There’s a bit of a back story to this so here goes..
We’ve been trying to buy a new house since April and it has been the most stressful fucking time of our lives. We sold our house off the market, at a time when houses were selling for way over asking price in our area. We did this because we found an amazing home and needed to have accepted an offer on our house before making an offer on others, and this house was having viewings in a couple of days time so we felt cornered in to accepting this offer. We didn’t get the house - we were outbid by cash buyers and we were stuck with having accepted an offer for under what we knew we could achieve.
We then went on to offer on a further 3 houses and were outbid by cash buyers each time. Our buyer’s buyer (the first time buyer in the chain) was getting very impatient with this and was threatening to pull out if we didn’t hurry up. In hindsight we should have told her to fuck off and found a new buyer, but we didn’t. We offered £20k over on another house and was finally successful. Woohoo! (This house was our dream house - loads bigger than we ever thought we could afford and we totally fell in love).
This was July and we all had a deadline of the end of September to exchange and complete. Us because of the stamp duty holiday, the first time buyer because she was being evicted from her rental at that time, and our seller because she had paid a deposit to move in to a rental at the end of September. Fine. We were ready to exchange in August, as were the first time buyer and our seller. Who knows what our buyer was actually doing (or our estate agents for that matter) but come September our buyer hadn’t even paid her solicitors to start their searches and had only just sent in her enquiries (about 100 ridiculous fucking questions). Bearing in mind the rest of us all needed to exchange in September and we were all ready for it.
She continued to drag her heels until we threatened to find a new buyer. She finally instructed her -really fucking shit- solicitors to start their searches in the second week of September. Then, days before we were due to exchange, our seller began to get cold feet - she didn’t want to have to pay her mortgage and rent, understandably, so pulled out of the sale. Absolutely fucking devastated.
3 weeks after this our buyers searches were returned, and we now need to pay £1000s more in stamp duty.
So the search continued. We expanded our search to other areas and found an even better house, a bit further out. It was a new build and we had an appointment to see the show home and the foundations. We LOVED it!! This was a Monday - we negotiated a discount and were advised to call back on the Thursday because the offices were closed Tuesday and Wednesday and to spend this time checking with our chain they would be happy to wait until next Spring to complete. (We checked with our buyer and her buyer and they were absolutely fine with this). On Wednesday we got a call from another sales lady at the office saying she had just reserved the plot to someone else. At this point I literally cried. We were told the offices were closed which is why we didn’t reserve it. They weren’t closed and they had reserved the plot to someone else. Fuck, fuck, fuck!!!
A couple of weeks later, we finally thought our luck was beginning to change: a neighbouring plot became available (for an extra £10k). We snapped it up. We did it!! Finally completed this fucking chain and everyone will be happy.
Ecstatically, we called the estate agent. Literally singing that we did it. The next day we heard the first time buyer had pulled out.
Fuck my fucking life.
So we panicked. Our buyer put her house on the market. We put our house on the market. We said if she found a buyer first then amazing, we will cancel our viewings. Well, she did find a buyer and she accepted the offer but our estate agent didn’t cancel our viewings and they went ahead anyway. We’ve just found out that we’ve had an offer for £20k over what our buyer has offered. We know our buyer can’t go up anymore.
That £20k will go so far. It’ll recoup the extra we’re now having to pay in stamp duty, the extra £10k of missing out on the first plot, and have some left over. I know our house is worth this improved offer but I can’t help but feel so incredibly guilty for pulling our house away from our buyer. A stranger who we don’t know; all we know is that she has offered under value and dragged her heels when we had an important deadline. We also know that she loves our home and has been waiting months for it.
So here’s my AIBU. AIBU to accept this higher offer?
My head says take it but my heart says I can’t do that to our buyer. I think I’m secretly hoping that you’ll all say YANBU and I can go ahead and pull out guilt free, but this is MN after all…
Sorry that was so long!!