To tell gazunderer to do one?

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Selling a probate property, due to exchange and complete today. Agreed price was £20k less than asking/previous purchase price and included all furniture. Ours was the show home apartment, and another was put on the market which is empty, much smaller and in a less favourable, dark and dingy aspect at £20k lower than our agreed price 🙄 this flat is with an EA who persistently undervalues these properties which is why I did not use them.

Received a call from our Estate Agents yesterday. Buyer still wants our apartment but now wants to pay the same as the cheaper, crappier one or he'll withdraw and buy the other apartment. I am properly pissed, but offer £10k off to get it past the line.

Buyer is firm, £20k less or he'll walk.

I think the buyer is trying their luck, the other property was marketed in March. I've seen the buyer at the building whilst clearing out the property, I know they've been to look at the other flat long before this week and I suspected that he would try something like this at the last minute. I am also confident it's our flat he wants, just at the crap flat's price.

I've made them wait for my response, and having slept on it I am of the mind to hold firm on the £10k drop, requiring immediate exchange to stop him dicking about, or deal's off. If he walks, I will still have the property to remarket as well as all the furniture the buyer wanted included in the sale which will cover fees to date, and he'll have taken the competing property off the market.

AIBU to not reduce further and wish them luck with the other property if they withdraw, or do I suck up losing £20k?

Selling a property in England sucks.

Accept their 20k drop….as you tell them the asking price has gone up 21k….😂😂😂

Wouldn’t drop 10k. CF. Let him walk. Tell him if he’s not agreeing to your very kind offer he can crack on and buy the shit apartment.

OP has already accepted a 20k drop on their asking price and the deal was done and dusted.

The buyer now wants a further 20k off at the very last minute.

There are too many people here confusing and comparing their own stories of regular properties and what happened with their sales.

Unfortunately retirement properties are a different ball game. They are difficult to sell and have a very limited buyers market.

I’m not excusing his behaviour here but it’s a totally different market to the standard uk property market that others are linking their stories to.

Who knows what has happened today, but I would be negotiating with this buyer as he’s at least an active sale. Retirement properties can take months and even years to sell with the associated fees ratcheting up as you are still liable for them even when the property is empty.

had similar when selling mine, buyer was doing a buy to let .where i was buying was a slow sale not my fault,he started black mailing me to drop price ,i got so stressed by it,estate agent knew him well i felt they were working for him not me,after the 4th go at black mailing me i lost it completely, told him it was going back on the market sold in 3 days plenty of interest got £20 grand more, he was stocked i told him where to go,STAND FIRM THEY ARE TRYING IT ON

Definitely don't drop. Put the property back on the market. I had this with my mum's house. Put it straight back on the market and got a higher offer, and someone who could complete in 3 weeks. On principle I would not let the original buyer put a higher offer in, they were untrustworthy in my eyes.

I had commented before about looking at the wider housing market in your area and how desirable the property is before making any hasty move without realising this is a retirement property.

I would actually now say that you would be foolish to jeopardise this sale.

These properties are a nightmare to sell.

People have been wising-up to the high charges that come with this type of ownership and the pool of potential buyers is really small.

You might end up with no buyers at all and having to pay council taxes and these high charges for several months, if not longer.

Personally I would have done everything to get rid of a retirement flat that I got as a probate...

The story would be different with a regular flat.

The people posting laughing emojis and gleefully suggesting you tell the buyer to fuck off don't have a real understanding of what trying to sell a retirement flat is like...

Google the various horror stories about people inheriting flats like these and being unable to find a buyer or having to sell them at very low prices....sobering read.

''@Murdoch1949
Definitely don't drop. Put the property back on the market. I had this with my mum's house. Put it straight back on the market and got a higher offer, and someone who could complete in 3 weeks.''

A good example of people not comparing like with like.

A standard house and a retirement flat are two completely different propositions...

Quite a nasty message to someone who is selling what is most likely a deceased parent's home.

It depends on retirement flat. There’s a small block nr me and they sell immediately despite being over 55 as they are reasonably priced and management fees aren’t high. Over 55 properties are snapped up here and lots being built but obviously depends on demographics.

