??? Buying house, negotiating due to home inspection??

[krystalleigh1]

Ok, so we've got a contract to purchase a house. We just got the home inspection back yesterday and there are some minor things that we'll probablly just fix ourselves, but then there are a few bigger things that we'd like to negotiate with the current owners about.

The main one is the deck off of the front of the house. I'm not sure how old it is but it has pretty bad dry rot. The posts supporting it are not all supporting it or even anchored to the concrete. The railings are about 12 inches apart so a big hazard for kids to fall through. It's a tall deck-off of the second story of the house, right over the garage. We'd like to ask them to bring down the asking price of the house in order for us to replace the deck ourselves after moving in.

Does that seem reasonable? That's all we're asking them to do since it's such a safety hazard. We do feel like we got a good price on the house but feel that part of the appeal of that price is having a deck, kwim? Now that we know the deck is a big safety hazard (that will HAVE to be replaced) we feel they should lower their price a bit.

What do you think? How willing are home owners to fix things that the buyers request?

 

[tlbwriter]

That sounds perfectly reasonable to me, unless they already included the condition of the deck in their asking price. The one thing people will recommend that I would NOT do is to ask them to fix the deck themselves. I'm sure they'll do it as badly as it was done the first time!

 

[bellebuzzandpooh]

That shouldn't be a problem for them at all. Your contract can suggest something like either they fix the deck or reduce the asking price by $3000 (or whatever the cost is.)

It happens all the time in buying and selling homes. Chances are they are just happy to have buyers and will make the required changes to complete the sale!

Good luck!

 

[ajk912]

I imagine this varies by state, but here in VA the inspector will write on the report what is a major defect on the house. Major defect is the actual word. On ours, there were a few windows that needed replacing due to condensation inside the pane. They had to give us money back to replace those. Anything else we asked for wasn't a given that we get money back. BUT, you can always ask for something..but I believe they can say no and you are still bound to the contract unless there is a major defect. I am not sure if a rotting deck would be considered a major defect, your realtor should know, though!

 

[Kies99]

It never hurts to ask. All they can say is no.

 

[jjteach]

I think this would really be determined by your local market. How quickly are houses selling in this area? How long has the house been on the market? How good of a deal is the price already?

When we bought our house last year, the seller had to replace a heater and move the door opening for the closet that it was in so it was into a hallway rather than a closet. Like your deck situation the heater was a safety issue. The seller got it taken care of... although I'm sure they didn't expect to have to do it.... but that's what inspections are for.

 

[krystalleigh1]

One contingency of our purchase agreement is us oking the home inspection.

Here's what the inspection says:

Repair: The wood deck has not been well cared for, the wood is starting to dry rot, and in some areas is rotten. For example, on thop of the S/W corner the wood is rotten, near the same corner the rail is loose because the railing support post is starting to rot the deck should be evaluated and reapired, timber by timber.

Repair: Support posts on the driveway should be anchored to the concrete.

Safety issue: railing specs on the deck are too far apart and could allow a child to fall through them.


We actually went over to look at the deck last night and it was in worse shape than the home inspection even implies. Looking at it from the under side it's evident that it will need to be replaced. Lots of dry rot.

 

[ceecee]

Decks are not cheap. I would ask for an allowance, not for them to fix it. Our city inspects decks while they are being build and has regulations about how far apart the rungs can be and whether it needs concrete supports, etc. If your city does this as well, they probably didn't meet inspection and would have to have it replaced. If the city doesn't inspect and they fix it, it may not be done right a second time.

 

[HelenePA]

Yep you can negotiate with that... We found termites (not active but in order for us to get our insurance they had to be treated anyway) and had the home owners pay for the pest control people to come in and we also had to have some type of pipe put on the furnace. They paid for that as well.

 

[Bren's Mom]

I would get a licensed contractor and make an appointment through your realtor to get him out there and give you an estimate for repairing the damaged areas and bringing the deck up to code. Use that estimate as a negotiating tool, keeping in mind that they may get their own contractor out for an estimate. You can either ask to change the sales price or ask for a credit at closing. If you ask to change the sales price then you will need to have the cash on hand to do the repairs if it's really something that is needed, your mortgage will be less by that amount, though. If you ask for a credit, they'll give you 'cash' in that amount at closing, your purchase price will stay the same as will the mortgage amount. Hope that makes sense.

And I would only go one of those 2 routes, I would not allow them to do the repairs.

 

[krystalleigh1]

I like the idea about asking for credit. It is something that will have to be fixed pretty quickly, so we need to get that done asap. And I agree about not letting them fix it. We want it done well . . .

 

[laurafergie]

I'm not an expert here but.... I would think that some mortgage loans would REQUIRE this to be fixed before closing.

I do know when we sold our home - the buyer had an FHA mortgage and we had to even paint some peeling paint on the eaves on the back of the house before the mortgage company would close.

 

[HelenePA]

I'm not an expert here but.... I would think that some mortgage loans would REQUIRE this to be fixed before closing.

I do know when we sold our home - the buyer had an FHA mortgage and we had to even paint some peeling paint on the eaves on the back of the house before the mortgage company would close.

we had an fha loan dh was out here painting eaves of "our" porch in 15* weather in feb so we could get our loan

 

[krystalleigh1]

We won't be getting a FHA loan so that's not really a worry, but should I contact my mortgage company and ok the inspection with them?

 

[HelenePA]

We won't be getting a FHA loan so that's not really a worry, but should I contact my mortgage company and ok the inspection with them?

you might want to find out about your home insurance. One that we checked into wanted us to replace the fence before we even bought it... we didn't go with them

 

[msmayor]

Remember that the sellers can also counter that all they're willing to do is tear the deck down.

They can argue that as far as the railings being too far apart, you knew that when you looked at the house and made the offer.

When we sold our townhouse years ago, the buyers had a home inspection done. They included on their list of things they wanted us to do:

1) Replace worn vinyl flooring in kitchen, or provide $500 allowance. We refused outright, saying they examined the floor and knew its existing condition when they made their offer.

2) Replace carpeting on stairs or provide $800 allowance. Again, we refused for the same reason as #1.

3) $50 allowance for a chip in the enamel of the bathtub. I spent $5 on an enamel repair kit and fixed it myself.

If the deck is truly a safety hazard, then the town may require it to be fixed or removed in order to re-issue a Certificate of Occupancy before title changes...but I wouldn't hold out hope that the sellers would be willing to get a brand new deck built, or even allow the full cost of a completely rebuilt deck.

 

[krystalleigh1]

We're getting some estimates from local contractors to see what the cost would be to replace the deck. We debated about this a lot last night. Weren't sure if we should just ask for them to tear it down, or ask them to give us credit or what. While we did know that the railings were too far apart (very obvious) we figured that would be an easy fix for us to do ourselves, however the deck is in lots worse shape than we expected. To us, part of the value of the house is in that deck. To take down the deck we think also brings down the value of the house. So to ask them to give us credit to replace it, in our opinion, brings the value of the house back to the price we agreed on. KWIM?

Also, if they would agree to give us credit to replace the deck that's all we'd ask them to do. There are lots of small things in the home inspection and if we wanted to be really picky we'd ask for that too, but we can repair most of the things ourselves fairly easily and inexpensively. So the deck is what we want credit for. If they do that, it will be all we ask of them. Seem fair?

We'll have a better idea of how much credit we want after we get some estimates, I'm thinking it'll be around $2000 though.