Buyer's surveyor gave us his findings and they're inaccurate/exaggerated

Tempestina

It's two totally different areas of the house so they're entirely unrelated - there isn't any damp, and certainly isn't where he indicated it was. 

ProDave

A bit of damp and a bit of re pointing on a 100 year old house is nothing to worry about.  Just because the paint is not peeling and there is no mould does not mean there cannot be any damp.

Wait and see what your buyer says. It could have been a LOT worse.

AlexMac

We had this; selling a Victorian House and the buyers surveyor (who we guessed was a mate) came up with a very detailed list of faults including “ risk of poisoning from lead water mains” (like every other Victorian house)! 

 I asked the water board who said that after 90 years in a hard water area the pipes are so calciumed up there is no danger). 

Other ideas were that as the house had a semi basement (like almost every other Victorian house) there was a risk of damp so that there should be external excavation and tanking of the outside walls and backfilling with shingle!

they suggested a £20k price drop. 

My wife who owned the house was so enraged that she wanted to suggest they go forth and multiply. I meditated and agreed a few grand off for a couple of genuine bits of damp or rot which we hadn’t already priced in. 

So negotiate or tell’ ‘em to GF & M?

Martyn_H

Thoroughly unprofessional. The surveyor is working for the buyer, not the vendor.

ThisIsWeird

Your century-old house needs some repointing and may have a patch of upstairs damp? RUN AWAY!
As others have said, wait and see what actually transpires. Meanwhile, I'd write a short, and as verbatim account as possible, of what the surveyor said on each key point. Try and recall the exact words and phrases he used, to see if it's over-egging/emotive, or purely 'factual'. And how he asked for the convo in the first place. Just in case you need to complain to their regulating body.
If your potential buyer does attempt a significant discount citing their survey, then your options are as outlined by others. Probably worth thinking through now whether you are 'happy' to allow a compromise figure, and what this could be, so you ain't caught off-guard. I'm not saying you do compromise, but just that you have a figure in mind if this serves to clinch the deal. State your case if you find the survey unreasonable - you don't recognise the seriousness of certain claims, and that your builder has assured you that they are unexceptional issues, easily rectified.
Any compromise figure will likely depend on factors such as the 'validity' of these claims (which you don't take lying down, but at least gently counter with your builder's comments - perhaps even with some estimates from your builder to sort them), whether there's been more interest in your property (a cracking lever if so), and whether you can afford it.
Please keep us updated, and let us know what the survey says
Good luck with your move.

Dustyevsky

House buying and selling is a game, and some people play rough or don't understand all the rules. It's always hard to work out which! The surveyor's first duty is to himself here. While he should know the difference between historic movement and active subsidence, if the area affected hasn't been re-pointed then it's safest to cover his posterior and flag it up as a 'concern.' Equally, the damp might have been measured with a meter, probably unsuitable for the job, but again, from his perspective it's best to report the findings.

Looked at broadly, if these were the only things the surveyor found on a 100-year-old house it's positive, but as you rightly surmise, that might not be how the potential purchasers feel. Unfortunately, that's in the hands of human psyche, and you've no control over that, so know what your bottom line is and stick to it.

RHemmings

Dustyevsky said:

House buying and selling is a game, and some people play rough or don't understand all the rules. It's always hard to work out which! The surveyor's first duty is to himself here. While he should know the difference between historic movement and active subsidence, if the area affected hasn't been re-pointed then it's safest to cover his posterior and flag it up as a 'concern.' Equally, the damp might have been measured with a meter, probably unsuitable for the job, but again, from his perspective it's best to report the findings.

Looked at broadly, if these were the only things the surveyor found on a 100-year-old house it's positive, but as you rightly surmise, that might not be how the potential purchasers feel. Unfortunately, that's in the hands of human psyche, and you've no control over that, so know what your bottom line is and stick to it.

It's a game, but I would classify a deliberately dishonest survey as 'underhand' and 'cheating'. When I play games, if people cheat then I stop playing games with them. When buying my house, my family had all agreed what we would do if the sellers tried a last minute gazump or similar. And, our response would have been a well-known two-word Anglo-Saxon phrase. 

If I was in the OP's position, and (we don't know yet for the OP's case) I felt that the buyer was using underhand tactics, then I would straight up tell the buyers that I don't believe in their survey and I feel that they are using underhand tactics to try and bid down the house. I would say that mutual trust is important in any house purchase, and I feel that I can no longer trust them to act in a reasonable and honest way. And, I would leave it at that, for them to reply to. 

