Negotiating down the offer? problems found + title defect

polishembassy

My partner and me are FTB. Our offer of £186,00 on a house put up for £190,000 was accepted in October. The house had been rented out for the last 10 years, is currently unoccupied, and there is no chain. It was obvious from the start that the property is generally in okay condition, but needs some TLC and this was reflected in the market price. The vendor had two previous sales fall through since March 2020 and is keen to complete.

The survey made us aware that the house would require about £10k (+VAT so £12k) of improvements ASAP, mainly to do with failing lintels and new windows needed throughout (result of a botched job by the installers 10 years ago). They are not defects that could reasonably be spotted by a layman during a viewing. Not ideal, but we accepted the extent of works as manageable and worth it. We didn’t ask for a reduction of price then.

We’re now nearing exchange and our solicitor discovered that the Title Deed of the House has a defect as the vendor cannot produce the Gas and Electrical Safety Certificates after having work done to the systems (“alterations or additions were made without formal building regulations approval”).

There is inexpensive insurance to cover us against the possibility of building control enforcement, and we will obtain it. But nothing would cover us against the gas and electrical systems being actually defective. We are planning to commission our own checks, but that means throwing more money into the process and we’re starting to feel a little ripped off and frustrated by mounting uncertainties. We’re thinking about asking the price to be reduced by £5-6k, to cover half of the immediate improvements needed. Are we in the right here? Back when our offer was accepted, there was a mutual recognition between the agent and us that the market price is on the low side because the property is a bit unloved (nothing in writing though). The problems we found seem way beyond that, but we’re both inexperienced in negotiating these things… What do you think? Any advice appreciated.

Slithery

Insurance is a waste of money, there's nothing to insure against (which is why it's inexpensive).

Knowing that the property needed some TLC you should have already commissioned your own gas and electrical reports - why has it taken you 3 months to get round to this?

Given that the property is already priced for needing work doing if I was the vendor and you asked for a reduction I'd have two words for you, the second one being 'off'...

davidmcn

polishembassy said:

Are we in the right here?

No, and it's nothing to do with the title deeds. Unless there is actually a title defect which you've omitted to tell us about?

And it sounds like you haven't even detected any actual problems with the gas or electricity?

Splatfoot

Our windows in the house we just sold were apparently 'installed incorrectly' too. The chap who surveyed it said a lot of installers do it incorrectly! Anyway, the windows are still ok, I would not have reduced for that. We did not have a gas safety cert either and our boiler wasn't on the register. Plumbers fault. We just got it serviced. Didn't have building regs approval for that either. Pretty sure most people don't realise they 'need' it.

greatcrested

You wanted to know more about the condition of the property so you paid a surveyor to give you a report.

If you now, belatedly, decide you want to know more about the electrics and gas installaions, then do the same - pay an electrician and gas engineer to give reports.

But do it fast as the seller will be annoyed you've left this so late.

As for missing Building Control certificates following works, this can oly be enforced within 12 months of the work finishing - hence the cheap insurance as BC will never inspect, and if they do, cannot enforce, so the insurer will never need to pay out.

Renegotiate price based on this? Do not annoy your seller for something so trivial and pointless.

Hannimal

Slithery said:

Knowing that the property needed some TLC you should have already commissioned your own gas and electrical reports - why has it taken you 3 months to get round to this?

Let me guess why: because they are first time buyers and most of us don't "just know" this stuff. I did none of this when I bought mine, I still haven't done any of this. Maybe someone who has bought before has the insight but most of us are a little clueless and do the best we can. 

Doozergirl

I'm only going to reinforce what has been said. Commission gas and electric reports is the only way you will know their condition, so it's unreasonable to be renegotiating when you don't actually know if there is a problem.   It shouldn't be a surprise that an expert should be looking at them before you buy.  

Lack of a building control certificate is not a title defect.  It is also only a snapshot of gas/electric on a given day, not now so it cannot be relied upon as a sign of current quality, only a current gas safety certificate and electrical condition report can do that.  

If the windows do need lintels, the windows should be able to be taken out and put back in again after the lintels have been done.  I'm not sure what would be so bad about each individual window, unless they're at end of life, in which case, you'd probably notice their condition on viewing.