fatscoobyfella

Our house was surveyed a couple of weeks ago by the bank who our buyers a borrowing from,we got the results over weekend.
There a a few points(pointing of chimney etc) that we expected to be picked up,but we had dropped the house by £8000 initialy so these were taken into account..But they are now trying to lower the house again by another £8000 due to the survey!!!So,what there saying is there only prepared to borrow our buyers £xxx,xxx against ou property.

Now...A few things that perhaps someone in "the Know" can clarify for me..?

Survey says..

1.Central heating needs fully checking...expect upgrade
2.House wiring requires competent inspection....expect upgrade
3.Lintels required on fitted windows..
4.Gutterwork requires inspecting.......expect upgrade..

Ok...fair enough,you might say..BUT...

1.Central heating was only fitted 8 yrs ago,with all documents to prove.Wasnt cheap,had Expensive combi and rads fitted.
2.House was fully rewired 8 yrs ago
3.How can they tell the windows dont have steel lintels fitted??All soldierwork and mortar above the windows are perfect,no sign of any movement..Surveyor did not drill brick to see if any steel was behind.
4.Gutterwork is 3 yrs old and looks perfect..We did actually have a builder around today and he confirmed there are no blockages,breakages or flow problems.

SO..whats the score?They have reduced the house price on a load of assumptions as far as im concerned.Will they bank borrow the full money to our buyers if we have all the other bits done?.I could be wrong,i know little of the building trade,surveying or anythin "house" related..

Anyone throw any light on my queries,or any advice on what to do next???( i am gonna contact our solicitors 1st in the morning!!)

AHA...

Spoon

Surveys are largely a waste of time. If you read and believe most house surveys, you wouldn't want to live in the same street as 'that' house, let alone in it.

You sound like a soft-touch. Stand firm and tell them what you've said here, and that they are taking the píss.

Oh and the banks will be lending the money, not borrowing it.

GCollier

Most of those comments sound like the sort of ***-covering boilerplate stuff they cut'n'paste into every survey report so that the resulting document appears thick enough to justify the 4 figure sum they charge for it.

Gary.

SWRTWannabe

If you have receipts for the work, provide them through your solicitor and hopefully that would solve the problem. Even if you don't, if you point this out to your buyer, then if they still want a price reduction, I would say they are out of order.

Perhaps a way forward is that to say that you are willing to accept visits from tradesmen to determine costs of work required, and if they can provide three independent quotes to back up the work required, then you might consider negotiating the price accordingly.

Hope it all works out - we are in the middle of a house sale at the moment, which has been rather fraught, so can appreciate your situation.

brumdaisy

I know its a bit late in the day for you now - but perhaps a warning to other people - dont lower the initial price of your house on the basis that it needs few bits and pieces doing - always leave plenty of room for negotiation between what the house is marketed at and what you'd be prepared to sell at

hope you work it out

demonsurfer

if the windows are upvc is there any sag in them as that will show there is no lintels in place . when people change from timber to upvc then you sometimes need to put lintels in but the rest is nothing to worry about the guttering should not even be part of the survey the rest is just advice plus covering the durveyers **** i was a builder till i changed profeshions

ScoobyDoo555

Tell em to get lost. Explain as you've done so on here. Although that's an awful lot more than I would do.

The price reflects any potential work. Like it or leave it.

Hope it turns out ok

Dan

TopBanana

That just says 'I haven't checked it so expect the worse to be on the safe side'. Tell them to get it properly inspected if they're worried.

pslewis

Put it back on the market .............. usually gets some action (if its a sought after house at a sought after price)

It's a game .... your house has a value .... trouble is, only the buyer knows EXACTLY what that value is!! You have to guess and hope you guess right (or sell it to a buyer who thinks its value is higher than the current buyer)

Pete

fatscoobyfella

Demonsurfer........Windows are UPVC..there is no sign of any distortion,or any work needed.Brumdaisy..We let the people take off the £8000k because we knew them in a roundabout fashion...We thought we were doin them a favour..It seems to have backfired on us a little..