I've been in this situation but for a house. Buyer dropped the price in the week before completion wanted £10k off sent a list of items that needed fixing but I had already fixed most of what they were saying. They then made up some more things and one item I hadn't known about I got someone out to look at and they said would be £1k to fix. I sent this quote over and said £1k off for you.
They said no we don't want it unless it's £10k less. I'd massively dropped the price. Estate agent who's supposedly working for us was trying to pressurise us into going for the £10k drop. The buyer held out to the last and EA said look they're going to pull out unless we drop. I said that's ok they want to play hard hall put it back on the market tomorrow. Sold next day. Some people are just ridiculous. I'd say this is the case here as they haven't walked away.

Do any of you posting your own stories here not understand this is a retirement flat with all that these entail? It’s not a normal flat with the normal pool of buyers.

It’s like comparing selling a bunch of bananas to a bunch of daffodils.

Normally I would say take the hit with the lower offer if it is anything like the retirement flats I have seen people trying to sell as the service charge can range from a modest £2000 per year to the more normal £5000 and once saw one at £8000pa but this has a more. Modest SC

Lots of people buy retirement flats and then rent them out so the pool of people might be a little restricted but not as restrictive as just for people over a certain age

They still can only be rented out to people of that age. The new block that's just been built near me is for over 70s only. That's such a tiny pool that the chances of reselling seem extremely poor, and renting would be a challenge too.

Yes, everyone’s aware, but the point is it’s a CF trying to pull a fast one on the day of exchange/completion. Even on a retirement flat demanding another 18k off when you are already paying 20k below asking on the day everything is meant to be finalised is a dick move.

Why assume that a retirement flat is such a dreadfully difficult thing to sell? The block my parents lived in always had a queue of people wanting to buy. We didn't even have to put it on the market when they died, the freeholders kept a list of interested purchasers.

Because your pool of potential buyers is substantially smaller than would otherwise be the case. Surely you can see that?

Is it though? All houses only appeal to a section of the population due to price, location, number of bedrooms, garden, age of property, state of property…

But equally the pool of available properties for people who want retirement flats is substantially smaller than would otherwise be the case. And if that particular block is popular, purchasers are wiling to go on a waiting list.

What happened in the end, OP? Did they pull out of the purchase by the end of the day? Must have been really stressful, either way.

I would put a rapid expiry time on the £10k drop with immediate exchange as you say and say if he doesn’t go for it it’s the original agreed price or nothing. Go with your gut that he is chancing it - you are most likely right.

Would the OP have accepted £20k off asking if demand had been… well, any demand!

how long was the flat on the market before you accepted an offer substantially below asking OP?

So there an update, but not where we hoped to be and it's still all up in the air.

Another email was sent explaining position; £x price, exchange today, stop dicking us about, absolutely no more offers or negotiations would be considered. We got another offer of another £3k, so now £15k below agreed price. I think the EA has to give you all the offers? To be fair I think they're as demoralised as us about the whole thing, but it's business isn't it - I get it.

Our solicitor was on standby all day, and I asked how long it would take them to exchange. He has been excellent and cannot believe CF either, and was in touch with buyers solicitor about apportionments or something - I might misquote that because my brain is fried - casually drops in the are you ready for exchange query. No, the buyer has not placed monies on the account and cannot do that until next week.

So we have some more ££ on the table, but still not what we'd asked or agreed and we couldn't have exchanged and completed yesterday because the buyer wasn't ready.

Now the other executor who was of the opinion to take any reasonable offer to get the property sold is absolutely raging, and they want to tell him to foxtrot oscar and put the flat back on the market. I'm letting them calm down and let me know they're sure before I break that to the EA.

So… if the plan had initially been to exchange yesterday, why on earth wasn’t the money in the correct account?! If he’s a cash buyer, why wasn’t the money good to go?!
This guy is a premium dickhead, and I’d be putting the property back on the market today.

It sounds like the buyers don’t actually have the funds as it is now clear they never could have exchanged yesterday! So they’re scrabbling around for the money and think asking you to drop will solve their problems!