Rodent droppings on second viewing - happy to pay and renegotiate price?

annetheman

Hi all!

I found a doer-upper of a house that had been tenanted for 20 years until it was put up for sale October 2023. A previous purchase fell through (apparently due to funds/chain issues), and it was remarketed in February 2024 - my offer was accepted that month £25,000 below asking price.

I have not viewed the house since the offer but last week accompanied a damp specialist surveyor and took the opportunity for a second viewing. I found lots of mice droppings on the ground floor - none on the first floor. Most concentrated in the understairs cupboard (photo here), under the kitchen breakfast bar (so assume under the cabinets), and a few in the downstairs WC (assume they travel in through the pipes).

Edit to add: forgot to mention the smell! Goodness, the smell - the EA says the previous tenant had dogs, which I totally get, but the second viewing the smell was *much* stronger, so I suspect now it is rodent urine.

I am extremely squeamish but realise mice may occasionally be part and parcel of owning a house. I do want to sort this out before I move in, though. I also understand seller is obliged legally to inform of any known infestations during enquiries so I told my solicitor.

In the meantime - I would like to figure out how I can address this fairly and quickly. I have a quote of £340 to eradicate and block up access points from a good local company. This amount to me is totally reasonable, and I would even be happy to pay but only if the seller reduces the overall asking price by this amount. Of course, if the seller decides to get their own company to sort, that is also ideal but I have a feeling they will not for reasons below.

The EA has told me numerous times the seller wants a trouble-free sale and a straightforward buyer. The seller is an ex-BTL landlord who just had a stroke and lives hundreds of miles away so is deferring quite a few decisions to the EA; EA has also said they would expect me to pay half to clear the tenants rubbish out of the house (I begrudgingly agreed, but not sure if this is normal - I thought the house is supposed to be sold empty, not full of garbage??? There is quite a lot).This is another £2-300, post-exchange and pre-completion, so I would really rather not pay to get rid of their infestation without a reduction in price on top of that.

It's small change in the grand scheme but I think it's fair to reduce by it. Nothing taking the mick, just the direct costs i.e. £340. It is at my risk to pay for this work also, because they could decide after I've paid to get rid of the infestation and sort, that they no longer want to proceed with me and re-market for a higher price.

Does me paying and reducing the price sound fair?

Keen to hear any thoughts especially if anyone has had this happen!

BarelySentientAI

annetheman said:

It's small change in the grand scheme but I think it's fair to reduce by it. Nothing taking the mick, just the direct costs i.e. £340. It is at my risk to pay for this work also, because they could decide after I've paid to get rid of the infestation and sort, that they no longer want to proceed with me and re-market for a higher price.

Asking for trivial reductions like this is also a risk of them deciding that you're not a straightforward buyer and likely to cause more problems in future.  

annetheman

BarelySentientAI said:

annetheman said:

It's small change in the grand scheme but I think it's fair to reduce by it. Nothing taking the mick, just the direct costs i.e. £340. It is at my risk to pay for this work also, because they could decide after I've paid to get rid of the infestation and sort, that they no longer want to proceed with me and re-market for a higher price.

Asking for trivial reductions like this is also a risk of them deciding that you're not a straightforward buyer and likely to cause more problems in future.  

I considered this, I also considered from my POV as a current seller what I would do if I was told by my prospective buyer that I had mice. I would immediately call an exterminator and sort the problem at my own cost - this seems the easiest solution from my own perspective.

But from what the EA has told me repeatedly about the seller's situation and his recent stroke, I doubt it. I also didn't add he has no family to help with the decision making. EA said it was up to him to choose me as a buyer, for example (there were other offers on the table but I was the most straightforward, despite having a shared ownership flat to sell, which is another ongoing nightmare)!

I will hopefully find out on Tuesday what they want to do, but need to be sure what my offers for resolution are depending on what the EA says. I'm definitely leaning towards this reduction.

