How much should you ask off after a survey? Fair reduction calculator
Put in the price you agreed and what each job in your survey will cost. The calculator works out a reduction that’s fair to you and to the seller, using the same rules I use when a buyer asks me what to go back to the agent with. I’m Ben Murrell, a builder for nearly 30 years.
Last updated October 2026 · England, Wales and Northern Ireland
Renegotiation calculator
Filled in with a worked example: a Victorian terrace agreed at £450,000.
Costs for each job come from your Chat to Your Builder review, or from your own builders’ quotes.
Urgent: before you move in
Safety problems and anything that stops the house being lived in: unsafe electrics or gas, active leaks, structural movement that needs dealing with now.
Within the first 2 months
Defects that will get worse if left: failed flashing, blocked gutters, a bridged damp-proof course, rot. Part of this is ordinary upkeep, so most of it is counted, not all.
Later: 6 to 12 months, and upgrades
Maintenance and improvements that come with owning any house. Listed so you can budget, but left out of what you ask the seller for.
Adjust the rules
Fair reduction to ask for
£6,200
1.4% off the agreed price, rounded to the nearest £50.
- Agreed price
- £450,000
- Urgent jobs, counted in full
- £3,850
- 2-month jobs, counted at 75%
- £2,325
- Revised price to propose
- £443,800
Your floor: £3,850 The urgent jobs alone. If the seller won’t cover these, you’re paying to make the house safe to live in.
Budget after you move in: £23,463 Every job in all three bands plus 10% contingency. Keep this aside whatever the seller agrees.
Send me the survey. I’ll put a realistic cost against every finding and sort them into these three bands, so the figure you take to the agent is built on a builder’s prices, not guesses. Written review and a call within 24 hours.
Price my survey findings — £59The formula
Fair reduction = urgent jobs × 100% + 2-month jobs × 75%
Anything you knew about when you offered is left out. So are 2-month jobs under £300 and anything that can wait six months or more. The answer is rounded to the nearest £50, because an exact figure like £6,175 reads as made up, and a round one reads as considered.
The worked example, line by line
| Job | Band | Cost | Counted |
|---|---|---|---|
| Replace consumer unit and EICR remedial work | Urgent | £1,200 | £1,200 |
| Repair leaking flat roof over the rear addition | Urgent | £1,800 | £1,800 |
| Gas Safe repair to boiler flue flagged as unsafe | Urgent | £850 | £850 |
| Repoint chimney stack and renew lead flashing (scaffold included) | 2 months | £1,400 | £1,050 |
| Clear and realign gutters and downpipes | 2 months | £450 | £338 |
| Lower front path bridging the damp-proof course | 2 months | £900 | £675 |
| Cut out and splice rotten window sill, rear bedroom | 2 months | £350 | £263 |
| Ease and adjust sticking internal doors | 2 months · small job | £180 | £0 |
| Redecorate external joinery | Later · budget only | £2,200 | £0 |
| Replace dated kitchen (seen at the viewing) | Later · known at offer | £12,000 | £0 |
| Fair reduction on £450,000 (rounded) | £6,200 | ||
That’s 1.4% off: a revised price of £443,800. The buyer still needs about £23,463 for everything on the list, including the new kitchen they always planned. But the seller is only being asked for the work the agreed price didn’t allow for.
Why these rules are fair to both sides
Urgent work counts in full because the seller agreed a price for a house you could live in. A consumer unit that fails its test, a leaking roof or an unsafe flue means it isn’t, until someone pays to fix it. That’s the hardest item for an agent to argue with.
Work in the first two months counts at 75% because it’s a real defect the price didn’t reflect, but part of it is the normal upkeep any house of that age needs, and you end up with new lead and new pointing where the seller had old. Sellers and agents call this “betterment”. Allowing for it up front takes away their best argument.
Later work and upgrades don’t count. Redecorating, a new kitchen, a boiler that works but is fifteen years old: that’s owning a house. Put them in and the seller has a reason to reject the whole list.
In my experience buyers who send an itemised, costed list get between half and all of it back. Buyers who send “the survey found some problems, can we have £10,000 off?” mostly get nothing.
