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For several decades in the 20th century, many homes in the English county of Staffordshire were built with red ash, a concrete floor filler. This material has been known to cause structural problems at properties, which can make selling a home with red ash more complicated. The guide below offers advice on how to still get a quick and fair offer selling this type of house.
- What does it mean to have red ash at your property when selling?
- The risks that red ash can create for a home’s structural integrity
- Can buyers obtain a mortgage for a house with red ash?
- Why some people might be wary about buying a home with red ash
- Removing red ash before selling your property
- Four methods to sell your house with red ash
- Top questions and answers about selling a property with red ash
What does it mean to have red ash at your property when selling?
There are several different types of material that can be, or have been, used to build residential freehold or leasehold properties in the UK, and this includes what’s known as red ash.
Red ash is a byproduct created from the burning of coal at power plants to produce electricity, and it’s so-called because it has a red colour. Red ash is resistant to fires and also very low cost to produce, which led some developers to start using it as filler in concrete flooring when building homes after the Second World War when cheap fillers were in high demand.
The use of red ash was primarily in properties located in the West Midlands county of Staffordshire in England because of the material’s availability there. It was used as a concrete floor filler from roughly 1945 until about 1970, as Castle Property Services notes on its website.
As you’ll see in the next section of this guide, builders stopped using red ash once its risks became clear, and that includes damage to the property as well as health risks for residents. And these issues might make it more difficult to secure a buyer for this type of home.
Whatever your reason for selling your home with red ash – and that can be anything from going through a divorce to emigrating and more – it can be helpful to understand the various concerns that buyers might have about your property. This guide will walk you through the potential hurdles to clear with selling a home that has red ash, and suggest ways that you could still get a fast and fair offer.
The risks that red ash can create for a home’s structural integrity
Although red ash was initially popular as a concrete flooring filler material when building properties, problems associated with it soon became apparent. These issues explain why the use of red ash in construction started to slow down and eventually stop after the 1970s.
The primary problem that red ash can create for properties is what’s known as a sulphate attack, where there’s the potential for moisture to cause the sulphate in the filler material to react and start to migrate into the home’s concrete, as Peak EPC’s website notes. This can cause problems that range from minor cracks and bulges in the floor to widespread damage to a home’s structural integrity.
Even just visual evidence of red ash damage can be enough to dissuade interest from buyers, even if it doesn’t pose a direct structural threat to the house. And wider-scale harm as a result of the red ash is more likely to pose a barrier to successfully finding a buyer for your home.
In addition to potential structural damage to your property from the red ash, it can also create environmental and health risks for people living in the home. That’s because red ash, being a byproduct of burning coal, can contain arsenic, lead, mercury and other heavy metals that can pollute the air and water in a property, creating the danger of suffering health harms.
Whether you are selling a freehold or leasehold property with red ash, being aware of the risks associated with the material is an important step. Understanding the complications about the use of red ash can help you with knowing why your house could be struggling to sell.
Can buyers obtain a mortgage for a house with red ash?
Buyers that might be interested in your property but who would need a mortgage in order to afford purchasing it could find that they’re unable to secure such a loan, as the website Sunny Avenue explains. That’s because lenders will be dubious about the value of a home that has red ash.
When someone takes out a loan to buy a house, they commit to repaying the lender on a monthly basis. If they default on the mortgage, the home loan provider can eventually move to repossess the property and sell it, aiming to recoup the outstanding debt from the sale proceeds. But lenders might see a property with red ash as a risky investment because of the various structural problems and other negative issues with this type of home. They could worry that they’ll be unable to sell the property at a decent price if they ultimately need to.
If a buyer cannot afford to purchase your property without getting a mortgage, the sale will therefore not happen – but you still have other methods for attracting buyers.
For example, you could contact LDN Properties or another reputable quick home buying company, because they can usually finalise the process of purchasing almost any type of leasehold or freehold house, flat or other type of property within a handful of weeks. And this quick timeline includes paying the seller the full proceeds and exchanging contracts.
Why some people might be wary about buying a home with red ash
When you’re attempting to sell your freehold or leasehold house with red ash, you might find that certain buyers are wary about making an offer on the home because that material is present.
As described in the previous section of this guide, one of the leading concerns that prospective buyers could have is about their ability to get a mortgage for purchasing the property.
Even if they are able to get a mortgage, people could still lose interest in making an offer on your home due to worries about the possibility of future defects occurring due to the red ash. This uncertainty, and the potential costs that could be involved should the red ash cause structural problems at a later date, might be a dealbreaker for certain buyers.
