To be so cross at the vendor!?!

[cookielove]

So last year dh and i were given the opportunity to buy (we've been renting for years) we had just discovered i was pregnant and wanted our own place to raise our child. So by December we had found our new place and our third bid was accepted, the estate agents and had several times they were not needing the asking price, and we managed to settle 7 grand under the asking price which was pushing us to the limit.

We unfortunately lost the baby at 8 weeks, but carried on with the process of buying as we still wanted our own place we had also told the landlord of our current flat about the pregnancy and were able to negotiate cutting our contract down so we could get out before the baby was born.

Roll on several months, and we are informed by our Solicitors that our contracts are being sent out in the post and we will be exchanging soon, great news as we have to be out of the flat by the end of this month. My husband who is away at the moment gets an email last night from our estate agents saying that the vendor is pulling out as she wants the full asking price!!!!!!

I cannot believe it, who actually does that to people!

She has pulled her own offer, and has decided to find something else to meet her criteria and to do that she needs more money and unless we meet the asking price she is putting back on the market. We have said no for several reasons, we can't afford it, we don't think it is worth that much, we think it will effect our resale options, she is making a huge profit on it already as we knew she bought it much cheaper, i don't even know why i am bringing it up probably just cause i am so frigging mad!!

And to top it off, i'm pregnant again and suffering from loads of anxiety due to previous miscarriage and a mumps case at work causing me to worry about early miscarriage! Oh and of course where are we going to live in months time!

Praying to anyone out there, that the landlord will extend our contract, i really don't want mess her around!!

Sorry that was long, feels good to write it all down!

Oh and the contracts came this morning!!

[FrancesNiadova]

YANBU.
Well, you are a cash buyer with no chain; THE best buying position to be in.
Look at houses a little more expensive than you can afford that have been on the market for a while. Then, make them a cash, no chain offer they can't refuse.
Finally, feel smug when greedy vendor is left with a house they can't sell.

[Groovee]

my friend is in the other position, someone wanted them to move last week then extended it by 4 weeks which suited my friend better then last week the buyer can't get a mortgage and is pulling out! My friend has now been landed with a massive solicitors bill thanks to the buyer.

Hope you find something soon x

[BadgersRetreat]

They seriously need to overhaul the system there - it's insane that people can do this legally.

When i first bought in Canada and the system was explained to me (just as you stated above OP) i thought 'what a good idea'. That and you can be in within a month, easy. The lawyers there drag it out forever!

My sympathies. She's a cow and karma will one day bite her on the bum.

[lottiegarbanzo]

What she paid for it is utterly irrelevant. She's buying in the current market. The only relevant question is what it's worth.

She may put it back on the market then come back to you if no one offers what she wants. You may find somewhere else in the meantime. That's it really. Sorry this is happening.

[cookielove]

Omg there is nothing on the market, this is insane!

[Anniegoestotown]

I am on the other foot. I am trying to sell a garden flat in a really fantastic location in North London. I have sold it 3 times. 3 times I have taken it off the Market. 3 times the first time buyer has had a survey done. No problems found. 3 times my solicitor has drawn up contracts and 3 times the first time buyers have pulled out a few days before exchange.

It is so frustrating.

[glammanana]

All perfectly legal but so underhand at the last minute,let her try for more money if she wants to the property may not stack up on valuation so she may not get extra money anyway,plus she would probably have to renegotiate when survey done for Building Society,I know you will have paid out monies for stuff but call her bluff and if she says no it's just not meant to be.

[MissMooMoo]

OH and I have just offered on a place where a sale has fallen through. I suspect the vendors had pulled out because I know the property was for sale 3 months ago for 25k less. I don't trust the vendors completely since I have realised that the previous sale fell through!

[Scholes34]

Can I have a ?

When we were selling our London flat a few years ago, we'd agreed the price with the buyer at slightly less than the asking price. We had a knock on the door on the Monday evening before we were due to move on the Friday. It was the estate agent showing someone around the flat above ours. He wanted to buy both and was offering us £5,000 extra if we pulled out of our sale.

We said no, and wondered who would do such a thing when a promise had already been made. Seems like lots of people do.

[nonameslefttouse]

Cookilove, it's heartbreaking it happened to us with our first house, we had everything in place, price agreed, full asking price as this was at the start of the boom! Saturday morning we received a call from the estate agent the vendor had been offered £10,000 more would we increase our offer to match or exceed it to secure the house! We pondered for a couple of hours dh really wanted the house, I calmly rang them back stated the surveyor valued the house at the price we agreed and I would not increase our offer!

