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Throughout the UK, it’s believed there are more than a quarter of a million properties that have spray foam insulation. But scandals with rogue installers and problems with the foam used in some cases could make it harder to sell this type of home. This guide walks you through the issues and also outlines steps to take that may result in you still receiving a fast and fair offer.
- What is spray foam insulation?
- Drawbacks of using spray insulation at your home
- How spray foam insulation can affect a mortgage
- Concerns about spray insulation scams
- Removing spray insulation before selling your property
- Your options for selling a home with spray foam insulation
- Top queries and answers about spray foam insulation
What is spray foam insulation?
Spray insulation is a special type of foam that is used to provide insulation in freehold or leasehold homes and can be used for lofts, floors, walls and roofs.
A professional is needed to install the foam, which is a sometimes expensive alternative to traditional methods of providing insulation at a property. The foam is available in two options, known as closed cell and open cell, and this method of insulation has been in use for about 30 years, as Which? explains.
There are a handful of benefits associated with spray foam insulation, which is applied by spraying the foam into a specific area, where the liquid foam eventually sets into hard insulation.
One of the advantages of using spray foam is that it’s easier to apply in parts of a house or flat that might otherwise be difficult to reach for installing conventional insulation. That could make spray insulation a good option if you’re dealing with certain types of properties.
Another potential benefit of applying spray insulation is that it might provide additional noise reduction compared to some other methods of insulating your flat or house.
But as you’ll see in this guide, there are several known problems associated with spray insulation that could either make buyers view your home as less valuable than the current asking price, or even prevent them from being able to get a mortgage needed to purchase the property.
Drawbacks of using spray insulation at your home
Unfortunately, there are some proven negative issues associated with spray foam insulation that help to explain why the foam can be seen by many people as being a cause for concern.
One of the major disadvantages of using spray foam is that, when it’s not installed correctly, it can potentially cause significant damage to the roof of a property and even make it unstable, which will lead to you having to spend a significant amount of money to fix the issue. That’s because hot air in the home cannot vent outside properly, which leads to condensation building up between the foam and the timber of a roof, which may eventually lead to it rotting.
A related problem is that it can be very easy for moisture to get trapped in the same space between the roof timbers and the foam insulation, again resulting in potential rotting.
As the BBC reports, if spray insulation collapses then it can cause significant damage to a property, and require much more money to repair. One person featured in the BBC’s coverage said that when the foam fell apart it affected everything in the property, including pieces of the spray insulation landing in their water tank.
And badly installed spray insulation by unqualified companies will also make it even harder for potential buyers to convince a mortgage lender to give them a loan to cover the cost of purchasing your property. As you’ll see in the next section of this guide, spray insulation itself can be enough to make a mortgage almost impossible to get, and so that will make it impossible for people interested in your home to buy the property, if they need a loan to afford it.
How spray foam insulation can affect a mortgage
Some potential buyers that may have an interest in making an offer on your home, even with spray foam insulation, could nevertheless find it impossible to do so, if they would need a mortgage to pay for the purchase. That’s because many home loan providers are wary of such properties.
When someone applies for a mortgage, they commit to paying back the loan through monthly instalments, with the purchased property being the collateral. If the buyer defaults on these payments, the lender can then move to repossess the house or flat and then try to resell the property, using the sale process to recoup the outstanding amount on the mortgage.
But these lenders could view properties that have spray foam insulation as much harder to sell, because of the concerns outlined in the previous section of this guide about the downsides involved with the foam used. As the publication Mortgage Strategy notes, the problems associated with spray insulation can be sufficient grounds for a large number of mortgage companies to refuse to issue loans for buying this type of home.
Concerns about spray insulation scams
One problem that has been increasing across the UK in recent years is a scam where rogue spray foam insulation companies, who do not provide quality work, are charging homeowners excessive amounts for spray insulation that is unnecessary, inadequate and falls apart.
Some scammers are targeting elderly residents and telling them they need to installation ventilation systems that cost thousands of pounds, or that they need additional spray foam installed even if their property is already insulated with the foam, as the website Warm & Well explains.
Sales representatives from these fraudulent companies will approach these homeowners, claiming to be more like surveyors who have identified structural problems with the house or flat based on spray insulation. They will try to pressure uninformed homeowners into agreeing to quickly having work done on their properties, for example by warning them that the current condition of the insulation may be illegal and cause greater problems for the owners.
These rogue companies will then do their unneeded and poor quality installation work within a few days, so that the homeowners lack the time necessary to reconsider agreeing to it.
Unfortunately, these scammers then pressure the owners to pay them swiftly after the bad work is done. And there’s not much recourse available to the victims in these cases, because pursuing legal action against the companies can be costly and very time-consuming.
Removing spray insulation before selling your property
Because of the negative issues associated with spray foam insulation, some buyers may view your home as a problem property if it contains this foam, which may make it harder to sell.
