sale just fell through this afternoon- unbelievable EA

Jennifer_Jane

"Then he told me that if i was selling their house i wouldn't have this attitude and one day i would be selling and i would be on the other side and would realise what they were going through. "

My point when I have been equally 'difficult' when buying houses, is that if I have to turn round and sell the house the day after I buy it, then the next person's survey is only going to say the same thing, and then, yes, I will be having to pay that money, so I want it up to standard before I move in. I've been far more difficult about things than you have. You've offered and had accepted an amount of money, and the survey has revealed that you will be paying £700 more. Unacceptable. It's making the house more expensive to you.

What did the surveyor value the house at?

Nevertheless, if it were my dream house, I would certainly negotiate and compromise to at least cover part or most of the cost. If you are just 'OK' with the house and see yourself moving in 2-5 years, then you can emotionally walk away - that should be the only thing to consider at this stage. You may find that you get some money back from the solicitor so best to ask them, firstly to stop any work (and put this in writing) and also to let you know costs to date - good luck with this, solicitors are slow in this regard.

For the next house you could negotiate with your surveyor and the solicitor to do a bit of a discount. My surveyor was delightful and volunteered a discount when my house purchase fell through (two sales fell through, so two surveys/two sets of solicitors' fees/getting rid of useful things to move to a smaller house, etc). In addition you can shop around for solicitors fees (I got quotes from my union - Unite - for conveyancing from 2 Companies, and one from my brother, who agreed to match the union conveyancing solicitors). They will all be suffering in the current climate and will be glad of the business.

Stand no nonsense from Estate Agents who don't know how to behave! Some can do a wonderful job and some are just bullies. Don't take it. You are in a hugely powerful position being FTB, let alone in a Buyers' market. Be aware of your power!

I don't think you are being childish - emotional perhaps - but any business negotiation is built on threat and walking away - and eventual compromise.

Good luck with it all. It's a horrible, stupid, needless* process!

*Mentioned ad nauseum in other posts.

Jen
x

first_time_buyer_X

hello!

thanks for all replies. made for interesting reading and just confirmed what i already knew reading posts on this site, that as individual people we all have individual opinions and that we all deal with situations very differently.

you live and you learn and this house buying malarky is a steep learning curve but still quite an exciting one at that.

xx

PayDay

Never underestimate your bargaining power. Especially in the buyers market that we have now.

PayDay

first_time_buyer_X wrote: »

thanks for all replies. made for interesting reading and just confirmed what i already knew reading posts on this site, that as individual people we all have individual opinions and that we all deal with situations very differently.

The views of sellers on this forum, are going to be different to those of buyers,

ixwood

You're right, people do deal with situations differently. Very badly in this case IMO.

Hopefully you'll learn from your mistakes and won't be so combative or petulant in future.

Kez100

For years sellers have been calling the shots. Let the buyers have their day too. He wasn't asking for much - just safe electrics which the survey picked up. A fair requirement I would say for purchasing a house. Why should a buyer accept a compromise on that? (Yes, on one of those nebulous things surveyors put in reports like long standing cracks with no recent movement but NOT dodgy electrics.)

I would have done exactly the same mate. Let them repent at their leisure.

first_time_buyer_X

"You're right, people do deal with situations differently. Very badly in this case IMO.

Hopefully you'll learn from your mistakes and won't be so combative or petulant in future"



ixwood

thanks for the reply

i have gone to the back of the class and am facing the wall mulling over my behaviour. i will rejoin the class when i have learned to control my emotions and behave accordingly.


xx

Doc_N

As a buyer, you're in an incredibly strong position. The seller needs you much more than you need him. My guess is that they'll be back trying to persuade you to go ahead, with a reduction for the full amount. Let us know what happens.

I still think, though, that you'd do better to wait for prices to fall further before buying.

Pennywise

clutton wrote: »

building regs for electrics are a fairly recent bit of tom-foolery - folks have been buying houses for decades without this and seem to have got on alright

You obviously have never bought a house from a DIY bodger then have you?

Our house was relatively new and had all the modern wires, plugs and switches - on the surface it looked fine. The survey mentioned that some extra wiring had been done and suggested a specialist electrical survey but we ignored him. What a mistake to make!

We wanted a few minor things done over the first few years, things such as a couple of extra fitted wall lights, installing an electric shower, a roof fan in the conservatory, security lights outside, etc, none of which should have been a major problem. But every time we had anything done, there were major problems - we always used NICEIC electricians - as soon as they opened the main switchboard, junction boxes, etc, they found serious problems that cost us a lot of extra money to fix. I know a bit about electrics as stage lighting has been a long standing hobby of mine so when the electrician showed me the state of the hidden wiring, I could see that they were being honest - they weren't trying to con me!

There was SO MUCH that was wrong it was unbelievable. Additional sockets had been wired into lighting circuits. There was absolutely no regard to the proper colour coding of the wires - blacks were connected to reds and on one extra socket, both the live and neutal wires were the green/yellow earthing cable. None of the extra sockets he had installed had a connected earth wire so were potentially lethal. Basically, it was completely impossible to follow and the "home made" extras had to be replaced or repaired whenever they appeared.

The worst time was when our upstairs lighting circuit started to fuse for no obvious reason. The electrician spent a whole day in the loft tracing wires around, opening junction boxes, switches, etc to try to find the fault. He ended up having to disconnect it all and re-connect it room by room to try to isolate the cause. He ended up blaming it on the cable that ran from the fuse box, up the stud wall cavity, through to the loft, but as it was inside the stud wall, he couldn't check why. Instead, as a temporary measure to give us light that evening, he laid a new temporary cable from the fuse box to the loft junction box, which proved that all the upstairs lighting circuits were OK. By coincidence, it was one of the first cold nights after summer and my wife turned on the bathroom heater (a wall mounted fan heater) but it didn't work. I mentioned it to the electrician the next day when he arrived, he opened up the heater and found that he idiot house owner before me had wired the heater straight into the upstairs main lighting circuit feed - presumably he just noticed the feed going up through the stud wall as he drilled the holes for the wall heater and thought his luck was in as he didn't have to put in it's own power lead. What an absolute plonker.

All in all, it's cost us thousands to repair the home made bodges and would have been cheaper to have had the house completely rewired in the first place, which is probably what a proper electrical survey would have suggested.

For what it's worth, I think the OP is absolutely right to take their stance. There are far too many DIY bodgers - just because something works or looks nice doesn't mean it has been done properly.

pickledtink

ixwood wrote: »

You're right, people do deal with situations differently. Very badly in this case IMO.

Hopefully you'll learn from your mistakes and won't be so combative or petulant in future.

Hopefully your combative and uncalled for personal attacks on the OP will get deleted.

To buy a house with suspect wiring in the present climate of plummeting prices is hardly a good move.
The OP is quite right to demand this is rectified in full by a qualified Electrician at the sellers expense before the sale can go through.
This could be a blessing in disguise however.
Another 'dream' house will be along shortly at a lower price in the current market anyway as the EA is perfectly aware.
They are extremely lucky to have a buyer at all!
The EA should be pushing this through not trying to play hard ball. What an idiot.