Selling house - issues due to buyer survey

Pat38493 · 25 February at 7:13PM

We are in the process of selling our house, and the buyer's survey has thrown up some (alleged?) issues.

We have not been given a copy of the survey or even the relevant parts of it, but we have proposed that both ourselves, and the buyer, should send in a builder to inspect the supposed issues to see what they think. We have already showed this to a builder we have used in the past on a video call and he will come to take a proper look, but on the video call he laughed and said these are non issues.

The surveyer (who apparently has a bit of a repuation round these parts), has stated that it could cost £75K to fix all the "urgent repairs" needed.

We made a list of these items as verbally explained by our EA. All of them except one, are minor issues which in my opinion are normal maintenance - e.g. claiming that wooden lintel or whatever on the garage are "rotting" when simply poking them with a pole shows that they are not rotting they are just a bit damp externally. Bit of pointing needs redoing which has been bigged up beyond all recognition.

The bigger one is the conservatory whcih the surveyor claims is "not fit for purpose" and should be knocked down and rebuilt as it is not "usable". The problem is, we have whiled away many a happy summer day in the conservatory and there is nothing at all wrong with it - it is not even leaking or anything. Yes it's an old conservatory, but not as old as the overall house, and "fit for purpose" surely is an opinon as the surveyor does not know what purpose the buyer or oursleves sees in that space. It has no CH radiators so we don't use it in winter, but so what?

Also we have lived in the house for 11 years and have had various maintenance works done on the conservatory gutters and windows, and many guests have visited there - nobody has ever said that the conservatory needs to be knocked down and built again, except for this surveyor. The buyer viewed the property twice and had no apparent issue with the conservatory. None of the other many viewers or the EA commented that the conservatory was in a bad state.

Further - even if all these issues were real, I would really question whether it would cost £75K to fix them. I would question whether it would even cost half or a quarter of that.

Is someone trying it on here and is this normal in these times we live in?

silvercar · 25 February at 7:22PM

Sounds like the buyer is trying to get a discount. Time to negotiate or walk away.

Pat38493 · 25 February at 7:28PM

silvercar said:

Sounds like the buyer is trying to get a discount. Time to negotiate or walk away.

They have already had a hefty discount and we had another higher offer come in from a prior viewer after we had agreed the sale, but for various reasons at the time we decided to stick with the lower offer (which may turn out to be a doubly costly mistake).

mebu60 · 25 February at 7:47PM

How long ago was the higher offer?

Hoenir · 25 February at 7:50PM

Has the buyer shown the survey to the EA?

Pat38493 · 25 February at 8:16PM

mebu60 said:

How long ago was the higher offer?

It was 2 days after we accepted the lower offer - about 5 weeks ago. It came from someone who had only viewed the house once several months earlier but could not proceed at that time, but had stated they would make an offer at asking price as soon as they were sold.

The reason we stuck with the lower offer is that the higher one had only viewed the house once, and said that they wanted to view the house again before going ahead, which would have meant we would have had to tell our current buyer (according to our EA). As far as I know the person who offered the higher offer has now offered on a different house but I am not 100% sure on that. Also the lower offer was a pure cash buyer from some kind of financial settlement.

Hoenir said:

Has the buyer shown the survey to the EA?

Not totally clear but I don't think so. However our EA did not seem surprised when they found out the name of the surveyor who did the survey.

Should we demand to see the survey (or at least the relevant parts of it) before entertaining any further discussion, or if not drop out and re-market our house?

Dobbibill · 25 February at 9:43PM

You don't say if you are in a rush to sell or happy to re-market the property and stay where you are for the moment while an alternative buyer is found.

How would you feel if both the current & previous buyers fell through - would you be happy to wait. If so, you are within your rights to re-market the property and reject the buyers recent offer.

Hoenir · 25 February at 10:42PM

Pat38493 said:

Not totally clear but I don't think so. However our EA did not seem surprised when they found out the name of the surveyor who did the survey.

Surveyors work for their clients. A list of £75k of "repairs". Sounds as if the buyers are expecting you to finance the betterment / replacement etc. Rather than the surveyor reducing the value of the property significantly.

I suspect you've got timewasters. Who are at the top end of their buying budget.

gazfocus · 25 February at 10:55PM

I would respond to the buyers to say that you are not willing to negotiate on the price already agreed so if they don’t wish to continue with the purchase, please can they let you know so you can begin remarketing the house.

Obviously, depends on how desperate you are for a quick sale but I’m too stubborn to let people walk all over me these days.

kimwp · 25 February at 10:56PM

If I wanted a house and a surveyor said it needed 75k of repairs, I'd walk away from the house. If they are not willing to show you the survey, then there's a higher chance of gazumping (or whichever is the right term- dropping their offer even more, right before exchanging) because they are trying to get the better of you when you havent got anything at stake yet.