Selling a house with survey problems

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LDN Properties is happy to offer this guide for homeowners who might be struggling to sell their houses or flats because of problems with a survey on their property, whether they have instructed the survey or a buyer has paid for it. Below you’ll find helpful advice on what to do if you receive a bad survey, along with your options for addressing problems and quickly selling your home.

1. What is a property survey?
2. Different types of surveys for houses and flats
3. Common home survey problems when selling a house
4. Your options after receiving a bad survey for your property
5. Top questions and answers about selling a house with survey problems

What is a property survey?

Whenever someone buys or sells a home, a crucial part of the process is a property survey, also known as a house survey. This is a very thorough review of a house or flat that is conducted by an independent qualified surveyor who will inspect the exterior and the interior of the home in an attempt to uncover whether it has any physical problems such as subsidence.

In addition to finding such flaws, the surveyor will also be looking to describe any significant physical changes that might have to happen to the property if it is sold, such as repairing windows, doors, or any other part of the outside or inside of the home. Buyers want to know the full scope of work they may be required to pay for when moving into a new property.

And depending on the type of survey that the buyer or seller pays to conduct, the results could include broader issues including the speed of internet service in your neighbourhood, whether there are any boundary disputes ongoing about the home, and a number of other factors.

You can also expect a survey to include very detailed information from the surveyor on many characteristics of the home, for example the material used to construct its walls.

Typically, the person making an offer to buy a house or flat will be responsible for scheduling and paying for the survey on a home. It usually takes place once the property seller has accepted whatever offer the buyer has made, but before contracts are exchanged.

The overall goal is to ensure that the buyer knows the full scale of any potential negative problems with the home that they want to own, and are not surprised by issues after moving in. Hiding information from buyers can potentially open the seller up to legal liability in the future, and that’s why getting a survey is in the best interests of everyone involved with the home sale.

Different types of surveys for houses and flats

As mentioned above, there are many different types of surveys that are available for houses or flats. Whether your home is freehold or leasehold, and regardless of its size, studio flat or penthouse, shape and type, it might be confusing to know which survey is right for your particular situation.

There are at least six varieties of home surveys, according to the HomeOwners Alliance which is an independent organisation that advocates for homeowners and their rights.

Some homes have minimal issues – at least those that are known to the seller – and a simpler and quicker survey could be sufficient, if it doesn’t uncover any previously hidden problems. Other properties might require a much more in-depth survey, for example if the home is a property that someone has inherited but does not want and knows almost nothing about.

Many surveys must be conducted by professionals who are acknowledged by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), which advocates and enforces strict standards for managing and developing construction, property, land and infrastructure. Other surveys are done by members of the Residential Property Surveyors Association (RPSA), representing professional independent home surveyors.

Most potential homebuyers or sellers will choose from the following types of surveys:

Condition report

This is the simplest type of property survey and uses a traffic light colour system to give buyers a basic idea of whether the property is suitable for sale; green represents everything appearing normal; orange represents an issue of concern; and red represents major problems that will require necessary significant repairs. As such it will outline highlights of any key risks and defects a home might have. This survey is generally a supplement to the valuation buyers get for mortgages to buy properties, and as such will not include its own valuation and also will not provide buyers with any advice.

Homebuyers survey or homebuyers report (survey only)

To obtain one of these surveys, prospective buyers will have to use an RICS qualified surveyor, and they will highlight obvious significant problems such as any signs of dry rot or subsidence. However, the surveyor will not give an in-depth inspection that would involve drilling holes, looking behind fixtures or fittings, or checking under floorboards. As such the scope of these surveys is often rather restricted.

Homebuyers survey or homebuyers report (survey and valuation)

This is exactly the same as the above survey that requires an RICS qualified professional, but with the addition of a valuation of what the surveyor believes the home is worth, as well as an insurance reinstatement price, which is the amount of money that the surveyor believes a homeowner would get if the property burned down.

