Owning your own home

Walk away. That £48k of work could easily turn into £70k

I'd say be prepared to walk away. If its not you it will be someone else having those conversations with the seller.

The application of regulations for high rise buildings has been on the whole, good but there has been almost no scrutiny of medium rise buildings and this is where the scandal will truly get going.

Good point. I think awareness of inherent risk is more intuitive in high rise. And possibly - with no facts at all to back this up - quality of construction and workmanship is also on the whole better because the developers and contractors are bigger and have better processes in place.

In short - no.

There was a small amount of localised damp on 2nd floor in the hall, which we could see, and were made aware of by the EA, but didn't look bad.
We were also told it might need rewiring.

The place was immaculate and it was not obvious, nor was it discussed, that there might be significant other work needing doing. We were obviously budgeting for a bit of other stuff though, given the size and age of the house. But not this scale of stuff.

Interestingly,when the builder went round he said that the seller told him she was aware that the gable render might need doing, and had made plans to do it, but had opted to move.

We kind of took this as a sign that she knew how much that might cost and that the price would need to drop.

Also when we received the homebuyer report and it had flagged all these things, but before the quote came in, I spoke to the EA who said the seller was very keen to proceed with us and there would be scope for negotiation on price.

All this led us to believe a significantly lower offer might be acceptable, or at least a starting point for a decent negotiation. Seems not...

Maybe they felt the place was worth more in the end, but because they stopped the bidding war they feel like they've done you a favour in return for an easy sale which they now don't have. Bit naive if that's the case - what you've found goes beyond stuff that can be expected with old houses.

And presumably they aren't in a hurry to sell if they think they can put it back on the market.

Maybe that's a bluff. I'd call it.

they felt the place was worth more in the end, but because they stopped the bidding war they feel like they've done you a favour

That would be my guess. Offering £5k drop seems like a risky move if you were genuinely open to more negotiation. Although it sets your parameters high, when the other side asked for over 6x that you'd think it would risk the other side walking away as much as it would a counter offer.

@T4NY4 - if you want it, I'd probably pick up the phone to the EA and say something like;
"look we're looking at at least £30k to fixed what's fucked and realistically we're going to be in for a min of £50k all in, probably more. We went in with a genuine discount number rather than giving a high as they seemed like the sort of folk who wouldn't go in for back-and-forth negotiation - that's why we said £32k not £50k. You're an intelligent attractive person with loads of knowledge and you know the next buyer is going to do the same thing as us, and so will the one after which means it's going to take 6m to sell. "

That is pretty much what I've just done, without the intelligent, attractive bit :)
I've left it with the EA that we'll have a think overnight, and meanwhile she will try to convince the vendor that they're being overly optimistic/rash/stupid/a tw@t.
We even sent them the survey so they could see how genuinely fucked it is but the vendor has said she doesn't want to see it.

Tell the EA the seller will be wasting the next potential offeror's (?) time as well with their unwillingness to compromise. If the house needs substantial repairs, no one will pay full asking price, or be happy with a mere £5K off.

so basically what Hugo said lol..

Buying a house is already one of the most stressful things you can do in your life. Add in dealing with a dickhead vendor and then finding the funds to sort the place out to make it safe and habitable would make me take a hard pass on that sale thanks.

Finding the funds is the tricky bit. It'll all need to come as cash because you can't pay for any of that stuff on finance or credit cards.

That's been my experience. YMMV

Yep, likely the mortgage lender wouldn't want to lend as-is and would probably apply a hefty retention.

The fact they have dropped the price at all is a good start - it means you’re actually having a negotiation. Moving away from the agreed price at all is the hard bit. You just need to decide what your walk away price really is.

The annoying thing is that she seemed very reasonable when we made the offer, in that it was specifically stated that she didn't want a bidding war as she'd got over asking price and was happy just to have the best-fit people get it.

The level of self-sabotaging i-don't-know-what head in sand bullshit and dickheadedness going on now makes me want to tell her to go fuck herself.

But I want the house.

This.
Parental units are making noises about stumping up a bit of cash to help, but it still doesn't get away from the fact that the amount of money we may need to sink into this just didn't stack up unless we get the offer down significantly.

That's tonight's job, washed down with some alcohol.

This is where it gets really tricky. Old houses need work. There's always something to fix. It's not totally unreasonable for her to think 'that shit was priced in'.

Or maybe it is. This stuff is hard.

As above, that she's dropped the price at all is a good start. Make the EA earn his fee and negotiate further. And get on Rightmove and start looking for other houses as you might need to find another one!

Yeah it's difficult. I don't want to come out the dickhead in this. We'll negotiate up a bit, maybe even more than a bit, but the fact remains there's close to £40k of work required that we weren't really expecting, just to get it back to where we sort of thought it already was, and the house isn't and may never be worth £295k (Northern Ireland prices, yo)...

in summary, buying, selling, and indeed owning a house is pish

sympathies, T4NY4

Amen

in summary, buying, selling, and indeed owning a house is pish

Yeah it's fucking awful.

Not moving again for twenty years after this one.

The application of regulations for high rise buildings has been on the whole, good but there has been almost no scrutiny of medium rise buildings and this is where the scandal will truly get going.

Yes. Also lenders are flocking towards risk-aversion and pushing EWS1 wider and wider - and since it's (currently) a lender-controlled thing there's nothing to stop them asking for it and declining to lend without it. There are going to be some very tough times on the housing market because until something gets lenders in a position where medium rise is seen as low risk again, there's little incentive for them to enable the market. And the same goes for everyone else: no reason for an EWS1 assessor to do anything perceived as "taking a chance", no reason for a lender, no reason for an insurer, surveyor etc etc.

Actual conversation today.

Me: We need to replace the roof and the pitch of the extension straddles the party wall. The concrete is loose and needs replacing. We're happy to pay for it if you agree to the works.

Them: I'll need to talk to the party wall surveyor about this and see if he thinks this should be formally agreed.

Me in my head: OF COURSE HE'S GONNA FUCKING THINK IT SHOULD, BECAUSE HE'LL GET PAID AGAIN. FUCK YOU AND YOUR FUCKING WALL.

when I get on room 101, neighbours are going in as pick 1. my other picks are drivers and side salad (don’t @ me, I hate side salad)

I am SO glad we do not have to go through the rigmarole of getting party wall agreements in scotland - our neighbours on one side would have been an absolute nightmare on this...