Engineers report advice

Gomango

Received engineers report on property i had offer accepted on, there were a few issues, a lot are small and i can fix myself.
The issues below would like advice whether to go back to vendor and ask them to sort it out or renegotiate price:

Felt roof covering over rear extension needs to be replaced. (estimate from engineer 1.5-2k to fix.)

Inadequate ventilation- vent openings required in all rooms (some vents fully/partially blocked.

Active leaks at copper cylinder in hotpress. (2-300 new).

Foul and rainwater discharging to same drain at back of the property


Thanks

Cheezeweasel

Gomango,

Tough question which really depends on how secure your 'sale agreed' is and how eager the vendor is. If you feel that you did well in the bidding process I would be tempted to take the hit on this. If your vendor feels that they could do better they may "take offence" and use this as an excuse to go back to the market.

On the other hand if you were the only bidder or have exceeded the market expectation it may be no harm to submit a request that 1,500 is knocked off the price for repair of the felt roof over the rear extension. I would ask for this to be knocked off the price as opposed to repaired as it may be a larger psychological barrier for the vendor to spend 'their own money' on the repair.

I would not bother with the leaks in the cylinder as 200-300 is very minor in the scale of all things. You should submit the engineers report as proof if you are making this request also it will be no harm for the vendor to see the other issues with the house which you are taking on yourself.

notharrypotter

Foul and rainwater discharging to same drain at back of the property

Talk to the engineer about this one.

They are supposed to be in separate drains.
Maybe the house is exempt, but they would be best placed to advise.
2010 regulations.

No part of a drainage system conveying foul wastewater shall be connected to a sewer reserved for surface water and no part of a drainage system conveying surface water shall be connected to a sewer reserved for foul wastewater

The_Conductor

I'd be inclined to agree with Cheezeweasel on this one- none of the issues you've detailed would be deal breakers in my mind- and I'd also be inclined to take the hit and use it as a 'to-do' list for the property.

There is nothing there of major concern.

An Engineers report is always going to come back with a 'to-do' list- its a fact of life really- if you're not really interested in the property- you can tell the seller that you want the items fixed- its a virtual certainty that they will tell you to take a hike.

Todd Toddington III

The vendor isn't obliged to do any repairs, buyer beware and all that. Just completing the purchase of our place and had similiar issues with a never serviced boiler

sozbox

Has anyone had success with getting a vendor to accept a slightly lower offer based off of issues found in the engineers report?

Alkers

Yes, used the engineers report to initiate bargaining

sozbox

Did it get you a reduced sale price?

Alkers

Yes, the initial response (through the estate agent) was that we were mad and that they would go to the underbidder. We said fire away, they came back with a reduction but not what we asked for but we held our ground. Estate agent sounded really disappointed and said it would surely go on the market again but the next day called back and said they've accepted. We ended up pulling out of the sale for another reason.

sozbox

I'm in a similar position so may try hard balling em. About 8k worth of repairs required to the attic/roof.

budhabob

We bought a house last year requiring a lot of work, flat roof, rewire, heating system, Windows and doors etc. We bought, and bid accordingly. Of course you can try and negotiate, it just bid based on the condition.

Alkers

sozbox wrote: »

I'm in a similar position so may try hard balling em. About 8k worth of repairs required to the attic/roof.

What I did was wrote the seller a letter (via the estate agent), which detailed the issues that the survey had unearthed which weren't apparent during the viewing. Then I had gotten ballpark estimates to carry out the necessary work and asked to reduce the sale agreed price by that much. The items which were obvious and apparent during the viewings, I didn't include them in the negotiation.

sozbox

That seems like a fair approach. I got the engineers report after I went sale agreed so I couldn't negotiate based on condition until that point.

Things not apparant to me in the viewing, for example wood worm, damp chimney, only came to light after the engineer visited.

horse7

notharrypotter wrote: »

Talk to the engineer about this one.

They are supposed to be in separate drains.
Maybe the house is exempt, but they would be best placed to advise.
2010 regulations.[/quo. How can you prove it's pre 2010 and exempt?

Alkers

Which is normal, you can now honestly say that the property is devalued in comparison to what you had observed during the viewings.

notharrypotter

horse7 wrote: »

notharrypotter wrote: »

Talk to the engineer about this one.

They are supposed to be in separate drains.
Maybe the house is exempt, but they would be best placed to advise.
2010 regulations.[/quo. How can you prove it's pre 2010 and exempt?

I am not an Engineer so regarding being exempt from the regulations I would advise speaking to a qualified professional.

Here is a quote from the 1997 part H

No part of a drainage system conveying foul water shall be connected to a
sewer reserved for surface water and no part of a drainage system conveying
surface water shall be connected to a sewer reserved for foul water.

and

In general, Building Regulations apply to the construction
of new buildings and to extensions and material
alterations to buildings. In addition, certain parts of the
Regulations apply to existing buildings where a material
change of use takes place. Otherwise, Building
Regulations do not apply to buildings constructed prior to
1 June, 1992.

Gomango

Thanks a million for the replies on this. Will keep you up to date on how i get on.

godtabh

its common enough to have foul/surface water discharging into a combined sewer. Ideally they should be separated but in many cases the infrastructure isnt there.