One solution you could consider is investing time and money in removing the spray insulation. By some estimates, the average cost of this work can be around £5,000, which is a large amount of money to spend, particularly if one of your main priorities with selling your leasehold or freehold property is keeping your expenses as low as you possibly can.
The benefit of doing the removal work is that it will eliminate the issue of spray insulation from your property. If the presence of the foam has been acting as a dealbreaker for many buyers, this then prevents it from being an issue any further for people looking to purchase a home.
Taking the spray insulation out of your property also helps to avoid the problem of mortgage providers not being willing to issue a loan for someone to purchase your house or flat. That could be crucial if you’re trying to sell your property to a prospective buyer that would have to rely on successfully getting a loan to cover the cost of buying your home.
However, there are many homeowners who will not have the funds or time available to commit to the work of removing spray insulation and replacing it with something else.
If that applies to your situation then you don’t need to be concerned that your home will never sell, because there are still options available for getting a fast and fair offer. As the next section of this guide will explain, one of these methods is selling to a quick home buyer that has experience with making competitive and speedy offers for homes with spray insulation.
Your options for selling a home with spray foam insulation
Perhaps the most important decision you can make when trying to sell your house or flat with spray foam insulation is choosing which method to use for seeking a potential buyer.
Generally, you can opt among selling to a quick home buyer, selling at an auction, selling with an estate agent or selling without any help. There are advantages linked with some of the choices, for example quick buyers not charging any fees and being able to complete the purchase of a property within a handful of weeks. But some other methods have notable drawbacks, such as the commission that estate agents and auctioneers will charge.
You can narrow down your options by first writing down your main goals with selling, including your preferred property sale price, how long you are prepared to wait for finding a buyer, and whether you can accept paying any fees as part of the selling process. Then compare these priorities against the specifics of the options below to find the best match for your needs.
Selling to a quick home buyer
Quick home buyers are companies like LDN Properties, launched more than 15 years ago, that make fast and fair offers to purchase almost any freehold or leasehold home regardless of its age, condition, location, shape or type – including properties with spray foam insulation.
They’re called quick buyers because of their financial ability to immediately purchase almost any property, as they don’t have to wait for many weeks or even longer to get approval for a mortgage to cover the cost of the transaction. This reduces the typical timeline when selling to a quick home buyer to just a few short weeks, and that includes exchanging contracts and paying the seller the proceeds. This makes them by far usually the speediest option available for selling a property.
Another great benefit of selling to a legitimate quick buyer is that they will not charge you any commission for purchasing your property, which will help with reducing your expenses. But you will have to pay fees if you instead sell your home via an auctioneer or estate agent, and this commission will be subtracted straight away from the final property sale proceeds.
And because these companies are known for making offers on just about any type of home, they will not be discouraged by the presence of spray insulation at your flat or house. You’ll still be able to get a good offer price from a quick buyer regardless of how much foam exists.
Properties with foam insulation are just one of the many types of homes that LDN Properties has bought or considered buying throughout the UK, which also includes – but is not limited to – vandalised properties, houses with septic tanks, eco homes, houses with survey problems, properties with restrictive covenants, flats located close to industrial estates, homes with elevated amounts of asbestos, properties that are half-finished, flats with regulated tenancies, houses located close to mobile phone masts, mundic homes, investment properties, houses with bad roofs, flats located under noisy airport flight paths, and many other varied examples and situations.
Selling at an auction
Instead of using a quick buyer, you could consider using an auction to sell your home. Here, you’ll choose a reserve price – the lowest price at which you agree your property with spray insulation can sell – and then people will bid on the home. Your goal is to have several people placing bids of ever-increasing value on your property so that you make a good profit.
To achieve this outcome it is vital that you select a reserve price that is calculated to generate a profit from the sale, even after you have subtracted the auctioneer’s commission. This is usually charged as a percentage of a home’s final sale price, but can be higher or lower.
The auctioneer will charge the commission for their work in creating and advertising a listing for your property, which will features photographs of the interior and exterior and describe its main elements, such as how many bedrooms and bathrooms it has. The auctioneer will also be responsible for hosting the sale itself, where they will hear bids from the attendees.
This is not a speedy way to sell a home, because there is a lot of waiting involved, including several weeks or months between when you decide to sell your home and when the auction happens. If the property does sell, the winning high bidder then generally has about 28 days to sign all of their required papers and complete their other steps to finalise the purchase.
You might be able to negotiate either a lower rate of commission or a shorter deadline for the buyer to act, so ask individual auctioneers about whether this is possible.
It’s also worth asking each auctioneer whether they have a good track record of selling properties with spray insulation. An auctioneer that lacks this kind of experience may find it hard to build up much interest from buyers in your house or flat, and if nobody places a bid that’s at the reserve price at least, the home is unsold and you’ll have to keep looking for a buyer.