Buyers are likely to be even more dubious about making an offer to purchase a property with red ash where structural integrity problems are already occurring, particularly if you decide to sell the home in its current condition without fixing the damage first. That’s because this group of buyers will worry that they’ll face significant expenses in addressing the issue as the next owner of the home, so they’ll either lower their offer dramatically or lose interest altogether.
Removing red ash before selling your property
One possible step that you could consider before attempting to sell your freehold or leasehold house with red ash is spending money and time on removing the material entirely.
Businesses such as the Red Ash Removal Company specialise in removing the filler from properties, but this can be a very expensive and lengthy process. It requires digging up the floors of a house in order to remove the red ash and then replacing it with materials that meet current UK construction standards.
Depending on the size of your property, such a project might span several months and could cost tens of thousands of pounds. Neither of these outcomes are welcome for homeowners who are looking to cut their expenses when selling and also find a buyer on a speedy timeline.
And if the red ash has already caused large-scale structural problems at your house, you could face even more costs if you decide to repair that damage in addition to removing the red ash.
But rest assured that if you don’t have the desire, funds or time available to remove red ash from your home before selling it, you could still be able to sell it fast and for a fair price.
One viable solution would be getting in touch with a quick home buying company like LDN Properties, launched in 2003, because they make competitive and swift offers to buy all categories of houses, including those with red ash, and complete the purchase in a few weeks. And they’ll give you a good price for your home even sold "as is" with the red ash in place.
Four methods to sell a house with red ash
Once you have made the decision to sell your leasehold or freehold house with red ash, the next step is to choose a method for finding a buyer for the property. You can typically select from selling at a property auction, selling through an estate agent, selling to a quick home buyer such as LDN Properties or selling without any third party assistance.
There are specific pros and cons linked to each of the approaches, for example you might have to wait several months when trying your luck with a property auction. By contrast, selling to a quick property buying company should only take a handful of weeks, and you’ll also get the added bonus of not having to pay any commission out of the eventual sale proceeds.
If you’re uncertain about which buying option is the right for your home with red ash, it can be useful to start by writing down your main goals with selling – such as how long you are willing to wait to sell, whether you will accept paying any fees to sell, and your ideal selling price. Then you can compare these factors against the specific details of the four methods below, and this should assist you in identifying which method best pairs with your unique wants and needs.
Selling at a property auction
Property auctions can be a gamble, because you don’t know if anyone will even place a bid on your home with red ash. If not, then your house will not sell and you will then have to start again with trying to find a buyer, which can add significantly more time to the selling process.
Alternatively, you might only get a single bid at the reserve price – the lowest price at which you are willing to sell your house. Beware that a bid at this price is deemed a binding legal agreement to sell the property, and the buyer could sue to enforce it if you try to walk away from the sale. That’s why you must choose a reserve price which should generate a profit from the sale, even after you have subtracted the commission that the auctioneer will charge.
You can expect to pay about 2.5 percent of your property’s final sale price in commission, and this will be subtracted immediately from the proceeds. It’s possible that certain auctioneers could be willing to negotiate a lower fee, so it’s worth asking about this outcome.
Auctioneers charge commission for the work that they do in selling properties, which starts with preparing and advertising a listing that describes the home and includes photographs of the interior and exterior, followed by hosting the auction and overseeing a successful sale.
Selling via an auction is sometimes not a quick process, as there is plenty of waiting involved. You will have to wait many weeks or longer after you list your home for sale and before the auction takes place. And then if the property manages to sell at the auction, the winning bidder will usually have roughly a month to complete the sale by signing the necessary legal papers.
Selling through an estate agent
You will not need to put in much effort to sell your home with red ash if you use an estate agent, because they will take on the responsibility for preparing a listing for the home, advertising it, organising viewings where they take potential buyers on tours of the property, and then hearing offers from interested buyers – hopefully taking one of them to exchange of contracts.
For doing this work, the typical estate agent will charge a homeowner commission within a range of 1.15 percent to 1.40 percent of their property’s final sale price. This fee will increase your total costs because it will be subtracted from the sale proceeds right away.
Selling through an estate agent can also be a fairly slow process, and you should be prepared to wait more than a year in some cases to sell a home this way. Remember also that a buyer could make an offer through an estate agent but then rescind it and not face any penalties, so long as contracts have not yet been exchanged. This would require you to restart the process of trying to find a buyer for your home with red ash, extending the timeline even further.
Note also that some estate agents might never have successfully sold a property with red ash, and if so, this implies that they may struggle to know how to get buyers interested in your home. You should always ask individual estate agents whether they have managed to sell a house like yours previously, and avoid selling with any estate agent that does not have this experience.
