Roof repair when buying a flat

AskAsk

My friend is currently buying a flat and the legal work has identified that there will be major roof repair work scheduled for 2025, and the flat he is buying has been allocated an estimated cost of £1,788.  There is no sinking fund in the service charge so he will need to pay this as major works.

Any advice on whether you think he should negotiate the purchase price for this repair work, and if so, how much?  I am thinking may be go back to the estate agent and ask for £1,500 off the purchase price?  Or could this be done as a retention for service charges/major works through the solicitors?

anna42hmr

I suppose no harm in trying but what will they be prepared to do if the seller declines, after all if you were selling something would you be happy to pay towards work that may or may not go ahead in more than 3 years time? .

Personally if it was in next 12/18 months maybe i would ask, or suggest 50/50 but where do you draw the line?

if the seller states no then what is your friend prepared to do, if pay for it and budget it any way then fine, but is it worth pulling out for? if the seller says no what would they want to do then.  - don't forget if this is an issue that breaks or makes the deal, there will be  costs for legals etc completed.   

I'd be more concerned about no sinking fund at all for the building in the service charge than this specific item - as more than roof works need to be done on these buildings - do they have reserves for decoration, works on drives/parking areas, pointing work on the building etc?

The building I own a flat in for example has sinking funds for such things as roofs etc (paid for out of the service charges) but we are aware if not enough in sinking funds down the line then extra may be payable. these things are put on aproximated schedule planned years ahead based on average life spans of roofing etc,  but things can happen and may not be able to be fully paid for at the time.   

robatwork

Give us some idea on numbers. Is it one roof between 4 flats at an estimated reroofing cost of £40,000 or one roof between 50 flats at £250,000?

In any case, if I were the seller I wouldn't negotiate downwards on something that didn't need to be done urgently or very short term.

AskAsk

robatwork said:

Give us some idea on numbers. Is it one roof between 4 flats at an estimated reroofing cost of £40,000 or one roof between 50 flats at £250,000?

In any case, if I were the seller I wouldn't negotiate downwards on something that didn't need to be done urgently or very short term.

there are 17 flats in the block and the roof is a flat roof so i am guessing there are maintenance works planned for 2025 and the current estimate of share to the flat is £1,788.  it is not a big amount and he had already been given £2,000 off when he negotiated after he received the property survey, where the surveyor had valued the property at 2k less than the asking price because of some work needed in the flat.

the surveyor could not get access to the flat roof to do the inspection on the day he visited and he advised this should be dealt with via the solicitor.

AskAsk

anna42hmr said:

I suppose no harm in trying but what will they be prepared to do if the seller declines, after all if you were selling something would you be happy to pay towards work that may or may not go ahead in more than 3 years time? .

Personally if it was in next 12/18 months maybe i would ask, or suggest 50/50 but where do you draw the line?

if the seller states no then what is your friend prepared to do, if pay for it and budget it any way then fine, but is it worth pulling out for? if the seller says no what would they want to do then.  - don't forget if this is an issue that breaks or makes the deal, there will be  costs for legals etc completed.   

I'd be more concerned about no sinking fund at all for the building in the service charge than this specific item - as more than roof works need to be done on these buildings - do they have reserves for decoration, works on drives/parking areas, pointing work on the building etc?

The building I own a flat in for example has sinking funds for such things as roofs etc (paid for out of the service charges) but we are aware if not enough in sinking funds down the line then extra may be payable. these things are put on aproximated schedule planned years ahead based on average life spans of roofing etc,  but things can happen and may not be able to be fully paid for at the time.   

this is my thinking.  that if there was a sinking fund, the existing owner would have paid more in service charge per year over the time they had owned it and so they had made that saving, which you could argue, they should now cough up.  i was thinking may be spread the cost over the total period of their ownership in 2014 to 2025, and we pay the part from 2022-2025, so they pay £1,250?

davemorton

How much is the flat?

AskAsk

davemorton said:

How much is the flat?

it was £170k and he got it for £158k

robatwork

Personally I'd not ask for money off based on this, but save the £50 odd per month in my own "sinking" account. All depends how much he is prepared to hack off the vendor - is he prepared to lose the flat over it?

AskAsk

his solicitor is seeking further clarification of the roof repair as the estimate is based on a quote, which i expect is based on current prices or past prices as no builder will guarantee a quote for that long.  i am thinking this 1800 will be a lot bigger by the time 2025 comes along with the way inflation is going!

user1977

AskAsk said:

My friend is currently buying a flat and the legal work has identified that there will be major roof repair work scheduled for 2025, and the flat he is buying has been allocated an estimated cost of £1,788.  There is no sinking fund in the service charge so he will need to pay this as major works.

Any advice on whether you think he should negotiate the purchase price for this repair work, and if so, how much?  I am thinking may be go back to the estate agent and ask for £1,500 off the purchase price?  Or could this be done as a retention for service charges/major works through the solicitors?

A retention for something which isn't even planned for another three years would be daft. And given the amount, I'm not sure how major it really is - this is more in the realms of relatively routine cyclical maintenance. Nobody normally buys a property with any sort of guarantee that it won't need maintenance done within the next few years.

Schwarzwald

I was recently under offer on a property for which the Freeholder had already issued a letter pre pandemic of major works to be done in excess of >£10k (<5% of price) but works got delayed and therefore probably happening in 2022.

as this wasnt disclosed pre me making the offer, I felt like having a strong case to negotiate and we settled on splitting the buedgeted costs.
i think if there are identified works is in the next 12 months, it is fair to trying to renegotiate.
if it is beyond 12-18 months out, I think it is just regular upkeep of the property even if larger one off costs once in a while and therefore think unreasonable to request.

you can still try though, cant say more than No, slight risk of annoying the vendor though.