Or is the person we're buying a house from totally fucking batshit?

[sootspritez]

I'm gonna start by saying I know I'm not being unreasonable, however I am inexperienced, so looking for some guidance on where you think things have gone wrong and what I can now do to placate this nutjob vendor. NC as outing. Will try not to drip feed.

Dh and I are first time buyers. Visited a house. Loved it. Offered full asking price. All fine up until this point.

3 weeks after offer is accepted the survey happens. This is when things start going south.

Let's say that house was on market for 150k. Survey came back and said the house was only work 137k due to needing new Windows, chimney work, roof tiles, etc and the bank believe this was all the house was worth.

Survey cost in excess of £500 so fairly decent survey for a reasonable priced house. Put it to the agents that unfortunately this is now all we can offer as the mortgage lenders I.e. bank believe it's all the house is worth due to work needing doing. Fully prepared to be told tough and that they're holding out for the full price as I know they rejected a previous offer for being slightly below asking.

Vendor agrees to sell for 137k immediately. Phew... Or so we thought.

From this point on the following has happened via estate agents -

• vendor has cancelled 3 second viewings because they were inconvenient though she initially agreed

• she has denied entrance to the property for a contractor to come out with us to estimate how much work needs doing

• pointlessly got in touch to specify that now that they had gone below asking that all appliances wouldn't be included (I didn't want her appliances)

• asked EA to ask us TWICE if we would be willing to offer them more money despite accepting price given by mortgage lender

• when we have asked for another viewing she has proposed just insane times '20 mins at 6pm on the last Sunday of the month' '30 mins at 10.30am exactly 4 weeks on friday' despite us offering to be entirely flexible where possible (I.e. evenings and weekends at her convenience but would be willing to book an hour off work if she can guarantee the time). She says she cannot guarantee time as she works fill time and has 2 boys who play football until 8pm every single night and all day every weekend and they are her priority.

She has told the EA that she thinks we are inflexible and both the EA and the branch manager have apologised to us for her behaviour but obviously won't challenge her on it.

Am I right in thinking she's pissed off about lowering the price and just doesn't wanna sell her house?!

Maybe her husband has done the building work on the chimney and knows it was done without the proper permissions so she is being awkward because she's worried

We asked for a second viewing for the house we were buying to measure up. But also was getting impatient because some berk up the line held everyone up and had entirely forgotten what the place looked like.

Or buyers also wanted a second viewing in which they brought their parents. They were ftb so i understood their excitement.

She has the right to refuse you a viewing obviously although she could just tell you a simple no. I think you do have some valid reasons to want one with the extra work although you could have done this before making an offer. I know it's stressful though, you just want an offer to be accepted rather than risk losing the house. I think i would have made an offer based on being able to have a second viewing with builders in tow.

Personally i think she's being silly if she wants to sell her house. Why play difficult? I would rather work with my buyer than against. I mean you're either going to come, find out that it is too much work for you and pull out. Or you are going to lose confidence and pull out, which seems like a more likely prospect. If you have the luxury to take the time to find a good house, then I would take that opportunity.

Besides if you threaten to pull out she might change her tune.

“Personally i think she's being silly if she wants to sell her house. Why play difficult?”

I imagine with 10 viewings the day OP saw it she’s not that fussed about going back on the market. It’s obviously in high demand

This could end up being a nightmare. Yes, vendors are under no obligation to allow further access but usually do so to accommodate measuring etc.
I would be inclined to tell the ea that either you can visit with your contractor to ascertain the work needed and measure up or you will have no alternative but to pull out.
When you are selling your house, and especially if you have something lined up, you have to compromise on visits. Sibu

So you don't trust this vendor and are looking at other properties even though she has accepted your offer and presumably lost all other interested parties - yet she is the unreasonable one?

I sold my flat last summer (Scotland). I was very happy to accommodate second or third viewings in the week (yehaw!) it was on the market. But once the offer was made and it was sold STC there was no way in hell their toes were getting over the threshold again until moving out day. They didn’t ask so it wasn’t an issue. Never occurred to me that they might.

I don't think she is being that unreasonable, you can get quotes once you move in. If I were her I wouldn't want builders coming in either and would also be worried that it would mean you are going to drop offer. It's your decision really either work around her times etc or abandon that house. You have way more options than she does.