The receipts we have for our work have all gone off to our solicitor weeks ago..This all seems like a delay/spend more cash with us tactic...

Thanks for all your comments..It certainly gives me food for thought!!!

Oh Top B..I realise what your saying,but there pricing our house on assumptions?????Is this right???

PS Lewis....I find myself agreeing with you for the 1st time...I personally wanna say "fu** Off"" then..Try and find a house like this in the Solihull area for this kinda price...NO YOU WONT....

Again...........thanks for all the input,i will see what tommoz brings!!!

demonsurfer

no worries hope it goes well for you

r32

They are just trying it on, if you read the stuff again it says inspect this, inspect that. The survey didnt pick up any problems. Its a ploy used to try and help them reduce the cost of the property. Just ignore it.

fast bloke

Sounds like a standard *** covering cheapo survey. I get to deal with a few of these every week. The only standard thing that is missing is recommending full wood survey and treatment and full damp survey and treatment.

Put it back on the market at the full price - 8k off for work required is usually major work like roof replacement.

Sounds like your buyer went for a homebuyers report. There are three types of report - valuation for mortgage, homebuyers report or full structural survey. A valuation for mortgage wont go into any detail - it will simply say - the house is worth £xxx, and we recommend your conveyancer checks everything else. A homebuyers report costs a bit more and has a bit more detail, but the buyer has no comeback on the surveyor. The surveyor will cover everything by recommending specialist reports so that the lender can never sue him for getting the valuation wrong. A full survey will go into fine detail - usually costs between 1500 and 3k and takes several house. Everyone can sue the surveyor if they get it wrong - surveyor should lift carpets, drill holes, check woodwork, basically check the complete structure of the house and report every fault. In your case, the buyers have got a homebuyers report, so the surveyor has had a quick run round and then sends out his standard 'check everything' report

Jay m A

iTrader: (2)

If you know them in a roundabout fashion then talk to them directly and explain everything as to why you won't reduce the price. Let them have a few days to consider and tell them its back on the market after that.

fatscoobyfella

True enough Nat...But we had initially knocked £7k off the house valuation because the people buying are friends of friends,if you get what i mean..We instantly knocked off that amount so we could get down to the house sale etc etc..

Anyway..Just a quick update.Spoke to our buyer today after he had been to his solicitors.He cant get to speak to the person lookin after the sale till thursday.
So i explained to him that we wont be letting the house go at the lower price,they either raise the funds or we will put it back on the market.To the guys credit,he agreed with me that the house had been undervalued,as he has been looking in this area for 12 months and knows that our original sale price is Bang on!!!
He is going to ring the surveyor and try to speak with him about his decision and then see what he can do from there..

As for us,were getting a team of builders and plumbers on Friday to do a full check and report for us and a quote for any work that is needed.

Our solicitor then says we can copy it and send to to the surveyor and our buyers solicitor and carry on from there!!!

Again,ta for the input.......

Deep Singh

It all really depends on how desirable/wanted properties are in your area. If in demand you can easily say the price reflects any work needed, and the fear of another buyer snapping at the heels will make them find the money.
If its been difficult to sell ( for whatever reason ) then things are a little different.

Good luck and remember to treat everything the estate agent says with suspicion, he just wants to get the house sold.

fatscoobyfella

Houses in the Solihull area are expensive.Our house is a FTB house in the area,and dont really come up for sale that often.Solihull is predominently bigger houses and mostly start at £260,000+ and there are plenty of £600,000+ houses in the area.So smaller houses are in demand for FTB's who want to stop in the area..We was told by our estate agent that over a dozen people had been turned away from our house(at our request) because we believed it had sold..
Anyway,we live and learn.Looking back i would have had all the people around and let them fight amongst themselves if they wanted it...I dont give a stuff now,just need the deal to happen so we can get into the other house that we have commited too..

Stress is something i dont suffer from,but things are ever so slightly getting right on my ****!!

Deep Singh

If what you say is true, ie well heeled area with things people want ie transport, schools etc then I would tell them to **** off. I'm not just saying that in the usual SN reactionary way but really mean it. Its only in undesirable areas that people can really drive bargains.
I