Selling a house that needs repairs: 2026 UK guide

Yes. You don't have to fix anything first. Cash buyers, traditional auctions and the modern method of auction all take houses that need repairs, including damp, movement, Japanese knotweed, asbestos, fire damage, flood history and PRC non-standard construction. The open market is still possible, but far fewer buyers can get a mortgage once a house has no working kitchen or bathroom, active subsidence, severe damp, PRC construction with no current certificate, or an EPC of F or G. We price every house on its own, so we won't put a percentage on it before we have spoken to you. On a house that needs work the figure sits well below what it would be worth done up, and we show you how we got there.

There is no fixed percentage. Any buyer who quotes one before seeing the house is working from a formula, not from your property. A real figure starts with what the house would be worth done up, then takes off the cost of the work, the buyer's margin, and the cost of buying, holding and reselling it. A reputable buyer shows you that working instead of one bare number. What we give you is our best offer at that point, based on what you have told us, and we don't start low and work up. If the house is mortgageable and you can wait, the open market usually nets more.

You have to tell the truth about anything you know is wrong with the house. Four laws sit behind that: the Misrepresentation Act 1967, the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (fines up to £300,000 for a private individual), and the TA6 Property Information Form 6th edition, in force from 30 March 2026. NTSELAT Material Information rules also mean non-standard construction and known structural problems have to appear in the listing. Saying you don't know is fine. Saying no, when the answer is yes, can be sued over for six years under the Limitation Act 1980. Selling for cash doesn't change any of this.

Probably, if any of these apply: no working kitchen or bathroom, active subsidence with no recent monitoring, a Category 1 hazard under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System, PRC or other non-standard construction under the Housing Defects Act 1984 with no current certificate, or an EPC of F or G with no clear way to improve it. High street lenders won't lend on those. Specialist lenders sometimes will, at a higher rate. That leaves traditional auction, the modern method of auction and cash buyers. We buy in all of these categories.

Yes, you can sell it without a certificate. PRC means prefabricated reinforced concrete, used widely in council housebuilding between 1945 and 1970. The Housing Defects Act 1984 named nine types as defective: Airey, Cornish, Boot, Unity, Wates, Tarran, Orlit, Reema and Parkinson Framed. South Yorkshire has clusters at Parson Cross and S5/S35 in Sheffield, S72 Athersley in Barnsley, Wickersley and Maltby in Rotherham, and Wheatley in Doncaster. A mortgage buyer needs a current PRC certificate, which only comes after an approved repair scheme costing tens of thousands of pounds. Without one, your buyers are cash buyers, specialist lenders and investors. We buy PRC houses with or without a certificate, in any condition.

Ask yourself three things: how fast you need to be out, whether the house is worth doing up, and how you would cope if it went wrong. Doing the work first looks best on paper, but refurb budgets usually overrun and hidden faults turn up once the walls are open. Selling as it is through an agent normally nets the most, if the house is mortgageable and you can wait six months or so. Auction is quicker, through Mark Jenkinson, Auction House South Yorkshire or Bond Wolfe, but the fees are real and lots don't always sell. A direct cash sale completes in 7 to 28 days with no fees. Cash wins where speed or certainty matter more than the last few thousand pounds.

We can complete in as little as 7 working days on a freehold with a clean title. Most cash sales on houses that need repairs complete in 7 to 28 days. Some things add about a week each: a leasehold management pack, a Mining Remediation Authority CON29M search showing active or shallow workings, a restriction or notice on the title, a Japanese knotweed treatment plan, insurer correspondence about past flooding, or a structural engineer's letter on a PRC house. We run searches side by side where we can. The same house sold through an agent usually takes six months or more.

Indirectly, yes. The Renters' Rights Act 2025 got Royal Assent on 27 October 2025, and the tenancy rules started on 1 May 2026. It brings the Decent Homes Standard and Awaab's Law into private renting, scraps Section 21, and sets a four-month notice period and a 12-month protected period on Ground 1A. With an EPC C minimum for rented homes also proposed for 2030, fewer landlords are now buying tired houses at auction. For you that means auction reserves are tighter and a direct cash sale compares better than it used to.

Yes, all three. The TA6 Property Information Form (6th edition, in force 30 March 2026) asks directly about subsidence claims, insurance that was refused or loaded, underpinning, mining damage, Japanese knotweed (Q7.8), flooding and contaminated land. The Mining Remediation Authority CON29M search is standard across DN1-DN12, S20, S26, S35 and S60-S75. Hidden subsidence or mining damage is the most common reason buyers sue after completion, and the fines under the 2024 Act reach £300,000 for a private individual. Tell people up front, in writing, and hand over any monitoring reports and insurer letters. We buy houses with subsidence, mining damage and knotweed. We price the risk, we don't refuse it.

Yes. We buy fire and flood damaged houses, including ones still going through an insurance claim. Smoke and soot damage is one thing and a burnt-out roof is another, so we price what is actually there. The same goes for flooding, from a clean-up and replaster to a full ground-floor strip-out. The South Yorkshire flood corridors we know well are Catcliffe, Bentley, Toll Bar, Fishlake and the lower Don, hit by the 2007 and 2019 floods, Storm Babet in 2023 and Storm Henk in 2024. We will buy whether the claim is settled, still running or being argued over. We just need to know where it stands and to see any letters from the loss adjuster.