Home condition survey

Buyers will need a surveyor recognised by the RPSA instead of the RICS for this type of survey, which are suitable for most types of homes. They aim to be easy for buyers and sellers to understand, avoiding complicated technical language and providing pictures and other graphics to help explain the findings of the survey. They also include useful addition for potential homeowners including an assessment of any damp issues in the property, details on the internet speed in the area, and other useful facts. These surveys are verified independently in order to check their overall quality and veracity.

Building survey

RICS surveyors must conduct these surveys, which usually cost the most out of the options listed in this guide but also have the benefit of being very detailed so that buyers and sellers alike are fully aware of all the potential problems that a home might have. To prepare such detailed reports, surveyors will look behind furniture, under floorboards, in the attic and elsewhere to provide as much information as possible. The survey will list any problems that need to be fixed, as well as provide an estimate of the amount of time and money that it will take to address the issues, and what could occur if repairs are not made. The surveys typically won’t have a home valuation or insurance reinstatement value, although you might be able to request that your surveyor includes those values.

New build snagging report

If a buyer is hoping to buy a newly constructed property, they should consider paying for a new build snagging report. This is a type of survey that will highlight any potential problems with the new house or flat in advance of the buyer moving into it. The issues can be relatively small matters such as a badly fitted door through to much more significant problems, including structural flaws that may undermine the home’s integrity. A buyer should aim to have this survey done before they exchange contracts, but the home developer might prevent this happening whilst the property is under construction. If that occurs, a buyer must get the survey done quickly after they move into the home.

Common home survey problems when selling a house

Depending on the condition of a property as well as the type of survey that the buyer or seller orders, the final report could uncover many or just a few problems. Issues highlighted by a surveyor could be relatively minor or require minimal time or money to fix, whilst others might be significant and raise questions about the structural integrity of a home.

Some common problems identified on many types of survey include:

The presence of Japanese knotweed, a plant which is an invasive species that can grow and spread very quickly. Even in small amounts it can create structural issues for houses, potentially reducing the property’s value by 10 percent or more. It should be treated by either digging it out entirely or killing it with herbicides once detected.

Subsidence is perhaps the biggest problem that can affect a house or flat that you are trying to sell, because it raises questions about the structural integrity of the home. The first signs of subsidence will be cracks in the floor or walls, and it must be resolved as soon as possible because left untreated it can cause major expensive damage.

Flat roofing is another problem that some surveys might highlight because they are less expensive than slanted roofing to install but the trade-off is the fact that such roofs will more quickly suffer negative issues and then require some replacement work.

A common problem that many property surveys will identify is the presence of damp, an issue that is particularly typical in older houses or flats. It’s possible that you might be able to easily fix a damp problem by repairing a leak or taking other low-cost and quick steps, but major damp issues will require expensive professional work to fix.

Property surveys can also identify whether there are any potential issues with the electricity and wiring in a house or flat. If such problems exist then it could require a buyer to spend a lot of money and time to fix them depending on the scale of the faults.

Asbestos can be a problem discovered on home surveys, and the options for addressing it include containment if there is not much of the material or paying for professional removal, which will be expensive for buyers if they go ahead with purchasing the home.

Your options after receiving a bad survey for your property

It’s never pleasant to get a bad survey or one that says your house or flat has a number of problems that will necessarily require many hours and lots of money to resolve. But if you find yourself in this situation, there is no need to panic that you will never be able to sell your home or that the buyer will walk away from the sale just because of a negative survey.

You have a number of potential options for how to proceed in such a situation, although your preferred approach will hinge on your individual needs for when you want to sell your home.

Negotiate with the buyer on what to do about the problems

There are some buyers who will accept the problems that your home has, and be willing to still purchase the property with the understanding that they will have to pay for the repairs for the issues once they are living in the house or flat. But in exchange they will ask you to reduce the sale price by roughly the amount that they estimate it will cost them to do the repairs.

Should you wish to purse this option, you might want to get your own independent valuation of the scope of the problem raised by the buyer’s survey, as well as the projected cost and time involved with repairing it, which can help to flag any potential discrepancies in such values.

Taking this approach can be a simple fix for a survey that identifies problems, but it’s not ideal if you cannot afford to lower your home’s sale price beyond its current value. Never spend money that you cannot afford when selling your home, because you need a strong and accurate budget for buying or renting your next property after you sell your current home. If maximising your profit from the sale is your goal, this will likely not be a feasible option for you.

