I am I being unreasonable?

[Anonymous]

Hi there, first posting for me, although I think I have nearly read everyone else's!

We are currently buying a stone built 18th c. Grade ll listed property. Masses of work to be done but I think the best thing i can do is not rush into anything!

However, at the eleventh hour (we are supposed to be moving on the 8th) our first time buyers are making a fuss about the sitting room floor. We live in a mid terraced victorian property, which in our area has undergone all of the locally required transformations in order for it to sell: Upvc windows (the ones we replaced were not original or in the original style), laminate floor (I wanted carpet but the estate agent recommended the laminate) etc.

The buyers survey only showed up two things: that the roof needed attention and that the subfloor ventilation was inadequate. We duly got the loose tiles and loose flashing redone, and installed a couple of extra airbricks, although the current one has never been blocked. The floorwas replaced with chipboard about 10 years ago and has been sound as a bell ever since. No movement, no damp in the walls that were replastered six years ago.

However, a builder was sent round by the buyers to look at fitting the air bricks (or so i thought), but instead he wanted to look at the joists, which he couldn't because of the laminate floor. The builder has told our buyers that he would always look at the joists of a house he was buying and that he would look at these for free to see if there were any problems. Because we are refusing to take up the flooring (you can't put it back down anyway) they are suggesting a £1000 retention so that they can have the floor up when we move and we can pay for anything that needs doing! Why should we when their survey didn't suggest that the floor needed looking at or am I being unreasonable.

Sorry for the long rant but I'm feeling like pulling out of the sale - I don't beleive that this builder will give the floor a clean bill of health although I believe that these joists will go on forever even if they had a trace of damp or worm?

Sarahj

 

[Anonymous]

Dod you get Listed Building Consent for the uPVC windows?

If not, that's an issue that your buyer, or any other potential buyer, may wish to consider. Enforcement action may cost them, or indeed you, quite a lot. This is an issue which may come up at the solicitor stage.

 

[Anonymous]

3 things to consider
1. Might you lose the house you're moving to and would this loss be worth more than £1000 to you either financially or emotionally? If so agree to the retention and cross your fingers
2. Your buyers need to define precisely what constitutes sufficient rot to trigger the retention
3 Negotiate. If you can get it down to say £500 then your answers to 1 and 2 may change. So in effect do number three first!

 

[Anonymous]

I read it that the house they are selling has the Upvc not the one they are buying, but I may be mistaken.

 

[Anonymous]

Sorry, I realise I read that wrongly and it's your current house which you've put nasty, environmentally unfriendy plastic windows into. Maybe the house would have sold if you'd replaced the windows with something more appropriate?

Please tell me you aren't intending to spoil a Grade II Listed in this way?

I don't think the buyer is being any more unreasonable than any other buyer. It's possible that the underfloor may be suffering from problems. Any surveyor who can't inspect is obliged to cover his/her back in this manner.

 

[Anonymous]

No, she's BUYing the g2. It's the house she's selling that has the issue.
I think the buyers are trying to negotiate hard. I doubt that the builder will give a clean bill of health - why should he ?

Did they agree full asking price or have you accepted a reduced price? How long has the process gone on ?
prices are falling (or they are here anyway).

The reality is that you can either call theri bluff, and say no with some risk that they might walk.
Offer a smaller discount - say 300 ?
Accept but say that your builder must see anything they raise as an issue and the retention stays with Your solicitor.
accept it on the basis that life is too short and you want to move.

depends on how easy you found it to set up your move and how you feel about things. Just consider it rationally and view as a tactic. pointless getting angry about it.

 

[Anonymous]

It depends how tight your finances are, I would be tempted to say that pulling up the floor is not an option but give a £500 cashback to help with any problems that might exist if they are willing to proceed to exchange.

If your buyers pull out will you lose the house you are after?

Steve

 

[Anonymous]

Don't be too harsh on me Evelyn! We live in an old north east pit village and our house would have been less saleable not more without the uPVC. I hate it just as much as you, but eight years ago my husband (now ex!) insisted on them, even though for £20 I had salvaged the stone mullions from the last house to have their sash windows removed and uPVC ones put in. The mullions had already been removed from our house and the windows replaced with soft wood ones in the seventies.

The full structural survey on our future property has raised many things for us to sort out including extensive damp (which I will endeavour to alleviate through the natural methods included in these discussions and not with the chemical dpc recommended by 'an appoitment' specialist company! I am planning to restore as much of the original fabrication of our new house as possible (early eighties modernisation unfortunately) but no doubt that will unfold in the near future.

As for our current situation, it wasn't the surveyor who wanted to inspect the floors, it seems that they were fine for mortgage purposes, he just mentioned inadequate sub-floor ventilation in the survey (valuation survey). It was the builder that the buyers asked to quote for air bricks. He apparently offered this free 'inspection' of our joists as he thought it necessary with all properties and has apparently regaled them with horror stories of floors collapsing six months after people have moved in etc. He stepped in our front door, said 'Oh you've got laminate flooring' I can't do it then' and I said 'but I thought you were here to sort the new air bricks' and he said 'Oh no, I wanted to look at the joists' and he left without even looking at the wall with the air brick. My partner fitted them at the following weekend.

We will not lose the house we want as the lovely owner took it off the market for us last November! (It is his holiday cottage and I think he enjoyed another year of use) and i think he will still keep it with this hiccough. Also, our buyers have already ordered loads of furniture and are currently living with inlaws so I think we are in a stronger position.

However, I really like the idea of the £500 cash back as this is a nice clean break for us all, and first timers are so panicky and hard up.

Thank you for all your help, I will keep you posted with the outcome!

 

[Anonymous]

I think the buyer is being unreasonable. Surveys dont go as far as destroying parts of the house to inspect other parts, leaving you out of pocket. Trashing your floor I dont see as a sensible request.

If the buyer were concerned about joist rot, the logical thing in this situation is to, in various places on the floor, rise up onto tiptoes and drop back down onto flat feet. Sound joists & floors feel pretty solid, rotten ones shake life a leaf, things fall off the tables, etc. I think thats as much as is practical given the requirements for non-destruction and minimising unnecessary costs.

No way would I agree to pay for whatever work was needed, not a chance! Talk about getting yourself into trouble. Your buyer has a bullshitting builder who intends to pull your house apart in order to make work for himself, and you're willing to sign a blank cheque for any such works, AND all the legal costs and hassle involved in disputing his nonsense?

I might suggest the buyer seek more competent advice, and make it clear I had no interest in such a (crazy) proposal. It is the buyers job to survey a building nondestructively, then take it as is, end of. It is their surveyor's job to survey the floor, not some bullshit artist.

If you want to haggle thats one thing, but I'd keep the gameplay right out of it. The minute you even entertain that, it will be interpreted as admitting theres a big problem, so suddenly the buyer wants to knock 20k off, and you open yourself up for more of the same games in other areas.

Some buyers dont know what theyre doing, you cant change that. I just wouldnt play their games.

In the end, the buyer either wants to buy or doesnt. And they may not. Any entertaining of these games will only make the buyer a lot more reluctant imho.

Haggling is down to you to decide whats best.

NT

 

[Anonymous]

>>Your buyer has a bullshitting builder who intends to pull your house apart in order to make work for himself, and you're willing to sign a blank cheque for any such works, AND all the legal costs and hassle involved in disputing his nonsense?

 

[Anonymous]

Not quite sure what happened there but my point was that the sum at stake is £1000 for some joists not a blank cheque to rip the whole house apart.

The buyers may simply be canny and who can blame them but why not play them at their own game and call their bluff?

 

[Anonymous]

I talked to the buyers after the builder had been round, I asked my surveyor to explain what their surveyor had meant by 'inadequate sub-floor ventilation' and he told me that that meant there were not enough air bricks to meet current regulations, but that if he hadn't mention the floor then their building society must have been happy with it for mortgage purposes. I told them them this, had two more air bricks fitted and told them that if they were still not convinced to ask the person who did the survey. I don't think they did this. However, this suggestion of a retention has come two weeks after fitting the air bricks and the same day we returned the contract. We have had the roof fixed and the sub ventilation improved and that is all that came up in their survey.

