you had just bought the house at the price you agreed, and done the work if it needed doing in the future.

You need to be aware that some sellers (and we are now one of these) would refuse to sell the house to a buyer who tried to renegotiate the price downwards even if they later reinstated their higher offer.

This doesn't apply to people who find genuine serious problems in the survey, btw. Clealry if the surveyor spots that a wall is crumbling or a roof not shored up properly that is different. but what has been said here is boilerplate stuff for a house this age.

dellyburgs

i disagree that post survey is no time to renegotiate - i've worked in Conveyancing for 7 years and we have many clients who have renegotiated the price in light of a bad survey. It would be well worth asking - if they say no, you'll just have to decide if you're still willing to go ahead. But there's no harm in asking, they may surprise you.

Doozergirl

I think you need to establish what degree of works needs undertaking and obtain quotes for that work. 1970s wiring would count as being pretty out of date! My electrician would certainly recommend a full rewire on something that old, especially if you are needing to carry out remedial works such as a new consumer unit and earthing. It would make more financial sense to simply re-do it. It might be a case of splitting the bill with the vendor as opposed to knockin gthe full price off - it really depends on what your sparky says.

The fact that your solicitor has put a price on remedial works, to my mind say that this is not a backside covering excercise where they tell you to seek further reports from professionals to establish it is fine. He is telling you that to his mind, these things need replacing, either sooner or later, but they are certainly not fine, otherwise he would have put it the usual caveat.

Yes speak to the surveyor and yes have someone else look at the items, then decide what is necessity and what is a luxury (perhaps new radiators are a luxury but the boiler may be more of a necessity) and then renegotiate based on that. If a survey brings up major issues then you are within your rights to renegotiate - offers are very much subject to survey. What your surveyor is mentioning are very much major issues.

You would have to survey more than two houses to lose on what you are currently being quoted.

You don't need to demand a reduction, you can negotiate one. Most vendors would not pull out on you for trying - with all due respect to Nicki, she has been through quite an unusual set of circumstances and whilst I would have done exactly what she did in that situation, yours is a very different one and would be approached differently.

Badger_Lady

If you're really worried, get a specialist in to look at it and give a clearer idea of how urgent the work is. As so many others have said, the comments look pretty standard - surveyors have to comment every tiny detail purely to cover the risk of you suing them for missing something!

You've probably rented a few places that had out-of-date electrics / CH, but the Landlord wasn't particularly fussed and you were quite happy to carry on living there. Just because you now own the house doesn't mean it has to be perfect, you just have to be confident in your investment.

I got my survey back last week on my 2nd owned house - woodworm, damp, electric, boiler, roof... it does look pretty scary written down, but none of it's urgent :-) I certainly won't be trying to negotiate price.