Selling to a quick home buyer
Another option for selling your property with red ash is getting in touch with a quick home buyer like LDN Properties. These companies typically have the funds available upfront to immediately purchase all types of homes, without the need to obtain a mortgage – a process that for some buyers is not guaranteed and can also take many weeks or even months to complete.
Quick buyers are therefore able to typically complete the purchase of most homes within a few short weeks, and this includes paying you the proceeds and the exchange of contracts. It makes them by far usually the speediest option available for selling any type of property.
And quick buyers are also well known for making competitive and swift offers to buy properties regardless of their age, condition, location, shape, size or type – even with issues like red ash.
As well as houses with red ash, LDN Properties has made offers on and purchased a wide range of leasehold and freehold homes throughout the UK since launching more than 15 years ago, including flats with cladding, homes with problem neighbours, rural or country properties, flood-damaged houses, flats that have short leases remaining, properties located on a noisy road, dilapidated homes in need of repair, houses with an unregistered title, flats with damp problems and many other examples.
Another important advantage of selling your property to a quick buyer is that they won’t make you pay any commission when purchasing the home, which helps to keep your expenses low. Compare that to using an estate agent or property auction, where you will need to pay them commission that will be taken out of the sale proceeds right away if they sell your home.
Selling without any third party assistance
Finally, you could consider selling your house with red ash on your own, meaning you would not use an estate agent or auctioneer to find a buyer for the property. But this can be a very slow option and you should be prepared to wait more than an entire year to sell your home.
It can also be a highly stressful way to sell a property, because you will be required to handle all of the tasks needed to find a buyer, starting with creating and advertising a listing for your house, then organising viewings and then hearing serious offers from some buyers.
Because of the large amount of work involved, selling without any assistance is only suggested for those people who have successfully managed to sell homes with red ash in the past, or who might have a suitably experienced family member or friend willing to help them for free.
The only clear benefit of selling this way is that you won’t need to pay any commission to an auctioneer or estate agent when you find a buyer for your property. But this cost saving could be eliminated by the funds you’ll need to spend on the various steps of selling your home.
Instead, you should think about selling your home to a quick buyer like LDN Properties, because they make fair and rapid offers to purchase almost any type of freehold or leasehold flat, house or other type of property – and they commit to never charging sellers any commission. But they have the added bonus of being able to usually finalise the purchase of a home within just a handful of weeks, so you’d not only get a zero-fee sale but also a much faster sale this way.
Top queries and answers about selling a house with red ash
Homeowners thinking of selling fast may have some questions for us, ranging from the undertaking repairs before selling through to selling a home in a bad condition. Here are some of the questions we’re asked about selling a property with red ash:
Your top questions when selling a house with red ash
From the 1940s until the 1970s, many freehold or leasehold properties throughout the UK were built using red ash, which is a byproduct that is generate when coal is burned at power plants in order to produce electricity. Red ash was cheap and quick to produce, and this led to its popularity over several decades to use as filler in concrete floor construction for homes.
The main negative issue that can happen at a freehold or leasehold home with red ash is a sulphate attack, which happens when moisture can react with the filler material and cause structural problems with the floors in a home, ranging from small cracks to significant damage. The heavy metals in the red ash also have the potential to contaminate air and water.
Possibly, but they could face significant challenges in doing so because many home loan lenders will consider a property with red ash to be too risky of an investment, in the event that the provider needs to sell the home in the future should the buyer default on the loan. If the home is already showing damage from red ash it will make getting a mortgage much harder.
The structural damage that red ash can sometimes cause to a freehold or leasehold property is the primary reason why buyers might not want to purchase your home. Either they will see the existing damage at the house and consider it too widespread and expensive to fix, or at homes without visible harm they could worry that the red ash will cause problems in the future.
Before you attempt to sell your house with red ash, you could assess whether you want to remove the material first. This would require potentially many months and a lot of funds and the red ash would be replaced with material that meets current building standards. But you can still get a good offer for your home as is with red ash without having to take on this work.
If you decide to sell your property using the services of an auctioneer or an estate agent then you will be required to pay them commission, which will be deducted from the final sale proceeds right away. But if you opt for selling your home without any third party assistance or you sell to a zero-commission like LDN Properties then you won’t have to pay any fees.
Selling any leasehold or freehold home to a quick property buyer is the most rapid approach, as it should take just a few short weeks – and that covers the time it takes to pay homeowners the sale proceeds and also exchange contracts. The other methods of selling, which are using an estate agent, an auctioneer or selling on your own, can all take many months.