Tempestina

I must stress I think the buyers likely found this surveyor in good faith and I don't subscribe any underhanded motivation to them as yet. The surveyor did give me the feeling that his method of securing business might be along the lines of telling people he has an excellent track record for getting people info they can use to get ££££ off the price based purely on his own behaviour while he was here. 

I'm assuming from what others have said that the 15 minute interview he requested after is highly unusual. I felt odd about it, him asking us when we redecorated like it's a dirty secret we'll try to hide, yes we redecorated some rooms to sell the house as it has last been done 15 years ago, one room was a god awful colour scheme of three horrible sand brown walls and one bright cyan one I thought was 'beach themed' 15 years ago and soon after thought was just eff ugly but wasn't eff ugly enough to make me drag out the rollers back then. Obviously to sell the house, removing the ugly and polarising colours in advance seems a pretty normal thing to do. 

I know he has to cover his buttcheeks but you'd have had to be here for the 15 min conversation he asked for I guess to see why I feel it was more digging for info he could leverage against us. If I could go back in time and certainly now that I've been through it once and had time to reflect, in future I'd just say oh no sorry I haven't time as I need to be back at my desk. We knocked the kitchen into a kitchen diner several years ago. He was actively smirking about 'the need for building regs' and going on about how it was 'lucky' the builder missed a bit of plaster and he could see that at least we'd used a steel until I pointed out it had full sign off and the certificate was with the solicitor already. The area where he could see the steel is right next to the main National Grid fuse for the 240V supply and because you're not really meant to interfere with it if your not National Grid, they had to do their best around it while allowing for safety and it's tucked up under the stairs with the consumer unit and meter anyway. I had to explain the safety decisions we'd made around the supply to him when they should have been clear and I'd think things he should know. He then moved on to something about needing building control for a chimney stack the council removed likely half a century ago when they still owned the property, and reroofed what I'm given to understand was the whole house after. If it needed building regs, circa 50 years without enforcement would make me think it's a bit of a nothing burger but as it didn't come up in our conveyancing, I'm guessing it's unrequired or on file with the council who did the work to their own property back in the day. He was just really wanting his ah ha got you moment around work without building regs and was visibly disappointed to have it denied to him. My other half says the way I said good bye made the off you eff clear so I'm sure at least he left clear he hadn't intimidated me and I didn't believe much of what he said. He brandished his damp meter at me and I said oh the thing made for timber not 100 year old plaster and he refused to look me in the face.

My inclination is to say the house was fairly priced and the two 'major issues' their surveyor sat us down to discuss are actually a bit of nothing/not even real, and that I am considering my options to make a formal complaint about their surveyor's unprofessional conduct while he was in my home, and I'm not interested in negotiation over these inflated minor faults he tried to sensationalise. Of course I will have to wait until next week to see if the buyers go down that road but thinking back to my survey when I bought the house, the tone was rather more matter of fact in delivery than this 'gent' employed. His tone felt very much I've promised my clients I can run down your house and save them some money.

Ozzig

It does sound rather unprofessional, when our last house was sold the surveyor was very professional, after introductions and a run through of how to get in the loft, he very politely explained he cannot answer any questions relating to the survey and to just let him get on with it.

Dustyevsky

RHemmings said:

Dustyevsky said:

House buying and selling is a game, and some people play rough or don't understand all the rules. It's always hard to work out which! The surveyor's first duty is to himself here. While he should know the difference between historic movement and active subsidence, if the area affected hasn't been re-pointed then it's safest to cover his posterior and flag it up as a 'concern.' Equally, the damp might have been measured with a meter, probably unsuitable for the job, but again, from his perspective it's best to report the findings.

Looked at broadly, if these were the only things the surveyor found on a 100-year-old house it's positive, but as you rightly surmise, that might not be how the potential purchasers feel. Unfortunately, that's in the hands of human psyche, and you've no control over that, so know what your bottom line is and stick to it.

It's a game, but I would classify a deliberately dishonest survey as 'underhand' and 'cheating'. When I play games, if people cheat then I stop playing games with them. When buying my house, my family had all agreed what we would do if the sellers tried a last minute gazump or similar. And, our response would have been a well-known two-word Anglo-Saxon phrase.

As the OP points-out, the purchaser may have employed the surveyor in good faith.

Last year, I spent far too long in a legal battle with neighbours, which I won. However, after protracted correspondence and verbal 'communication,' I'm still not 100% sure whether their motives were dishonourable, or if they're emotionally immature and/or incredibly stupid.

Keeping emotion and supposition out of it, knowing their bottom line and sticking to it seems the best course. From the latest post, it seems the OP is well able to do that.