Selling a house

[HoGi]

I think I know I’m fighting a losing battle with selling my house but wonder if anyone has any advice.

I’m selling my end of terraced house which I’ve had 9 years to move in with my partner. The house went mad, I had 20 viewings and 9 offers within a week of it going on the market and sold for £20k over the asking price.

Bank valuation required a structural engineers report as it said there was structural issues. The buyer and I both went halves and bought the report, thinking it would just clear up an over cautious bank lender. My house is old but had no structural issues when I bought it and genuinely no problems when I lived there.

Structural report lazily says the house does have signs of minor movement due to “book ending” but cannot confirm it’s non-progressive and therefore cannot confirm suitable for a mortgage. There is no guidance for any remedial work or recommendations to fix, as they say it’s basically impossible to say whether or not the movement is non progressive.

Given this is the highest level of survey at a cost of £980, I’m at a loss as to what more I can do. I accept the house clearly has an issue which I didn’t know about and I’m prepared to try and fix but it feels like they are deeming it is a lost cause and totally un-mortgageable.

Are my only options a cash buyer? I’m trying to push back on the survey to say it’s inadequate given that they advertise it as having remedial action and costs as part of it, but the survey is in the buyers name so it is up to her to instruct and she will (probably and understandably) walk away from the house.

Feeling very disheartened that my little house which I’ve poured so much into is now deemed worthless!

I don’t have any advice I'm afraid, but I had similar with my mum's house when we sold it in 2021.

The further annoyance with ours was that the house was deemed fine but the detached garage had the signs of movement.

We also paid halves on the report and had no recommendations for fixes. And ultimately the buyer pulled out.

We did sell but it was a cash buyer so no surveys etc.

So no advice, but a hand hold and I hope it all works out for you.

 

[rubyred66]

Thank you Oh dear… nope I’m not having people that hard to get hold of I’m dreading the doing the whole process again, it took 5 and a half months last time and there was no chain!
Brilliant advice, thank you



Great idea, thank you! Yeah, I’m defo not having that! The process is slow enough without having to chase estate agents, I found last time, they were after us!

I lived in, almost commutable distance to London, so years ago when we last sold. I put a post up on Facebook of all places and a private buyer approached us, zero fees.

Previous to that, following a divorce, I picked 3 local agents and simply choose the cheapest. Depending on the area, it will sell. New builds are tricky to sell so my husband tells me and he worked on sites.