Also forgot to mention besides the mice infestation, the house was really hard to mortgage (see my previous stressed out posts about its single skin!) - non-standard construction single skin brick extension housing the kitchen. Took a few tries, and I suspect the continuous failure of surveys is why the previous buyers fell through. This is a Victorian house in London, under £400,000 in zone 3, 7 minutes' walk from a tube station - so very popular area, but the house has clearly had issues shifting.

user1977

I would probably just press on and deal with it myself after completion, rather than waste time negotiating stuff like this (given it sounds you're hardly taking on somewhere which ought to be in pristine condition).

annetheman

user1977 said:

I would probably just press on and deal with it myself after completion, rather than waste time negotiating stuff like this (given it sounds you're hardly taking on somewhere which ought to be in pristine condition).

I did consider this too. My 2 issues are that (1) it will be a few months still before completion, allowing the sizeable infestation to do more and more damage, potentially to the structure, since there is no professional assessment of how and where they are getting in. Leaving it pretty much guarantees a worse and more expensive issue.

(2) I am happy to accept that after paying for it to be sorted now, they could pull out and I would lose the money and they would have a more saleable asset, clear of the obvious infestation. I am happy to take the "risk" of this if I know that this is to benefit me i.e. I am paying for the peace of mind of knowing I am moving in with the problem sorted, less the cost of it from the amount I hand over at exchange.

mybestattempt

I wouldn't ask for  a reduction for that amount.

An infestation of mice in an unoccupied house is definitely an issue I would rather deal with directly and pay for myself and most importantly after the house has been completely cleared.

AskAsk

I would say anything under £1,000 is not worth re-negotiating as it is not worth the estate agents and solicitors time.  You can however ask that the vendor get an exterminator in before you will agree to exchange, so he has to deal with the issue, and send you the receipt for the work as proof.

When we sold our house, small matters like this, the buyers asked that we deal with it before we exchange and we were happy to do so to get the sale completed.  This is a better way than to ask for a tiny reduction.

Martico

Just to manage expectations - for £340 you won't get much, certainly not a surefire guarantee. Rodent extermination can be a lengthy (and sometimes not wholly successful) process, depending on all sorts of things

cymruchris

Get on with it and don't bother the estate agent/vendor with price reductions of a couple of hundred of pounds.

You knew it needed it work - it's not a pristine property - there's going to be other things you find further down the line that you have yet to uncover. Will you also be knocking on the vendors door asking for a refund when you find them?

For small things such as this - you just motor on. It's priced into the fact it's a doer-upper.

If you start faffing about over a couple of hundred pounds - there's a chance they'll go back to market and find someone that's not going to try knocking off the cost of a pair of sony headphones every 5 minutes.

If it was something that was £10k - yes - of course you'd have another chat - but for this just keep calm and carry on.

annetheman

mybestattempt said:

I wouldn't ask for  a reduction for that amount.

An infestation of mice in an unoccupied house is definitely an issue I would rather deal with directly and pay for myself and most importantly after the house has been completely cleared.

I think this is what will happen because as per above I expect it will be easier for the seller - tbc though. I did propose to the EA it would be best to do the house clearing before the extermination - already agreed I am paying half for that, so it would be best to do it ASAP before the exterminator visits.

I said I think the most important thing right now is getting the vermin killed and points of entry closed ASAP. I'm very concerned about just leaving an infestation of rodents with potentially multiple entry points to multiply and chew electrics, pipes etc, letting it get worse and worse for months. Right now, as far as I can tell, electrics and plumbing okay - a large infestation of rodents can change that fairly quickly if left - suddenly a £340 issue is £x000s.

I guess the issue of the reduction is actually secondary to actually just sorting out the infestation, I cannot see any benefit in leaving them to run riot for months as suggested by some.

annetheman

Oops I missed a few replies - the consensus is it is such a small amount it isn't worth the legal faff of changing the price on everything - I didn't consider the actual legal requirement to change the price, actually. We're in the drafting contracts stages, enquiries ongoing.

I will see what the seller and EA say on Tuesday about his preference. It'll be great if he does sort it himself. But I am assuming not and willing to go with this company ASAP - my clear and present need is to get in there to kill them all dead and block every possible access point (I cannot stress how I feel about rodents...). I want rodent heads on spikes and I'd actually pay double.

The people I have a quote from will do 2 visits to "exterminate", 1 to block off the access, and a final follow-up up to 3 months after the block off, so appreciate it isn't going to be a one-and-done. I'll be happy to have most of their hide-y holes blocked, be completion, though. I don't know if my fear will let me actually move in without that being done at least.