YANBU l don't think, she is being unreasonable and this is probably driven by the price being dropped to £137k. But odds on they would be selling to someone who required a mortgage and the value difference would be thrown up by other lenders and buyers. Maybe she's not worked that out. She may as well suck it all up, get it over with if she wants to sell her the house. For the people being overly critical of the OP, then my understanding the chimney issue was only highlighted by the lenders survey. Which only would have been done after an offer had been made and accepted. If her husband is a real builder then he should know about the state of the house, if they are being avoidant this is maybe because things have been done in a bodged way. But obviously you need to find this out. Plus surely for your biggest purchase ever it's not unreasonable to ask for another viewing to check appliance sizes, window sizes etc. For those people being overly precious about people going in their house, then it's part of selling a house and there isn't anything that interesting in your house!

In all honesty it doesn’t bode well if she’s being such a pain at this point. How badly do you want the house? Where are you living now, will it be a big issue if she starts messing you about with moving days? She seems to think she is quite busy and important so may want to chop and change that!

Out of curiosity why are they saying they are moving? It's always good to understand people motivations

If house already sold, in theory, she doesn't need to accomodate you and workmen traipsing through and sizing things up- that's what you do at your own inconvenience when you've moved in. She doesn't have to allow it. Can you withdraw the offer if you're not happy?

I thought second viewings were normal?

Well yes they are … but usually before you make your offer.

You can't keep going back now that you have had your offer accepted - I wouldn't like it if I were the vendor. You need to wait until it is yours before you start getting tradesmen round for quotes.

I feel like I'm being really thick here.

The issues raised in the survey are significant and are cause for concern. Basically she removed the chimney breast in the downstairs but left it upstairs and they can't tell if she's put in an RSJ to keep the building secure and stop the floor buckling. She hasn't volunteered that info.

So I'm expected to just accept that and move in? Drop 137k on a house that might be bollocksed rather than ask for an hour of her time to see firstly if the RSJ is in place and to see if it's not whether the work would be prohibitively expensive.

Let me reiterate. I have not haggled. I will not haggle because it makes me anxious. I just want to clarify the details of a survey before proceeding. Why is that so unreasonable to some of.you?

Thank you to all the people who fucking get it! Feel like nutjob vendor has cloned herself and attacked the thread, jaysus

I’m not attacking you OP, I just think you’ve misunderstood the way housebuying goes, are expecting far too much, then getting arsey when it’s (reasonably) withheld.

What you describe with the chimney is actually very common! And survey wise- minor. Honestly, it really is, as dramatic as you think it sounds.

The way it goes is if you don’t like their refusal to provide information or access, you pull out.

I work for an estate agents and it is not unusual to ask for further viewings so that builders/roofers/electricians etc can give a more in depth report following what the surveyor said. It sounds like the vendor is being very awkward and I'd be worried that once you move in, you'll find more faults than you originally expected.

Make sure your solicitor requests all documents to show that the boiler is safe, the electrics are up to code and that any building work that's been carried out by the builder husband has appropriate paperwork making sure it's been done properly.

If you love the house so much that you are prepared to take it as is, then carry on with the purchase, but I'd be very wary of a vendor who won't let you in again. It's an expensive mistake to make if you end up buying a lemon.

OP you are being completely reasonable. It does sound like she has something to hide, so you need to get to the bottom of it. Be prepared to pull out if necessary, don’t allow yourself to be blackmailed. It’s a lot of money to invest, of course you want to be sure about what you’re getting.

If you won't buy the house without the additional information then make that clear to the vendor and be prepared to walk away.

But from their perspective I think it's pretty clear that you will likely use additional viewings to try and further reduce the price so there's really nothing to be gained for them from allowing it.

Personally it seems a little odd to me that despite your inexperience you are so unwilling to listen to other perspectives on the process.

I just noticed the bit about the chimney breast being removed downstairs but remaining upstairs! Absolutley demand to have proof that there is an RSJ in place otherwise all that weight is lying on the floorboards and will eventually fall! Sorry, but the vendor is most definitely trying to hide something there, and I would be very concerned about it.

I'm sorry OP but with the system in this country YABU.

