..to not sell my house now?

[househorror]

So, got the going price for my house, about £10k under, but it has taken a long time to sell and I'm very happy with the price. So my AIBU is here...

I have spent the last 3 years all - through Covid, doing my house up. It looks fabulous, really nice. All the carpets follow through in the same colour to the upstairs, all the hard floors match in Karndean. The whole house is a neutral pallette etc etc. The bathroom was cheap but white and well put in.
So, I have just found out from the EA (a friend vaguely knows her) that the prospective buyers intend to rip stuff out and put their signature on it. I mean, I have literally spent thousands on doing the house up, and I do not want to sell it to someone who is going to gut it.

AIBU in pulling out of the sale. Its very early doors, they have only just put in for a survey

You were happy to use the Earth’s resources to make more money on your sale but draw the line at someone else taking it out and replacing it? The eco conscious approach surely was a lick of paint and maybe not a 10k kitchen. No-one’s taste is universal - you can’t take it personally.

I think you have to strip out the emotion OP. But I can understand how you feel as tbh I despise people who rip out perfectly good kitchens and bathrooms, it is so wasteful and thoughtlessly materialistic.

Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face. We're probably heading into a recession and if don't sell now you'll probably have to cut the price further or not sell again for a couple of years at least.

Putting an expensive kitchen in to sell was a mistake but it's done now. Who cares what the buyers do. It's their house.

You might regret pulling out when you're paying to heat a bigger house than you need to be in.

I understand how you feel, last year I sold my caravan, I am widowed and found I didn't like towing it or holidaying in it on my own, a man offered £600 for it, and I had decided anything over £500 was acceptable, but he said he wanted to use the parts to furnish a campervan, so would be ripping out the cabinets cooker etc. My heart sank, I thought of the happy times we had spent in my neat cosy caravan, and I told him I needed think about his offer.
I gave my head a wobble, it was in the way on my drive, I wasn't going to use it, it would only deteriorate over winter, and after a couple of days I rang him and agreed to sell.
It is a business transaction, once sold, it is no longer your responsibility.

The op doesn’t say the kitchen was expensive she does say and it has Lino (kardean) and a basic bathroom suite

maybe the buyer has a sympathetic renovation in mind?

sounds like just different tastes

I really sympathise!

It's hard work doing up a house and it sounds like you bought quality items.

It would seem such a huge waste for that to be ripped out. I'm sure you could find buyers that love it how it is.

With one house I renovated, I spent quite a bit on landscaping outside. The buyer was annoying throughout but I held out and sold it to her.

She's now changed a lot of the landscaping (her choice!) But it does feel like I literally wasted money, and she's turned out to be an awful neighbour.

I do hope you won’t be redecorating your new house in any way, shape or form

karndean is a bit more than just Lino

Funny thread.

So it's ok for you to change the kitchen but when they do it's a a no no due to the environment...?

Just from your description I'd be ripping all the carpets out. I don't like carpet, you can't get it clean like you can a hard floor.

I think this is why when you’re going to sell a house you paint everything white and clean everything but that’s as far as you go.

it’s a shame because it’s probably more emotion you’ve invested into it than money still you need to make a very cold businesslike decision.

Is it for sale or isn’t it because you can’t mess people around

Some very unnecessary comments on here by the way I have an extremely small hallway and front room and Karden is going to cost me £1000 to put down if I decide to go down that road.

YABU. You’re selling the deeds to your house, not your interior design choices.

We bought a house that didn’t need anything done. I just ripped out a £25k kitchen (the left the plans and invoices with the appliance manuals and guarantees) that was 2 years old when we bought it. I didn’t like the layout or the colours or the style. Thankfully I sold it without the appliances for £8k on a second hand kitchen website. I also ripped out all the bathrooms as I didn’t like them and the master bedroom fitted wardrobes that were fitted 6 months before we bought. I’ve changed the flooring, the radiators and the windows, moved all of the downstairs walls and doorways, flipped the staircase and moved the front door. It doesn’t look like the same house. The vendor’s garden front and back are now a mess, as we’ve had the building works and I don’t like the layout or plants they chose, so don’t maintain it (other than getting someone else to clear leaves and mow the grass). So I’ll rework the look of the garden next year.

So I think you need to focus on your new house and what you’re planning to do there. I bought the location/plot and a house I knew I could transform.

And the kitchen was £10k from Magnet.

If she was genuinely doing a quick refurb for sale job. She'd have spent about a third of that amount from Ikea.

I felt like this when we sold our much loved old house.

Our buyer had grand plans to knock out walls and I felt gutted about it. He turned out to be a dick and pulled out on the day of exchange and it was actually a relief - I didn’t want to sell to him.

We sold it very quickly afterwards for a higher price to a lovey woman who loved the house as much as we did.

That is still a very cheap kitchen these days

That's what people who buy houses do. You shouldn't have stressed over it. Should have slapped on some magnolia and just left it.

To be fair I'd never move into a house that 'needs work' ever again because guess what, it never gets done and you live in squalor forever, but you can't blame people who like that sort of thing.

I think if you're not bothered then maybe you don't really want to sell? Any buyer can tell you anything they like and then rip it all out. I don't think you're upping your chances of selling to someone who will keep the house as is you're upping your chancing of getting a buyer who doesn't mind telling you what you want to hear. If you want to retain control over the house then I'd just keep it.

I’d pull out in your circumstances.

Don't sell it if you don't want to. But realise that you'll struggle to sell it again, the fact it's going to go back on the market will be a warning to others that something is wrong (with the house or the seller) and it might put some off. And eventually, someone will rip out what you put in when you do eventually sell it.

surely this is a joke? A house is a thing. use things; love people.

I understand.

You don't seem ready to part with the house. Pull out and revisit next year.

Can you post some pictures? I love to see it to see if they are being really rash.

i do wonder if your friend is winding you up.

I think it sounds like you're not ready to move out right now OP. Have you found another place already or not yet?

I remember when the For Sale board went up outside my house I felt sick to my stomach and wanted to tell the EA to take the bloody thing away! That was 3.5 years ago now and we are still in the same house to this day 😄

So you refuse to sell to these buyers. What happens when you get another offer? How do you plan on finding out what they intend to do?? It makes no sense turning down a good offer just hecause they don't have the same taste as you.

Neutral is not my thing and I'd be wallpapering and painting. And I have ripped out a brand new kitchen - it was deep purple and the fact it was new was irrelevant - it wasn't a waste I sold it on.
I used to flip properties and sell to FTB who were looking for move in ready. You can't police other peoples taste, but more fool them gif saying they'd be changing things. Pull out if you want, but I think you'll never be sure of what a buyer will do, and you really shouldn't get so personal about it.