What sorts a job into the right band
| Band | Typical survey findings | Usual cost |
|---|---|---|
| Urgent | Electrics needing a new consumer unit or remedial work, gas appliance flagged unsafe, active roof leak, failed lintel, live woodworm or dry rot | £300–£5,000 each |
| 2 months | Chimney flashing and pointing, gutters, ground levels bridging the damp-proof course, rotten sills, cracked render | £150–£2,500 each |
| Later | Roof “nearing the end of its life”, ageing boiler that still works, single glazing, decoration, kitchen and bathroom | Budget, not ask |
A Condition Rating 3 doesn’t automatically mean urgent. A red box can be a £180 gutter or a £14,000 roof. What matters is whether it has to be done before you can live there safely, and what it costs. If the wording is the problem, the survey jargon decoder translates it, and the survey repair cost calculator gives national averages for roofs, damp and subsidence.
How to put it to the agent
- Put it in writing, to the agent, not the seller. The “Copy an email” button above gives you a version listing each job and its cost.
- Give the reason, then the number. Lead with the urgent work. It’s the part nobody can argue with.
- Offer the evidence. Say you’re happy to share the relevant pages of the survey and the costings. Don’t send the whole report unless asked.
- Say what you’ve left out. “We haven’t included anything we knew about when we offered” tells the seller you’ve been reasonable.
- Give a deadline that suits you both. A few working days. Long enough to think, short enough that it doesn’t drift towards exchange.
The full guide, with what buyers typically get and how sellers respond, is how much you can negotiate off after a RICS survey.
If the seller says no
- Ask them to do the urgent work before exchange. Get it in writing, with certificates for electrics or gas.
- Agree a retention. Part of the price is held by the solicitors until the work is done. Useful where the lender has made a retention too: see mortgage retentions.
- Meet in the middle, but not below your floor. If they won’t cover the urgent jobs, ask whether this is still the right house.
- Walk away if the survey turned up something serious and the seller won’t engage. Should I pull out after a bad survey? helps you decide.
Frequently asked questions
What is a fair price reduction after a house survey?
The full cost of urgent work needed before you can move in, plus about three-quarters of the work needed in the first couple of months. Leave out anything you could see at the viewing, small jobs and routine maintenance. For most houses that comes to between 1% and 5% of the agreed price. A reduction built this way is easy for the agent to justify to the seller, which is what gets it accepted.
How much should I ask off for a new roof after a survey?
It depends on what the survey says. If the roof is leaking now, it is urgent and the full cost belongs in your request. A re-roof on a 3-bed semi typically costs £6,500 to £10,500 with concrete tiles and scaffold. If the survey only says the roof is “nearing the end of its serviceable life”, it is still doing its job, so it is a later job you budget for. At most you would ask for part of it, because you get a new roof with decades of life in place of an old one.
Can I ask for money off for things I saw at the viewing?
No. A dated kitchen, a tired bathroom, an old boiler you were told about: your offer already allowed for them. Including them makes the whole request look like a chancer’s list and gives the seller an easy reason to turn down the items that are fair. Tick “Known at offer” in the calculator and they drop out.
Should I ask for a price reduction or for the seller to do the repairs?
A price reduction is usually better. If the seller does the work, they are paying for it and will pick the cheapest option, and you can’t check it properly before exchange. With the money off, you choose the builder and the standard. The exception is where a lender won’t release the full mortgage until a repair is done; then a repair before exchange, or a retention agreed through the solicitors, may be the practical answer.
Do I need builders’ quotes to renegotiate after a survey?
For most requests, itemised costs from a builder are enough for the agent to put to the seller. Get written quotes or a specialist report where the figure is large or structural: underpinning, a new roof, a damp problem a company wants thousands to treat, or any request over about 10% of the price.
Why does the calculator count 75% of the 2-month jobs, not all of them?
Because some of that work is the normal upkeep any house needs, and some of it leaves you with something newer than the seller had. Asking for all of it invites the seller to argue the whole list. Asking for three-quarters is still a strong number and shows you have been reasonable. You can change the percentage in the calculator if your case is stronger or weaker.
What if the seller refuses to reduce the price?
Your options are to ask them to do the urgent work before exchange, to split the difference, to agree a retention held by the solicitors until the work is done, or to walk away. The urgent-jobs figure the calculator shows is your floor: if the seller won’t cover that, you are paying full price for a house that needs work before you can live in it.
When can I renegotiate a house price after a survey?
In England, Wales and Northern Ireland your offer is not binding until contracts are exchanged, so you can renegotiate any time before then. Do it as soon as you have the survey priced, while there is time for the seller to think. In Scotland the seller provides a Home Report before you offer, so its findings should already be in your price; renegotiating only makes sense if something new comes up.
Sources
Free tools that go with this
Translate the survey, price the findings, and see what buying costs on day one.