Advice needed please, offer on house, seller changed agents.

[DestinyIsAll]

Our adult dd and fiancé are FTBs, currently live with us and want to stay nearby. Rural area, quite desirable so properties come on the market quite infrequently - they’ve been looking for around a year.

A couple of months ago a house came on with a local agent, dd and df liked it. It sold almost immediately and Dd and df missed out.

It was discovered in the survey that the septic tank needed replacing and those buyers pulled out. It came back to market at the same price, DH works in building/construction, understood the work and costs, it wasn’t a deal breaker dd’s end, in fact would’ve been preferable for dd and df if buying to have input on the work, and DH could help so reducing their costs.

They offered a fair price to take as was, not an urgent job and could’ve been done in time, but sellers then decided to pull it from the market and get the work done themselves.

It’s now come back to market with work done. £10k price increase and now with a low fee online agent which about covers the cost of the work. Dd and df got in touch with an offer, that was rejected and they came back saying asking price offers only. Dd then offered asking, sellers advised they would mull over and come back to them.

They messaged back yesterday. They said they have now been contacted by the original agent, re the list of buyers they introduced, and been advised if selling to anyone on the list they will be liable for their agent fee, just over £5k, so they have now rejected dd’s offer as they won’t pay it.

We were probably naive in not anticipating this, our own house buying experience is limited and has been straight forward, obviously agent is within rights.

Dd is on holiday currently, but thinking about any possible next move. It was a push to go up to the new asking price so they don’t really want to cover this fee as well, but equally don’t want to lose it. Doesn’t help that the sellers are a little difficult to deal with.

I just wondered if anyone with more knowledge and experience has experience of this scenario and maybe some helpful advice and suggestions? Thanks

What the seller is saying about the EA is probably true. But that's their issue and not your daughter's.
Personally I'd be calling the sellers bluff and refusing to go higher than the asking price and walking away from the deal if they carry on being unreasonable.

When buying a house you always need to approach I'd with mindset that if something isn't right you'll walk away.

This property is now £15,000 MORE than they anticipated. In today's market that just daft!

That's the sellers fault and they need to suck up the additional cost. They're the ones dicking around and getting greedy, trying to save money going with a different agent.

We had similar, and the original agents (who we knew very well on a personal basis) confided that they'd been some of the most difficult clients they'd ever worked with. That sent up a huge red flag for us so we walked away.

Took them a year to sell it, and they ended up getting £75k less than we'd offered. I took great satisfaction from watching that!

I suggest that the sellers are advised to go back to the original agent and offer 50% of the fee. That is fair enough, as they spent money and time advertising the property and taking potential purchasers to the house. If you want the property, and every possible purchasers is in the same position, then you need to offer more than anyone else. It really is that simple.

If the agent made an 'effective introduction' they are entitled to their fee.

If they want the property I would work out how much the increased amount would be over the lifetime of the mortgage and see what that amounts to.

Also factor in rarity value, if properties don't come onto the market very frequently when will the next one likely appear?

They need to make their offer stand out from the other potentially interested parties - maybe their position is key, can move as quickly or slowly as vendor wants and living with family.

I would insist offer is subject to property taken off the market once offer accepted.

Best of luck.