When the solicitor phoned me on Monday to tell me about this I did say no, and for all the reasons NT gave, but of course afterwards it is easy to feel doubtful. Thank you to NT for saying exactly what I have been thinking! Having moved a number of times I know now that the very least I would have done on any property would be a homebuyer's survey and not a valuation survey. I would probably even consider having a survey done on my property to ensure no nasty surprises!

 

[Anonymous]

We have actually had a surveyor for a potential buyer turn up with a saw and expect to saw through the (polished) floorboards to inspect the joists!

We have had surveys which said that the underfloor could not be inspected as the vendor refused to allow fitted carpets and boards to be lifted. This seemed to be rather disapproved of by the surveyor.

When we laid the new floor in this house (the other was rotten and wormy as it turned out... ) we ensured that a couple of boards were screwed rather than nailed, so that in future inspection of the underfloor is made easy.

 

[Anonymous]

Isn't house buying / selling stressful !!! This I can say as have just exchanged on Friday of last week after 18 months of looking. I would say your buyers are trying it on or very nervous about commitment as said & can fully understand your feelings. (A survey upfront provided by the vendor prior to any negotiation on price certainly in my view would simplify the whole process. A side comment) Your buyers must want your house to have reached this stage so keeping that in mind, are they really going to pull out on this ??? We gave in on a lot of issues because we wanted the house we have purchased. If it does all go badly wrong you have everybodys sympathy I'm sure, not a lot of good I know but if the house you want to buy has been taken off the market since last November & purchase price was agreed back then, dare I say prices have dropped since then & so you would be paying over the odds now.

 

[Anonymous]

You think a survey by the seller would help? Would you belive it? Surely thats like asking the car salesman if the car is in good nick? if you were selling, how often would you redo it? Every 3 months? Or as a buyer, willyou be happy to rely on a report done over a year ago...

I think its a very unusual surveyor who expects to inspect the joists. This is not normal and is not required by the terms of a usual homebuyer inspection.

PS - if you really care, dont get a homebuyers survey. its a waste of money. Get a proper buiding condition survey (often inaccuratley called a "Structural" survey though it isnt). Make sure the person doing it is a RICS building surveyor (not a GP surveyor or a valuer - or even the soon-to-be-forced-upon-us "Home Inspector").

It costs more (£400 to 800 maybe) but given this is the most expensive thing you will ever buy, dont skimp where it counts.

 

[Anonymous]

Yup - grounds for getting rid of a partner I agree, an insistence on placcy windows! However, I noticed in Tow Law last week that there is one house which has had sashes newly re-fitted (although they may be uPVC ones of course!). Possibly this is a coming trend?

 

[Anonymous]

You misunderstand me - I would get a survey done on my own property before I put it on the market and use it to ensure I had any work done before hand - I find waiting for the buyer's survey the most stressful!

And having just had a full building survey done on the property we are buying (large extension, 40% flat roof, kitchen into the hillside, Grade ll listed, 250 years old stone built and in National Park), would definitely do it again.

 

[Anonymous]

I'd second the recommendation to get an independent RICS surveyor to do the job as the standard Homebuyer's Survey is as much use as a chocolate teapot unless you live in a modern house.
However, you should also insist that s/he is conversant with period buildings. We went down the RICS route with a nationally-known company for our place but stupidly went along with the first surveyor suggested. When we got the survey it was clear that the surveyor, although obviously well up on potential defects in modern, cavity-walled and DPC'd buildings, really had little clue as to how old buildings 'work', and some structural defects were missed entirely while the bulk of the report was spent on telling us the bleedin' obvious. For the £500 it cost us, we could have bought an awful lot of lime!

 

[Anonymous]

Not any old RICS surveyor - one with conservation expertise and qualifications.

 

[Anonymous]

Apologies. A fair strategy - good to know the truth in any negotition. I probably wouldn't do the work but I would want to know what really needed doing.

Evelyn - a good point! Most surveyors are genuinely interested in building technologies, and so finding one interested iny our buiding/period should be stright forward.