Asbestos in garage roof

Nevermoving

Hi everyone. We have had our survey back on a house that we have had an offer accepted on. The surveyor believes that the there is abestos in the garage roof sheets and it would be uneconomical to rectify the issues with the garage, as there is some corrosion to the reinforcement bars. The surveyor has valued the property at the amount we offered (asking price). The electric consumer unit also needs updating, there may be some abestos in the understairs storage cupboard and a few issues with the roof (which shouldn't be too expensive to sort). 

How should we go forward? I would like an estimate to see how much it would cost to possible rectify the garage or replace. I'm assuming that most builders wouldn't do this until completion? Should we be negotiating our offer, based on the works needed to the garage/electrics, even though the property has been valued at our offer price? Would it be fair to ask for the electrics to be sorted before we move in? 

Thanks for any advice. 

dimbo61

You can ask and the vendor can say Yes of course we will have the whole house completely rewired because your surveyor said so and he  is Not an electrician.
We don't mind ripping up the floorboard and hacking holes in the walls and how many sockets do you want in each room or they may say NO

You can do whatever you want to the house once you own it 

user1977

Does anything actually need done to the garage roof? It doesn't sound like it needs urgent attention, just that its remaining life is limited.

Nevermoving

user1977 said:

Does anything actually need done to the garage roof? It doesn't sound like it needs urgent attention, just that its remaining life is limited.

This is what was said about the garage: 

"There is a single garage. This has precast concrete walls and a flat roof covered with corrugated asbestos cement. The asbestos cement roof sheets are old and will need to be replaced soon. Before commencing any work on suspected asbestos containing materials a risk assessment should be undertaken. The precast concrete wall sections are coming to the end of their life with some of the reinforcement bars now visible and corroding. One of the sections over the door has split and broken and the other is about to split. As the sections continue to degrade repair will become uneconomic and you should budget for eventual replacement of the garage. The electrical installation is in poor order and appears to have been disconnected. The garage doors are in poor condition. Garages of this type are considered inferior to traditional masonry constructed garages and are more prone to damp and condensation."

michael1234

Unless you're buying a new build there are going to be issues like that. If the place looked slightly rough around the edges in the garage when you viewed I don't know if you can expect the results of the survey to be perfect.

I'll be selling in Jan and I plan to inform the EA at the offer accepted stage, that should the buyer attempt to claw back a few K at any stage then we'll put the place back on the market without delay and confirm with the EA we wouldn't be liable for his fees by doing that. My thinking is that if the issue is something so serious to have a large affect on the house value, then the buyer would pull out anyway. If something much smaller (say 1-5k out of 7 figures) then the time to negotiate has past.

user1977

Nevermoving said:

user1977 said:

Does anything actually need done to the garage roof? It doesn't sound like it needs urgent attention, just that its remaining life is limited.

"There is a single garage. This has precast concrete walls and a flat roof covered with corrugated asbestos cement. The asbestos cement roof sheets are old and will need to be replaced soon. Before commencing any work on suspected asbestos containing materials a risk assessment should be undertaken. The precast concrete wall sections are coming to the end of their life with some of the reinforcement bars now visible and corroding. One of the sections over the door has split and broken and the other is about to split. As the sections continue to degrade repair will become uneconomic and you should budget for eventual replacement of the garage. The electrical installation is in poor order and appears to have been disconnected. The garage doors are in poor condition. Garages of this type are considered inferior to traditional masonry constructed garages and are more prone to damp and condensation."

Ok, so nothing urgently needed. It's just an old garage. Which presumably you could see yourself. I don't see justification for chipping away at the price.

firebubble

You seem to be treating buying a property like you are moving into a rented property, where the landlord gets it just so before you move in. Sorry to burst your bubble....

Unless you're buying a recently built property under guarantee, condition issues aren't grounds to start trying to chip the price, unless you want to irritate your seller and erode goodwill.

Structural issues which reveal the that the sound-looking property you saw is actually unsafe/collapsing are grounds to renegotiate, but an asbestos garage roof is not a structural issue.

The surveyor is hedging a bit, because he can see that the garage is a shoddy due to its age. As it has an asbestos roof, you can't just let it collapse so at some point you'll need to replace the roof with a non-asbestos covering and potentially do other repairs. (Asbestos is safe when it's in situ, it's when it gets disturbed and gives off asbestos dust that it causes a problem).

The other bits, like the electrical unit, are jobs for you to sort out when you move in. People don't generally insist on getting small repairs done before they move in because it slows down the transaction (which always moves slower than you want anyway). 

That's just home ownership - it's all crumbling underneath us from day one.

NameUnavailable

I doubt the consumer unit NEEDS updating, it probably says something along the lines that it's not up to latest standards, but lots of stuff with an older property won't be up to latest standards.

The garage should have been something you saw when viewing. It's probably not going to fall down next week or even next year but MIGHT be something you want to attend to at some point.

Given that the home has been signed off at the price you agreed, and that these aren't 'hidden' issues, I wouldn't expect to get any reduction in price if it were me.

prowla

Uneconomical is an overstatement; I have a detached garage with a roof with the corrugated asbestos cement which needs replacing and I've had two quotes under £2k to replace it.

Sure it's not beer money, but it's not uneconomical, especially in the context of a £200k+ house purchase.

Nevermoving

Thanks for all of your advice. I'm more than happy to purchase the property for the agreed price; I certainly do not want to upset the vendors by trying to renegotiate. Under 2k for a garage roof replacement does not sound too bad at all! 

Chandler85

I had a quote to remove a garage (2 years ago), that had an asbestos roof and suspected asbestos in the walls.

They all came back saying as long as it is empty and access isn't an issue then £750-1250, basically 2 people one day and an asbestos skip.  If you spoke to my surveyor, you'd have thought I'd have been dead by now for sure or about £10k lighter because of it.