House sold months ago, buyers now want a

What an awful way to treat other people. I wouldn’t tolerate it even if it meant the move falling through.

This ✔️

As FTBs they probably don't realise they'll need to get a new mortgage offer and it will delay things if you were to drop the price.

And for the benefit of all those people on this thread with poor reading comprehension, I know the OP isn't going to drop the price. This kind of situation is where estate agents actually earn their money. Get your EA to contact their solicitor tomorrow morning and say the buyers need to confirm they're going ahead at the previously agreed price by 12 noon or the house goes back on the market at 12:01.

If you go forward then push hard for the exchange date.

No more of this OP

Maybe they’ve measured up for some new carpets and etc and think that essentially you’ll pay for them by knocking you down at the last minute

so entitled

The parties in Scotland can still pull out up to the exchange.

Above advice to tell them tomorrow it’s being relisted Tuesday is spot on. You never should have offered to go to the rest of the chain! They’re nothing to do with it and you’ll cause chaos. You’ll also likely push the vendors of the house you’re looking at to relist.

Some friends had this the night before signing, buyers demanded £4K off. They agreed in the end because they really didn't want to lose the house they were buying. Obviously hard to know if you're not in the exact situation but I'm of the opinion that only scoundrels would ask such a thing and I wouldn't want to sell to them.

This - or spent time on Reddit, or their Dad told them to chance their arm.

Lots of missives in Scotland are not concluded until the day of settlement so the system is not that much better now
One difference is that under the rules if a client asks a solicitor to drop the price, the solicitor has to withdraw from acting (unless offer subject to some kind of survey the terms of which are poor and
In the OPs circumstances I would give them 24 hours to confirm they will go ahead at original price failing which you will remarket

Can you stop with this rest of the chain nonsense. The answer is no, no reductions and no discussion with a chain that has nothing to do with your sale.

If they want to screw around, let them, they’ll have wasted the money.

The FTBs can buy another house if they don’t think this one is correctly priced. They could, in theory, keep paying for searches, surveys and solicitors’ fees on several houses and reduce their offer each time. Or they could pay the price they offered for this one.

Personally I’d put this house back on the market tomorrow.

put house back on market tomorrow. id even pay for social media boost via estate agent website. chancy fuckers. had this once and told estate agent to relist straight away. they backed down within an hour and best laugh was that house had actually increased in value since they had sale agreed. id have made more money relisting but not that much of a dick!

Our buyers did exactly the same. We just said no and they agreed to exchange at the original price.

They think, "What are they going to do at this late stage? Call it off?"

To which your rely should be "Yep. If this is a dealbreaker for you, so be it."

They won't.

My mum, who has bought and sold quite a few houses over the last many decades, always says that house buying and selling brings out people's true character, and it's often not pretty.

In this case, your buyers are moneygrabbing chancers. That's their true character. The question they are asking you is, are you a gullible pushover? Is that your true character?

Don't be.

But @District66that should all have been determined at the outset. Doing it at this point is immoral. If they don’t want it anymore for the price agreed then pull out and be done with it but once a price is agreed it’s a deal and you should honour the deal you made.

We got gazundered last time. Day of first exchange which was a Friday, he went AWOL for the weekend. Come Monday said his mortgage rate had gone up and needed £40k off. We knew it was bollox and he had planned it as offered full asking price to take house off market.

We negotiated with our onwards and both gave £15k so he got £30.

I was desperate to move so I don't regret it for a second.

A year later that house flooded..,..

20 years ago our purchaser, a young couple, asked for €25k off the day of exchange.

I was 8mths pregnant and saw red. Told the EAs if I did not have the contracts exchanged by 2pm that day there would be no sale to them ever. The EA attempted to talk me into negotiating and I told her she could either make it clear to the purchaser that there was no negotiating or the flat would be off the market. I don’t think I’ve ever been so furious.

they got it done but apparently I made the man’s life very difficult as he had to be pulled out of something important for some reason.

people are absolute arseholes

We has this happen to us in 2023 and it is such a lowlife scummy move on the buyers part.

Ours offered £10k less the day before exchange. Told the estate agent we should accept because we were desperate to move. Estate agent told them we were not desperate to move. They were massive dicks before this so we knew this would happen. They waited until the last minute to raise survey issues (that were the same issues as when we moved is common to all victorian houses. I amended the email but this is part if what we wrote

We priced the house fairly and competitively at £xk taking into account its condition. We don’t feel the issues raised are the kind of things that would warrant reconsideration of the asking price.

Equally, we cannot afford to drop the price due to the agreed price of our new house and our mortgage deal.

Due to the above, we won’t be able to reduce the asking price for the house. If you want to proceed it would need to be at the agreed price of £xk.
We realise you’ll need to think about this. If you could please confirm to estate agent at name of agency by close of business on date if you would like to proceed. If so, we can exchange this week and complete on date

dont budge on this they are taking the piss. Dont offer them to make it up along the chain. They can afford it they would not have been offered a mortgage otherwise. Chancers and also how creepy they found out where you are moving to.

Has the market moved just looking at the Rightmove evaluations for my house? It was worth £14,000 more. Last June
So three months my account for some Movement in the market based on most recent house price sales going through
The worst thing you can do is a first time buyer is overpay for a house so I don’t blame them if they’re having a wobble

I suppose quite a few buyers think they might as well try it on, in case you’re mug (or desperate) enough to give in.

There should be a register of people who engage in such behaviour, so there are consequences. They hopefully then will have difficulty in other large sales or purchases, such as buying and selling a car.

You would need to have a process as to how people end up on the 'awful persons' register, but hopefully it would reduce such behaviour.