Another way to negotiate with the buyer about a bad survey is to spend the time and funds that it takes to fix the problem, which could even potentially boost the final value of your home. However, this is an option that is only truly available to homeowners who have plenty of time and money to spend on fixing issues, and that’s not the reality for many property sellers.

And this might also not be a viable choice if you need to sell your house as fast as you can, and it’s simply not possible to wait however long it would take for the repairs to be completed.

Attempt to sell your house or flat using a property auction

If you have tried to sell your home through an estate agent and the sale has fallen apart because you received a bad survey, another option might be to use the services of a property auctioneer. The goal at a home auction is to have many people interested in buying your home so that they keep trying to outbid each other, which will push the final sale price quite high. But selling an auction is not certain and there is no promise that your home will actually sell.

When you sell your home at an auction, you will talk with the auctioneer about which opening minimum reserve price to set for your house or flat. This is the lowest value at which you are comfortable with your home selling, even if your ideal price is higher. The logic is that by setting a very low reserve price, more people might notice your home and want to bid on it. But you run the risk of only receiving the opening price for your property and no other bids, so you must calculate your home moving budget and be sure you can afford to sell at that lower value.

Once you know what the problems with your home are as identified by the bad survey, be sure to ask auctioneers whether they have any experience with selling such properties. Depending on the type of the problem, the auctioneer might not know how to create a listing that entices people to want to buy the home including its negative issue. If that’s the case then you could end up receiving no bids on the day of the auction and have to start the sale all over again.

Auctioneers will do the work of creating a listing for your property that includes its specifications, pictures, and likely details of whatever negative issues the survey has identified. They will advertise this listing and also take care of hosting the actual auction. Note that there can be some delays during this process; you might have to wait several weeks between the date on which you enter your home for sale and when the auction takes place. There could also be delays after a successful auction whilst the required legal paperwork for the sale is completed.

And auctioneers will also charge you for the work that they do in organising and hosting the auction, and this commission could be set at quite a significant level and reduce your overall profit from selling. However, in certain cases you can pass this cost on to the winning bidder.

Sell your home with a bad survey fast to a quick buyer

Perhaps the easiest and quickest solution for selling your house or flat with a bad survey is to get in touch with a fast property buyer such as LDN Properties. Launched in 2003, we have helped many people throughout London get fast and competitive offers for selling their freehold and leasehold houses or flats no matter their shape, size, or condition.

We are not deterred by surveys that raise major problems, and indeed we have extensive experience with considering a wide range of homes with varying negative issues. A short sample of the many situations we have seen includes homes with the presence of the invasive species Japanese knotweed, dilapidated houses, flats with cladding, properties located in possibly negative areas such as flood zones or under noisy airport flight paths, homes built from concrete or some other non-standard material used for construction, and properties with extensive dry rot or another major structural flaw.

Our friendly team of experts can provide you with a no-obligation quote for buying your home within the first hour of you getting in touch with us. And there is zero pressure to make an instant decision because we’ll give you at least seven days to consider our initial offer.

But if you do accept our tentative offer, we promise you a hassle-free and streamlined way to sell your home, aiming to complete the entire process in just a handful of weeks. And that includes all steps for buying your home, including exchanging contracts and paying the proceeds to you. It’s an incredibly speedy schedule for selling your home, and it alleviates all of the concerns about wondering how to sell your property after you receive a bad survey.

A major benefit of selling your home with a bad survey to LDN Properties no matter when your house was built is that it won’t cost you any money. As described above, fixing repairs yourself or accepting a lower offer from a buyer who plans to do the repairs might reduce your final home sale profit. And using a property auction means you’ll have to deduct their commission from your final sale price, as well as the fact that there’s no certainty about what that final price might be. But when you sell to us, we won’t charge you any fees so you get to keep the full proceeds from the sale.

Top questions and answers about selling a house with survey problems

Homeowners looking to sell their house fast often ask for further information on selling with survey problems. Here are some of the main questions we’ve been asked when selling with a problem survey: