Selling house advice the buyer trying it on with quotes for roof repairs

Selling my house and the buyer wants me to contribute to £7500 roof repairs. Fair enough. 😀

They have no inspection reports and just a quote with no letter head on an email anyone can type up. 😯

I have had 2 individual companies inspect the house this week; stating the roof is in excellent condition?! replace 10 tiles for more air flow £1000 and £900 to prevent future dampness in winter. 😀

The estate agent is a bit naff and seems to not want to get involved when I asked where is the buyer’s inspection report? I would like to know what is broken etc. 😕

Now the buyer is offering to get an inspection. This just sounds dodgy to me as they have randomly got a quote to see if I would lower the price further as I have knocked it down for them by £6K. 😕

Should I just say I’m not selling to them and rent the house out? (no mortgage but would have been nice to sell) and wait for the price recovery in a few years?

Tell them where to go.

tell them you’ll give another £1k off take it or leave it?

depends how much you want to sell/sell to them, really, any other interest?

Sounds like they are trying it on. Why not, its a buyers market 🙂

Either call their bluff, offer to meet part way or bend over and take it.

Tell them to get bent.

It’s up to you what you ask, and up to them what they offer. You don’t have to agree. But how badly do you want to sell?

Sounds like a try on to me

I was buying a house and the roof needed repairing – the battens had rotted and it was a full strip and replace then replace tiles. We both got proper quotes and worked out a reduction on the purchase price based on the quotes.

Most surveys only include looking at a roof from ground level – which is almost no use. Why not let them pay for an inspection you can both agree on?

@Tootall – I was told by two seperate companies that my “roof, tiles, lead fastenings and timbers are in excellent conditon”. I only need vented tiles to prevent dampness in future.

I’m sticking to their original offer which I didn’t want to accept but have to admit I’ve had some crazy offers too- I’m not desperate as I work away in another city and wouldn’t mind moving back in 2 years.

I now know they didn’t have any inspection at all so they tried it on. I’m getting a 3rd quote today.

Just rang a different estate agent to survey the home for renting it out.

Stop wasting your time and money, if they want the house they will buy it, I assume they knew the price when they viewed?

id start upping your price by 1k every time they try and do something like this

id start upping your price by 1k every time they try and do something like this

😆

id start upping your price by 1k every time they try and do something like this

I did that. And very nearly had recourse to report the buyer’s lawyers for unilaterally acting on that info and not telling their clients.

In the end, Mrs North made me back down. Red mist, y’see.

@midlifecrashes, I put the house on for sale with an asking price -lowered it “15K than any competition and I had an offer from them £5K less my asking price.

@kimbers+ourmaninthenorth I wouldn’t do that lol

Just have to wait for the final inspection and see what they say.

Dig your heels in unless you need to make this sale happen.

Yes it’s a buyers market but you’ve already knocked your sale price down by 15k plus they’ve offered 5k under that.

So they’ve getting a house for 20k less than comparative properties. That’s enough. Tell them to pay what you’ve already agreed or you are going back to the market.

Unless you’ve recently made a big change, then if it hasn’t been damp in winter before, it won’t be in the future, so what exactly is the work quoted for meant to achieve?

@midlifecrashes, my quotes have been zero, they have been for only improvements as they can’t find any problems except more ventilation may be needed to prevent damp.

The buyer just supplied a quote to replace the whole roof without any proof to why.

yossarian is spot on how I feel.

I guess its a learning curve 🙂

Tell them to get bent and rent the place out.

To be fair Frankenstein, the buyer is probably concerned about the cost of sorting out all that lightening conductor paraphernalia on your roof

😆

Live, live…LIVE!

Will see what happens but like Zulu stated I can always rent it out.

Good learning curve.

Will see what happens but can always rent it out.
Good learning curve.

It is a good curve. A lot of people think you have to suck the buyer’s cock. Not so. If they are the kind of people to try this on with you then they are likely to do it again, probably right at the last moment when you are committed to the sale.
If they really like your house they’ll buy it for what’s been agreed. If they don’t want to proceed then you are better off knowing now rather than later.

