Renegotiating house price after valuation / survey

TL88

Hi, I'm a FTB, who's had an offer accepted on a house for £750k, the listing price was £780k, however as part of the full building survey, I requested a valuation which came back with an upper valuation of £725k. A few items were also flagged in the survey which require work, approx £10-15k within the next 2-4yrs. My questions are:
1. Does my valuation give me strong grounds to renegotiate the purchase price? Or is it a case of 'EA valuation against mine'? The mortgage valuation was approved at £750k but only based on a desktop check, so no physical valuation took place.
2. Aware a house is only worth what someone is willing to pay, but don't want to overpay in this volatile market, is there a rough % range that would be deemed 'acceptable'? Is it justifiable to amend to £725k for example? 

Thrugelmir

If it was only a desktop valuation. How could items have been flagged up as requiring attention? 

You revise your offer and renegotiate through the EA with the vendor. 

greatcrested

TL88 said:

.... Or is it a case of 'EA valuation against mine'?

It's a case of what the seller wants to receive against what you want to pay.

flbuyer

It might be reasonable to revise the offer, but as the seller is not obliged to accept, it perhaps depends on what you would do if the seller rejects the revised offer.

AdrianC

£725k valuation against £750k offer is only 3%, well within the range of personal opinion - your offer was more than that below asking.

Does the difference in LtV calculating your borrowing requirement against the valuation rather than the offer make any difference to affordability?

What was the work the survey flagged? What size/age of property? £10-15k across the next four years, on the kind of size of house which would be implied by three-quarters of a million quid (even in a very nice part of the SE), does not sound like a lot more than basic ongoing maintenance.

leftism

It's hard to renegotiate on work needed if it's something you should have seen when you looked round. But if it's a hidden thing, you've definitely got a case.

And I think you'd be mad not to ask for money off after that valuation. As long as you don't take the mick and try and get it for even less than the 725, I don't think anyone would think you're being unreasonable.

You've definitely got grounds to at least ask. If they say no, you can decide what to do next. 

joanars

Surveyors almost always undervalue the property just to be on the safe side.
If the bank is happy with the price offered and you already have offer in place, then you don't have to worry about the survey valuation price.
When we were buying, we went with homebuyers survey and the survey came back with value £12K lower than what we offered (our offer was £182K). But the bank was perfectly happy to lend us the money, they had their own valuation carried out couple of weeks prior to survey being done. We were also FTB and panicked when we saw the homebuyers survey, and just like you we thought we should revise our offer. We called the surveyor and he reassured us that the house is in good condition and there is nothing to worry about, and that the offered price is more than reasonable. In my opinion, you already got significant discount and I wouldn't ask for further reduction in the price offered, but of course its up to you.

Benzine

A lot depends on how much interest the property was getting, how long it had been on sale for etc, along with how much you want it of course. 

I've not had a timescale like that given in a survey before myself. I've just had things pointed out that required doing. I'm not sure something that needs doing in 2-4 years time will be easy to use as a point of negotiation but I may be wrong.