Selling house - issues due to buyer survey

FreeBear

kimwp said:

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.

Gazunder is the term you are looking for.

And yes, £75K is way over the top to knock down & rebuild a conservatory unless it is attached to somewhere like Chatsworth.

david29dpo

No seller is going to adjust the selling price without first seeing the reason.
Ask to see the survey (for what its worth)
If they dont, tell them thanks but no thanks.
Re-market

Pat38493

Dobbibill said:

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.

We are not in a rush to sell other than we have put a lot of effort into viewings and so on over the last 9 months.  Rationally and financially, we don't need to sell at this time, other than having to go through all the stress again and again.

Our EA is going to ask if they are willing to provide a copy of the survey to us.  

Our position is that we are not willing to sell for less than the agreed price - worst case as stated by a few other posters above, we will re-market the property and/or take it off the market for a year or two.

One other thing I didn't mention - every single one of the issues they have highlighed are not with the main structure of the dwelling - it's all about the conservatory and garage.

Theoretically if they are not willing to provide the survey, we could get our own RICS survey done to see whether it throws up the same issues - everything is hearsay at the moment so we don't know what is written in the report vs what is being taken out of context or embellished by the buyer.

Example - EA now told me that buyer claims the surveyor said house is "not worth what they are paying for it" but it's already being sold below the bottom of the EA's valuation range, so I don't think even the EA agrees.  My response is that I need to see evidence that the surveyor is willing to put that in writing and what they claim the house is worth, with all the context of why their valuation is so much lower than the EA.

Dobbibill

If it was me, in your situation, I would ask for a copy of the survey if they ask to reduce the price further. 
If they are not willing to share it, remarket the property or take it off the market for a while.
£75k reduction is way too much IMHO.

Pat38493

Dobbibill said:

If it was me, in your situation, I would ask for a copy of the survey if they ask to reduce the price further. 
If they are not willing to share it, remarket the property or take it off the market for a while.
£75k reduction is way too much IMHO.

Yes this is what we are going to do, but even further because we have agreed that the currently agreed price is our red line floor price - if we cannot sell at that price we will just stay put and if necessary try again in a year or two.  If an actual reputable builder identifies issues that needs to be fixed we will fix them ourselves.

Also - I can see that other houses in our village have sold in the same price area in the last 6 months which are clearly not as good as our house, and which don't have any obvious location reason to sell a lot higher, so she is already getting a bargain.

We already had another higher offer that came in after the current one and we stupidly did the "honorable" thing and stuck with the current buyer.

They have been asked for a copy of the survey and so far have not done so, nor have they appointed an builder to come and take a look up to now.

After reflecting on this for a couple of days and thinking about the way this buyer has behaved since the start, they originally made a ridiculously low offer.  I have now reclassified this buyer mentally from good cash buyer, to probably time waster who probably either can't afford the house, or can't afford the ongoing running costs of the house and is trying to force the price down.

Bigphil1474

OP, if they've had a L2 survey done it will state the value of the property as it is in its current condition. The surveyor could well be right that the property needs £75k of work doing it on, but that's not your problem if the value of the house as is, is what they are paying. The first buyers of our house pulled out after getting the survey back and we managed to get a copy and some of it was valid, but we'd accepted an offer below asking which was in line with their surveyors valuation. The second buyer had similar and was happy to proceed.

If it was me, I'd ask for a copy of the survey, see what it says and go from there. We did actually get a bit of work done from the first survey as some of it looked bad but was actually a cheap fix - think we spent about £5k, and the second offer was £5k more than the first, so cost us nothing really. A bit of drainage work and damp remediation. Ultimately, if you don't want to negotiate, don't.

Pat38493

Bigphil1474 said:

OP, if they've had a L2 survey done it will state the value of the property as it is in its current condition. The surveyor could well be right that the property needs £75k of work doing it on, but that's not your problem if the value of the house as is, is what they are paying. The first buyers of our house pulled out after getting the survey back and we managed to get a copy and some of it was valid, but we'd accepted an offer below asking which was in line with their surveyors valuation. The second buyer had similar and was happy to proceed.

If it was me, I'd ask for a copy of the survey, see what it says and go from there. We did actually get a bit of work done from the first survey as some of it looked bad but was actually a cheap fix - think we spent about £5k, and the second offer was £5k more than the first, so cost us nothing really. A bit of drainage work and damp remediation. Ultimately, if you don't want to negotiate, don't.

Thanks yes this is a very similar situation.  We have asked for a copy of the survey but no news so far.  The buyer claims that the surveyor told them that the house is "not worth what you are paying for it" but we have challenged them to find out whether this is in writing as part of the report because if so, the surveyor should have quoted an actual number.

My guess is that they are trying to pull a fast one and they are translating "if the very unlikely absolute worst case scenario of all my observations is true, the house is worht less" to "the house is worth less".

Also - giving a valuation to a house is partly based on the location and market conditions.  Is a surveyor really more expert than an estate agent in that topic?  I have to admit up to now, I've never seen a house survey where the quoted valuation was not the exact same number that the house is being purchased for.

LoopyLoops

Bigphil1474 said:

OP, if they've had a L2 survey done it will state the value of the property as it is in its current condition. The surveyor could well be right that the property needs £75k of work doing it on, but that's not your problem if the value of the house as is, is what they are paying. The first buyers of our house pulled out after getting the survey back and we managed to get a copy and some of it was valid, but we'd accepted an offer below asking which was in line with their surveyors valuation. The second buyer had similar and was happy to proceed.

If it was me, I'd ask for a copy of the survey, see what it says and go from there. We did actually get a bit of work done from the first survey as some of it looked bad but was actually a cheap fix - think we spent about £5k, and the second offer was £5k more than the first, so cost us nothing really. A bit of drainage work and damp remediation. Ultimately, if you don't want to negotiate, don't.

If you want the valuation on a level 2 survey you pay extra for it.  Otherwise you just get the survey report.  We just had a level 2 and opted to pay the extra for the valuation element.  

FreeBear

Pat38493 said: Also - giving a valuation to a house is partly based on the location and market conditions.  Is a surveyor really more expert than an estate agent in that topic?  I have to admit up to now, I've never seen a house survey where the quoted valuation was not the exact same number that the house is being purchased for.

My understanding of valuations - An estate agent will base the valuation on what they think they can sell it for. A RICS valuation looks at the price similar houses in the immediate area have sold for in recent years. A few fudge factors applied (which an EA might not do) depending on condition, and a figure is decided upon. A surveyor valuation will carry more weight as it is backed up by membership of a recognised organisation, where as an estate agent is just a glorified salesman.

Pat38493

FreeBear said:

Pat38493 said: Also - giving a valuation to a house is partly based on the location and market conditions.  Is a surveyor really more expert than an estate agent in that topic?  I have to admit up to now, I've never seen a house survey where the quoted valuation was not the exact same number that the house is being purchased for.

My understanding of valuations - An estate agent will base the valuation on what they think they can sell it for. A RICS valuation looks at the price similar houses in the immediate area have sold for in recent years. A few fudge factors applied (which an EA might not do) depending on condition, and a figure is decided upon. A surveyor valuation will carry more weight as it is backed up by membership of a recognised organisation, where as an estate agent is just a glorified salesman.

Does it every happen that the surveyor reports the value of the house higher than the agreed price?  Must admit I've never seen that before.