We sold a property recently that was pretty much all finished the only thing left to was paint the steel roof. Structurally the roof was completely fine, a roofer checked it before quoting to paint it. We had loads of interest in the sale but one party was adamant the whole roof needed replaced so was saying they would offer what they thought was fair less 10k. Then they started on all manner of tiny things and also stuff that they would have liked to be a certain way but would change. Long story short, what they offered was 100k less than the highest offer, they were very upset apparently that other people would offer more and doorstepped me to demand a reason why we sold it to someone else !! It was truly bizarre, like a stalker or something.

I ended up asking the buyer’s roofer to see what he thought:

“I’ve never seen your house, they came in with a picture and told me they owned the house and wanted a quote to replace the whole roof”.

I told my estate agent; who said “he’d get back to me…”

I’ve told him either answer Y/N by Monday at the price we agreed and I want it back on the market and will rent out within 3 weeks if I have no luck.

Will see what happens Monday although it would be nice to sell, I assume I will be a landlord soon.

It’s quite simple, isn’t it. Forget the roof.

“Hi, we’d like to buy your house, but we want to pay £7,500 less.”

“No.”

No arguments, no quotes, no fuss, no ‘refusal to sell to them’ or ‘telling them to get bent’. They want you to give them several grand for free, say no.

😀 true Cougar, but I didn’t mind coming to an agreement if it was genuine but now know they buyer is wasting my time and doesn’t want to buy my house after sitting around for nearly 3 weeks.

They have till end of Monday before I ring up the rental company.

Sorry to hear about your cat 🙁

Cat? Oh, yeah. Boxing day trip to the vet’s for him and then A&E for me, that.

Cheers.

Update:

The buyer has had a roof inspection done and behold nothing is wrong. 🙂

Now they want £4000 off as the boiler looks a bit old. Although there is no survey report still. 🙄

The estate agent has had it checked behind my back today and asked if I wanted to pay for the gas certificate to help rent it out/sell. 🙂

The house will be re-marketed for sale or rent whichever comes first at the right price. 😀

The estate agent apologised for what happened and told the buyer and their Mother to stop messing me around with things not wrong with the house. 😈

Hopefully this thread may help others selling their property not to cave in or panic as there are some dodo’s around. 😆

New boiler = £800. Send them some information on maths classes and a B&Q catalogue to help them out.

But you withheld the most important bit of info. Anyone who goes shopping for a new house with their Mum in tow is never going to be a serious prospect.

Well done for standing firm. Bet you end up selling for decent price to someone cool.

Mum is the word! I told them I’m not moving the original offer and behold a boiler quote…lol

I think the buyer has out stretched her mortgage far too much and keeps blaming her Mother for all the fake problems.

Thanks for all the advice too. 🙂

Surely time to start winding them up now? Put the price up by five grand. Just for the look on their faces really.

Although it would be funny, I think it’s best to let my heels do the talking.

RUN AWAY!

They are going to give you endless problems if you sell to them. No doubt they will drop the offered amount at the last minute in the hope that you have secured your next house and need to sell to move. I’m all for tough negotiation but it’s got to be done in a proper way, not just taking the piss as these people seem to be.

agree to a 5 k reduction and ask them what boiler they want and to get some quotes for you. How long do you think you can string them out 😉
I have a death threat from one sale and had to go to the police 😳

More details needed on that one Junkyard!

As an RGI i’ll happily supply you with a note saying your central heating is cosy as could be..

If you can be bothered rent it out and wait for the recovery to happen might be a few years but right now your going to be 20k down. But if you rent out for a couple of years its say 400 quid a month of certain money then sell for 20 grand more than you are going to do now. you dont have to worry about crap tenants either as most young people cant get a mortgage so you can be choosy. Well thats what i ve done anyway

Death threats? hope you reported them to the Plod Junkyard!

Seems to be the case pottsathome. I’ve just had the tenancy contracts arrive to look over. If I can a get a good lodger for 2 years that would be awesome.

spot on with the math pts.. dont sell now unless you really have too in the mean time keep stringing them along tell em you’ ll knock this off and that off and get it redecorated etc they’ ll get all excited all for you to whip it out from under thier feet

“There’s nothing wrong with the boiler, and every time you make up something stupid in future the price is going up a grand. Now, do you want the effing thing or not?”

I should’ve been in Sales, me.