Selling with an estate agent
Yet another way to sell your home is doing so through an estate agent, who will also do much of the work involved with trying to find a buyer for your property with spray insulation.
Estate agents will handle the development of a listing and then market this in their office, online and in local newspapers, as well as organising viewings for potential buyers to see the inside and outside of your home in person. They will also hear offers from serious buyers, with the goal of taking one of these offers through to completion and the exchange of contracts.
For putting in all of this effort, the typical estate agent will charge you commission based on whatever price you get for your property. This fee will increase your total selling costs because it will be deducted right away from the sale proceeds. If you are trying to keep expenses low when selling you may want to consider another option.
Also note that some estate agents may not be experts at selling properties that have spray insulation, and therefore they could find it difficult to know how to market your home to potential buyers. You should ask individual estate agents about their past success with selling a home that has spray insulation, and avoid using those companies that don’t have this experience.
It’s also important to know that when you sell this way, a potential buyer could withdraw their offer and not face any penalties right up until just before contracts are exchanged. If that happens, it could set back the selling process by many more months or even longer, because you’ll effectively have to begin again with trying to find a buyer for your property.
Selling without any help
Another way that you could think about selling your home with spray insulation is doing so without any assistance, which means you’ll do all of the tasks involved with finding a buyer.
This includes creating and advertising a listing, organising viewings and then giving people tours of the interior and exterior of your property, and fielding offers from serious buyers. This is a major commitment and it will take up a significant amount of your time, so don’t plan on doing this if you are planning to just approach selling your home casually in your spare time.
It’s only suggested as a method of selling for those homeowners who have direct experience with successfully selling properties in the past, or who might have a suitably skilled family member or friend who might be willing to help them with the sale for free. Otherwise, you risk creating a lot of stress for yourself compared to the three other methods of selling.
You can also expect to be waiting some time to find a buyer when selling this way, and it’s not unheard of for homes to remain on the market for over a year when sold without any help. For those owners looking for a faster way to sell, you should consider other choices.
Selling without any assistance does have the benefit of meaning you will not have to pay an estate agent or auctioneer any commission, which should help to lower your expenses. But this possible saving could be eliminated by the money you’ll have to spend on advertising your property’s listing and the other work involved with the handling the sale on your own.
As a viable alternative, you may want to consider selling your home to a quick buyer such as LDN Properties. The honest quick buyers will never make owners pay any fees when selling their houses or flats, which helps them to keep their costs low. And you get the further benefit of quick buyers being able to complete the purchase of a home within weeks rather than months, so you’ll not only get a zero-commission sale but also hopefully a very fast one too.
Top queries and answers about selling house with spray foam insulation
Homeowners considering selling their house quickly can have a few questions for us, ranging from the level of repairs needed before selling through to selling in bad condition. Here are some of the top questions we’re asked about selling a house with spray foam insulation:
Your top questions when selling a house with spray foam insulation
Spray insulation is an alternative to conventional insulation at freehold or leasehold properties and is applied as a foam that then sets into hard insulation. It has been in use for about three decades and can be used at many different types of properties. Typically, spray insulation must be applied by a professional and it can be used on roofs, walls, floors and lofts.
Yes, there a few advantages that you can get with spray foam compared to other types of insulation. One major benefit is that the foam is easy to target in almost any area, which makes spray insulation a good option if you’re trying to add insulation to an area that is hard to reach. In some situations, spray foam may also provide better noise reduction than other insulation.
There are unfortunately several drawbacks associated with spray insulation, including the fact that poorly installed foam can trap condensation which can eventually lead to the rotting of roof timbers, creating structural integrity problems for a property. If the foam is of poor quality or has been badly installed it can also collapse, with the risk of it falling into a home’s water tank.
Many home loan providers are wary of their ability to resell properties with spray insulation, in the event that someone purchases your home and then defaults on the loan, and the lender then moves to sell the property again. For this reason, you should consider approaching buyers that will not need to obtain a mortgage, including quick buyers like LDN Properties.
You can certainly consider removing spray foam insulation from your home before selling, in order to eliminate this is a potential drawback for buyers. But beware that the cost of this work can be thousands of pounds and it might also take a very long time, so neither of those outcomes will be good if you’re trying to sell your home fast and without extra expenses.
Your best choice is likely selling to a quick home buyer such as LDN Properties, because they have the ability to complete the purchase of a property within just a few short weeks. If you instead decide to sell on your own, sell via an auction or sell using an estate agent, these are all methods that can take at least many months before you’re able to exchange contracts.
If you decide to sell your home through an estate agent or at a property auction then you will have to pay them commission that will increase your expenses, because the fees would be deducted right away from the eventual sale proceeds. But if you sell your house or flat to a zero-fee quick buyer like LDN Properties, or sell without any assistance, you’ll pay no commission.
