Surveyor found minor problems - Do we ask for money off asking price?

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The surveyors report on a house we're about to sign for has shown that some guttering needs fixing and there's some damp from a shower that hasn't been sealed properly. They're only minor problems but I'm wondering do we just buy the house as seen at the agreed price, or would it be a bit cheeky to ask for some money off the price to pay for the repairs. The sellers got €20K more than the asking price thanks to a bidding war so they've made enough out of it. We'd only be asking for 1-2K off the price.
Anyone any opinions on this?
 
Our sellers got €15k more out of us due to bidding war but we negotiated back to asking price on the basis of work to be done. That was 50% of what we had to spend.
 
Absolutely request money off to do the repairs, I've been in the same situation before and got a couple of grand off.
 
Hmm. I would think that such things are fairly routine when buying a second-hand house - there are *always* things like that on a survey - and unless money is desperately tight, I wouldn't drop the offer.

But that's just me, and I evidently have too much money to play with.

Couple of things to consider, though:

(1) Had you topped out on what you were prepared to offer on the house at your purchase price? If not, does the top price you'd set, less the projected cost of repairs, exceed the price you agreed on? That's how I'd establish whether to drop the offer.

(2) Are you prepared to walk away - really, truly walk away?

(3) What's supply like in the area? Are there many houses on the market, was your agreed one on for long?

A sale that gets nasty, even if you get the house at the reduced price, might not be worth it - you might lose the extra money on the fixtures / fittings / white goods that they decide aren't included, the cleaning / paint patching / minor repairs they don't do, the vitriol in the next-door-neighbour's ear ...

I think it's a rather different situation when there are major works that wouldn't be immediately obvious, or the price of which you can't be aware of prior to survey - but where it's a second hand house which is otherwise, presumably, in good condition, I think that's just part of the maintenance you should expect.

Whatever you decide, good luck with it! And I hope you'll be happy there.
 
You could also ask that this work be completed by the vendor, and it could be included as a special condition in the contracts.

We asked our vendor to give us funds towards repair works that have to be done to the floors, but he came back and offered to repair them which I accepted as we really wanted the house and it was included under special conditions in our contracts.
 
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