Monday morning I got call from dh firstly the place where he worked was making redundancies or offering them transfers to another site 100's of miles away and by the way the estate agent rang and the vendor ONLY wants and extra £5,000 to proceed! You can imagine my reply to her!

Six months after dh had a much better job, we found another house which was much bigger, better location as we're moving to that village for dh work and everything went through within eight weeks! The first house stayed on the market for ages!

Sometimes these things happen for a reason, around the corner something better will come along!

[cookielove]

Plumnc it was such a long time, we were chasing a landlord pack that was required, and the vendors solicitors went into administration which added loads more time to it.

The Canadian system is fab, you as the buyers put a offer in, the seller agrees, then there is a five day period where the buyers do searches and survey the property and if they decide that they want to back out they can in those five days, the seller is held to the contract and cannot back out at all.

After five days the contract is legally binding!

[specialsubject]

that's the English system I fear - although I don't like the sound of the Scottish one where you have to get surveys before offering.

re your landlord - ask to go on to a month-to-month contract, and next time arrange for a month between exchange and completion. If you live in as overheated an area as it sounds, the landlord will have no trouble finding new tenants at a month's notice.

[plumnc]

lurker,
Not sure the Scottish way is much different in reality - There seems to just be a lot more hypothetical: "If I were to offer £x, might that be agreeable?" rather than "I would like to offer £x" At the end of the day, people in Scotland too need to get their chains in order.

OP
It sounds like there has been quite a long time between offer and planned exchange. Did the vendor drag her heels? (warning bells) - or did you (good reason for vendor to ask for more as prices are going up)

Sadly not much room for "heart" in house-dealings - there is way too much money at stake for most people (on both sides)

[Finola1step]

Cookie, good to see you are not allowing yourself to be done over by this witch. A note for next time though. I would suggest a delayed completion. This gives you a longer period between exchange and completion so you do not give notice on your flat until they day you actually exchange contracts. That way, you can be confident that the purchase is going ahead.

[RandomMess]

I wondered whereabout you live as in the SE the properties are rising rapidly again

[Comeatmefam]

I agree with clam in that it's irrelevant how much money they are making out of this - no-one says 'Oh I'm making Xk so I won't ask for XXk'!. That in itself is not greedy - wanting to make as much money as you can on a property - but it's crappy to do this to you at the last minute.

[lurkerspeaks]

Love this is how the housing market in it's current form works.

Annoying and frustrating and stressful but sadly just life.

If you feel really strongly raise looking at changing the way in which property is bought and sold is carried out. In Scotland you submit an offer. When your offer is accepted you exchange a contract pretty quickly which is legally binding.

Much less stressful.

[cookielove]

Yes true, my friends sold their flat and at the last minute the buyers dropped their offer flat by 5 grand, she was livid but had to accept it as they were exchanging on their new house. I guess some people just don't give a dam!

[clam]

It is shitty, I agree. But legal, under our current system, unfortunately. As is buyers trying to negotiate a price drop in the last days before exchange too.

[cookielove]

As in 2013

[cookielove]

Sorry Clam i read that back and it seems i was taking my anger out on you, rather then the real recipient! Again Sorry!!

[Hidethechocolates]

What do you mean SO last year? I don't understand....

[cookielove]

I can assure Clam that they were not "giving it away" we were offering a more than fair amount of money for the property especially if you look at other flats in the area, which we had of course!

The seller had told the vendor to tell us they were not expecting/needing the asking price, so she has no right to be cross.

I could point out she had done the same thing to another buyer last year, we informed she had pulled out due to family issues, well to us its all a load of bull. I am also aware the flat was on for over 30 grand less then what we settled on. So we well aware of the situation.

And as much as this is legal, it is shitty and she is a spineless cow, but i guess we can smile because she did say she was happy with us as purchasers, how grand is that! NOT!

[kungfupannda]

Legal but infuriating.

An old housemate of mine posted on Facebook recently that she was thinking of doing this to her buyers because house prices have gone up so much since the offer was made - she wants another £50k!

Someone else posted that she should do it, because she (the other poster) had done it the day before exchange on her sale because she changed her mind about her own purchase.

Most other people seemed to be of the view that it was a pretty shitty thing to do - it's been months between offer and exchange due to various hold-ups, so the buyers have committed a lot of time and money to the process.

[clam]

I don't think that the estate agent should have said to you that the vendor was "not needing the asking price." That's nothing to do with them, and if they were acting for me, as a seller, I would be livid about that.
Equally, what profit they may or may not have made on the property is nothing to do with anyone else.
It's tough, I know, but they're not a charity. If they think they can get more for their property because values have increased in recent months, then one could argue they'd be fools not to try, rather than "give it away" to people they don't even know.
Sorry!