Pre-bid structural engineer's report

cattybb

I've been asked to get a structural engineer's report on a property before the vendor will accept a bid. It's being sold through an estate agent but apparently at the vendor's request.
Is this usual? I thought that would happen after the bid was accepted. I don't want to spend 600 euros on a report if the vendor is then going to turn it down.
Many thanks for any advice (:

bleary

It's not usual but not unheard of. My estate agent insisted on a survey before going sale agreed with me at the end of the bidding process and before accepting my deposit. Typically you would only get a survey done once sale agreed and deposit paid.
I assume it's so you bid knowing the cost of works needed and don't try to renegotiate later. I would also suspect that there may be a serious structural issue with the property

LirW

Personally I haven't heard of that.
Do they want the report? Could it be the case of them just being too greedy to get a report themselves because they might try to hide something?
Would be my first thought.

Samuel T. Cogley

LirW wrote: »

Personally I haven't heard of that.
Do they want the report? Could it be the case of them just being too greedy to get a report themselves because they might try to hide something?
Would be my first thought.

Happened to me - it's usually where there are clear issues with the property and they don't want time wasters who bid, then realise what the costs are and pull out/try to renegotiate.

cattybb

Thanks for all of the advice! The house has serious/obvious issues, and it's been on sale for quite a while so I was also wondering if the sellers are just trying to suss out what it's worth. They have requested a report with each bid that goes in before they consider it, but I wonder if they've genuinely considered any of the bids or are just stalling for time.

Gumbo

LirW wrote: »

Personally I haven't heard of that.
Do they want the report? Could it be the case of them just being too greedy to get a report themselves because they might try to hide something?
Would be my first thought.

Nothing to do with greed at all.
It’s the buyer responsibility to get these surveys carried out, not the vendor.

Most likely what is happening is the following :

House is being sold with obvious defects.
Sellers are making sure the buyer gets house checked before bidding so that they don’t bid, then retract after report later down the line.
Buyer has covered themselves from selling a lemon as seller has carried out survey prior to bidding and thus prior to buying.

Quite common when you work close to this field.

gargargar

Samuel T. Cogley wrote: »

Happened to me - it's usually where there are clear issues with the property and they don't want time wasters who bid, then realise what the costs are and pull out/try to renegotiate.

I would agree with this. What happens in a lot of cases is that you go sale agreed, get the report done, then if there are issues, it can be used to knock a few bob of the sale agreed price.

I would imagine they want to agree a price and not to have to horse trade later.

LirW

kceire wrote: »

Nothing to do with greed at all.
It’s the buyer responsibility to get these surveys carried out, not the vendor.

Most likely what is happening is the following :

House is being sold with obvious defects.
Sellers are making sure the buyer gets house checked before bidding so that they don’t bid, then retract after report later down the line.
Buyer has covered themselves from selling a lemon as seller has carried out survey prior to bidding and thus prior to buying.

Quite common when you work close to this field.

Thanks, I genuinely didn't know that and honestly didn't think of it either.
Maybe I'm a bit of a burnt one with surveyors and properties with issues.

Victor

cattybb wrote: »

They have requested a report with each bid

You don't give them the report. Not least that there are copyright issues.

the_syco

cattybb wrote: »

Thanks for all of the advice! The house has serious/obvious issues

On the one hand, previous bidders may have pulled out after finding the issues.

cattybb wrote: »

They have requested a report with each bid

On the other hand, your bid could fail, and they'll have a free report telling them what they need to fix.