Mortgage approved and seller offered to reduce the house

tinytunes

We have our mortgage offer agreed and the seller has found there was a gas leak in the property. He has had the gas supply to the cooker, hob and fire capped so wishes to remove these items from the sale. He has offered a reduction in the purchase price.

As our mortgage has been agreed can we still take this mortgage and then solicitor pay £5k into our bank upon completion so we can use this towards the cost of a new kitchen and fire?

We are having a further home buyer survey done to check the gas leak is fixed and have requested a gas safety certificate.

Thank you 

housebuyer143

No, if the seller has reduced the price then the bank will now reduce the purchase price and lend less. If the seller were actually giving you money for a new cooler of maybe £500 then I imagine it would probably be allowed, but £5k probably isn't going to be. 

tinytunes

Thank you for the reply, they offered to reduce due to cooker, hob, fire and kitchen. The cooker and hob are built in therfore work surfaces and cupboards will need changing. We have said that it won't benefit us if the mortgage is reduced by just £5k as we won't have the money towards the work that will need doing. 
I just wanted to ask here for advice.

Maka344

The seller could give you (via the solicitor) a £5k stamp duty contribution incentive. 

Rodders53

tinytunes said:

We are having a further home buyer survey done to check the gas leak is fixed and have requested a gas safety certificate.

You do not want that!!  Home buyer surveyor will NOT check gas or electric beyond looking and saying it needs checking by a qualified person.

You want a Gas Safe person to survey and check the whole gas installation.  Or just accept the sellers report / certificate receipt.  Is there no gas boiler in this dwelling? If so is that still connected to gas and working?

BikingBud

Rodders53 said:

tinytunes said:

We are having a further home buyer survey done to check the gas leak is fixed and have requested a gas safety certificate.

You do not want that!!  Home buyer surveyor will NOT check gas or electric beyond looking and saying it needs checking by a qualified person.

You want a Gas Safe person to survey and check the whole gas installation.  Or just accept the sellers report / certificate receipt.  Is there no gas boiler in this dwelling? If so is that still connected to gas and working?

Absolutely this, removing the supply to the appliances and capping the connections will isolate leaks from those appliances but not a leak from a buried pipe. I would be wanting to know exactly where the leak is and then making a decision based upon that professional advice.

If you were considering removing the gas entirely, up stream of meter and removing the meter, and using other energy source for heating and DHW then that might be acceptable but hidden or untraceable gas leaks. 

tinytunes

Thank you for all of the replies.  The gas leak is apparently in a pipe under the concrete in the kitchen. We have been told by the sellers that it affects the cooker, hob and fire but the boiler and central heating is fine. We will obviously do what we need to do to ensure the property is safe. We only found this out yesterday by an email from the estate agent saying the seller wishes to remove the fire and appliances from the sale but will reimburse for these. 
We aren't paying stamp duty as the house is costing £170000.
I will look at getting a gas engineer to check the property, I don't understand enough about this and obviously need to make sure the property is safe
Thank you again.

Bigphil1474

Can you reduce your deposit amount so that you still get the same mortgage amount? Best speaking to the lender I think.