If she had 10 viewings the same day as yours, she doesn't need to drop the price regardless of the mortgage survey. When we received an offer on our flat in London it was for £20k more than the mortgage survey, and we did come down £10k but not the full £20k. We probably didn't have to come down at all, looking back on it. The buyer made up the difference in cash. We probably could have got another buyer to make up the whole £20k but we were impatient. Also because of the offers over system in Scotland, buyers have to routinely make up the cash to get property in hot areas around Edinburgh. She probably is very motivated to get this sale done with but she feels like you are hassling her now, after she has reduced the price. She also probably knows that you are going back and forth with a fickle mind, wasting her time and that you will look for reasons not to buy the property because you're getting cold feet (your builders will probably say it's an expensive job for their benefit and it will put you off).

Also when we sold our other property recently in the south, we had to get the property pretty/sales worthy for viewings. That is a lot of work for some people, and it was for us because we had 2 infants at the time with a lot of large baby items we needed to hide so it didn't make the rooms look smaller. I had to run around and shove stuff behind/under our bed, to the tops of the wardrobes, in the garage, etc then take it back out when they left. It may seem insignificant but with everything else going on in our lives, it was exhausting.

Final point, we had a similar issue where we purposely picked difficult/far out appointment times for another viewing after we accepted our offer (these buyers also said they wanted to measure but they actually just wanted their parents to come see it). The house we were trying to purchase had some weird things turn up in the surveys by the solicitor, so we backed off from it. We were held to a tight deadline because our buyer wanted to get in by the time her daughter went to school. We did not want to lose the sale so we hurriedly made an offer on another property and asked our selling solicitor to waste time so that our buying solicitor could get the paperwork sorted for us. We also chose to waste time by making the appointments far out and inconvenient to see if the buyers would say they couldn't make it, would need a later date, etc. We also could not let a property because we would have been at risk for an early repayment charge to the tune of around £10k. So from my experience I would say your vendor is impatient, annoyed with you, she thinks she might be able to make up the difference anyways but she's impatient and wants this done, and she doesn't want to deal with your cold feet.

A lot of the things on the survey couldn't be ascertained due to access issues or lack of knowledge about works done to the property and as such could be significant structural.issues..why would I buy a house that could have major structural problems without checking on the extent of them and whether it is worth me doing?

From her point of view, she's already reduced the price more than she wants to following the survey and she's probably concerned that you are looking for an excuse to reduce it further. If you think there is an issue around the chimney breast presumably you took the costs of fixing that into account in making your offer. If you didn't and are seriously concerned, then you probably have to walk away from this one.

I thought you were going to say something about RSJ’s. A friend of mine bought a house where they had been removed downstairs but not upstairs as well. I can see why you want to find out. How does the price of this house compare to similar houses in the area?

Hope the other house is nice and you can offer on it

*The issues raised in the survey are significant and are cause for concern. Basically she removed the chimney breast in the downstairs but left it upstairs and they can't tell if she's put in an RSJ to keep the building secure and stop the floor buckling. She hasn't volunteered that info.

So I'm expected to just accept that and move in?*

Posters aren't saying that. What they are saying is, you did know this and still chose to make an offer. The offer is the bit you are supposed to stand by after you have done all the weighing up and taken all things into consideration.

Having said this, I think this vendor sounds as dodgy as fuck and if you have any way of walking away altogether, I would do that. What I would not do, however, is keep faffing around trying to change the offer you have actually made.

Honestly, just walk away. It is how the cookie crumbles that you accept the survey and decide whether to proceed or not based on that- you can’t get contractors in to quote on everything before you decide to go ahead or not.
My husband and I didn’t offer at all on a house we really loved because they were evasive about either the loft conversion was built to regs and I suspected the answer was no- we didn’t put an offer in only to get lots of contractors in to quote. We decided it was too much of a risk. You have had the price lowered based on the work that needs doing- accept that you use that additional 13k to do it or walk away.

OP, don't buy this house if she won't let you in again. You're already worried about possible additional costs to put things right and by the sounds of it, these repairs are not just cosmetic.

You're in an enviable position where you have no chain and are ready to go with a mortgage in place....she should be welcoming you and your builders with open arms. If you were my daughter, I would be strongly advising you to view other properties and get the agent acting for the vendor to tell her you are doing so.

Don't ignore your gut feeling that something's not quite right here

I would drop out op. Sounds like husbands done some shoddy building work on it.. I just can’t see this going well at all

I don’t mean that lie you should drop out I mean if it was me and my family we would have dropped out at this point