Run six checks before you sign anything, including any instruction form, option agreement or exclusivity letter. First, look the company up on Companies House and check it is Active, with a real registered office, named directors and filed accounts. Second, ask for dated proof of funds on a named business account, a bank statement and not a screenshot. Third, check TPO and NAPB membership on their own directories. Fourth, read reviews that name real faults, real survey outcomes and real completion dates. Fifth, check the footer for a company number, registered office and written complaints procedure. Sixth, use your own solicitor, never the buyer's nominated firm. And be wary of an offer close to what the house would fetch fully done up. The sums don't work, and it usually gets cut at survey.

Nine to fourteen months is the realistic worst case on a house that needs repairs. The pattern is familiar: a couple of months on the market, three or four more from offer to attempted exchange, then the survey kills it. Around half of poor-condition sales fall through at that stage, usually because the lender holds money back or the valuer says the house is worth less. You re-list at a lower price, wait for a second buyer, and start again. All the while you are still paying mortgage interest, council tax with the empty-home premium, insurance and utilities on a house nobody lives in. The most expensive part of the open market on a house like this is the time you can't get back.

• Selling a fire or flood damaged house
• Selling a house in poor condition: the deeper options-comparison sister guide
• Selling a house with Japanese knotweed
• Selling at auction: UK 2026 guide
• Cash buyer vs estate agent: net-after-costs comparison
• All the fast-sale routes compared
• Sell house fast Sheffield
• Sell house fast Doncaster
• Sell house fast Rotherham
• Sell house fast Barnsley
• Sell house fast Wakefield
• How the SYPB process works
• PRC defective housing in Sheffield: the Airey, Cornish, Boot story
• Coal Authority mining search 2026: CON29M explained

This page is a general guide and not legal, tax or surveying advice. Every property is different. Before making decisions on a repair-property sale, take advice from a RICS-registered surveyor, an SRA-regulated conveyancer, the Property Care Association for damp and timber, and the free services at Citizens Advice and MoneyHelper.

Yes, damp doesn't stop a sale, it changes who will buy. Mortgage lenders get nervous about damp, so buyers often drop out or ask for money off after the survey. Cash buyers and investors expect it and price it in. We buy damp houses across South Yorkshire and we don't ask you to treat anything first. It helps if you tell us where the damp is and roughly how long it has been there.

No, you can leave whatever you want to leave. We buy houses with furniture, carpets, boxes, garden waste and full lofts still in them, and we sort the clearance ourselves after completion. Take out anything that matters to you, photos, paperwork, keepsakes, and leave the rest. You can clear it yourself if you would rather, but on most houses it adds little to the offer. Where a house is very full, clearance costs are real and we price them in.

Dropping the price is one option, but find out why the survey killed it first. If the surveyor flagged damp, movement or a failed roof, the next mortgage buyer will very likely hit the same wall, so you can lose months repeating the same fall through. Getting the report and sharing it up front helps. If you can't face another round of that, a cash sale takes the lender out of it.

No, you don't need to fix anything or get gas or electrical certificates to sell to us. Old wiring, a dead boiler and no hot water will stop most mortgage buyers, because lenders want a house someone can live in, but they don't stop a cash purchase. Tell us what doesn't work and we price it in. If you already have old service records or reports, send them, it saves time later on.

Tell us everything, it protects you far more than it costs you. A problem we find out about later is the thing that changes a price or collapses a sale, and when you sell to anyone you have to answer the legal property forms honestly. Faults we know about on day one are already inside the offer. Sellers who hold something back often end up renegotiating weeks later from a weaker position.

Our written offer stands for 14 days, based on what you have told us and what we see. It is our best offer at that point, not an opening number we plan to work up from, and we don't use a survey as an excuse to chip away at the price. The honest exception is a genuine surprise, something like a title problem or serious structural damage nobody knew about, which can change the figure. That is why full information up front matters. If a price has to change, we explain why in writing.

Nothing to get an offer, and no estate agent fees or repair bills if you sell to us. We can cover your legal fees if you use our panel solicitor. You are free to use your own solicitor instead, and plenty of people do, in which case you pay their bill. There is no charge for us coming to look at the house and no charge if you decide against selling.

No, empty houses are a normal part of what we buy. Empty property does get worse quickly, damp, burst pipes, break-ins, and most councils charge an extra council tax premium once a home has stood empty a long time. Insurance can also lapse on an unoccupied house. Selling it as it stands stops the cost building up. We don't need it cleaned, secured or made habitable first.

No, and please don't go to any trouble. We look at houses in every condition, including hoarded homes, fire damaged homes and places nobody has lived in for years. Nothing you show us will be a shock and we aren't there to judge you. Seeing the worst of it actually helps, because we can give you a straight figure instead of a guess we have to revise later.

No, but a failed roof is one of the faults most likely to scare off a mortgage buyer, so it changes your realistic options rather than your ability to sell. Roof jobs also tend to grow once the scaffolding goes up and someone gets a proper look. If you have quotes already, share them, it keeps us both working from the same numbers. We buy houses with failed roofs and water coming in.