What Should You Do After a Bad House Survey in Northamptonshire?

After your offer has been accepted, many buyers opt to undertake a homebuyer’s survey. Surveys are a great way to feel reassured about the property’s condition and what maintenance may be needed in the future.

Major issues with the property should already be reported in the property listing, so surveys don’t typically create much cause for concern. However, sometimes sellers aren’t aware of a property’s issues until a full homebuyer’s survey is carried out, leaving you with an unexpectedly bad report.

If you have received a bad survey on a house in Northamptonshire, here’s an overview of the next steps you can take.

1. Discuss it with Your Surveyor

Survey reports are known to frighten potential buyers. Sometimes, they can highlight every risk and potential issue that exists or could exist in the future for your new home.

Before making any quick decisions, talk through the results in detail with your surveyor. Get an idea about things like how common the issues are and what the severity is. Surveyors can often provide lots of insight into the situation to reassure you or give you a better idea of how to go about fixing the issues that exist.

2. Research Costs & Fixes

If the issues are severe, do your research about how costly they are to fix. Understand other key elements, too, like how long it’ll take to fix. If you can, arrange for at least two tradespeople to inspect the property and provide a quote.

Many times, issues in survey reports aren’t major concerns that require immediate action – particularly if the seller didn’t know about the issues to begin with. However, if the issues are severe and need fixing as soon as possible, you’ll want to know how much it’ll cost you to fix the problem and what time commitments it will require.

3. Speak to Your Estate Agent

Once you have a better idea of the severity of the issues and how much it will cost to fix, speak to your estate agent. After getting a bad survey report, you can renegotiate the price for a property if fixing the issues mean it’s no longer affordable.

Tell your estate agent about the new information and consider providing a revised offer or proposing that the vendors carry out the work themselves. If you propose the latter, make sure you notify your solicitor as this will form part of the home-buying contract.

Remember, the seller doesn’t have to accept your new offer just because there are issues in the survey report. To build a strong case for acceptance, provide information about the cost and inconvenience of fixing the issues and make sure your new offer is reasonable.

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