House Purchase: DH - seller is going to be difficult

[Stellaaaaaaa]

Need some advice re a house purchase.

The house we are interested in is being sold by the children of the owners, to pay for their care home fees. The parents have both in residential care for over a year.

The house came on the market in late spring/ for £750k but was later reduced to £735k.

It remained on the market at £735k and an offer was accepted in July / August.

The house has come back on the market because the prospective buyers failed to sell their home.

We’ve had two viewings and placed an offer of £705k which was rejected. We placed a second offer at £712k, a day later, which has also been rejected.

I think our offers are reasonable based on the condition and other comparables. The local market has had a slow down this past month, and a few houses are back on the market.

We are chain free, having sold our home earlier this year.

I want to place another final offer but DH is no longer interested.

He thinks the sellers will mess us around because there isn’t the incentive for them to push through sale, unlike a normal sale. He also thinks they won’t negotiate on price if the survey reveals faults.

Has anyone purchased a house which is being sold by someone who has power of attorney? Does it make things more complex?

Id like to get people’s thoughts if they have similar experience?

The sellers' attorneys probably won't have much faith in you either, even if you now suddenly make a much higher offer... Thinking you are probably the type to try to leverage a silly discount due to a catastrophising survey, or gazundering them at the last minute. It seems they probably took £705K as an insult and no longer wish to deal with you.

Do not underestimate how much stress and heartache they are under.

This.

If anyone is being difficult @Stellaaaaaaa it's you and your DH. You offer, they accept or reject and your offers are too low. That's not them being difficult, that's just the way it is.

Keep looking. Ì wouldn't want ill feeling. You've made your best offer presumably. Leave it with them.

The OP's opening line:

"The house we are interested in is being sold by the children of the owners, to pay for their care home fees."

@AffableApple's astonishing intuition:

"They will presumably need the money for the care home fees."

😂🤣

I have just got an offer on a relatives home who has been in a care home for 2 years. I have POA. I had no interest in a delay as I believe you have 3 years to sell in these circumstances before capital gains tax comes into play.
i don't think anyone wants a delay in this situation . Care home fees are rising all the time. My relatives costs will rise by £300 per week in 2025.

We have just exchanged after making two offers that could be considered low - both rejected. We then spoke to the agent. Said we're cash buyers, ready to go. Don't have bottomless pit of funds but want the house. What do they want? Agent gave us a figure. It was £18k above our last offer but still 'low'. It was accepted and we move in next week. And remember your husband isn't the decision making boss.

Sounds like you have tried to take advantage of someone in a desperate situation, only their situation was not as quite as desperate as you thought and they will not allow themselves to be taken advantage of.

How do you know what their situation is? Surely this should be sensitive, personal and confidential information? If I were the buyer I'd be making a note of the estate agent who gave senstive information away to the other side, would certainly be never using that chain myself and I'd be recommending to the seller that they take further action, as their interests are certainly not being represented by an estate agent giving their situation away to potential buyers.

More expensive properties take longer to sell.
The condition of the property as seen will be reflected in the price
Most sellers will know this is a slow time of year and be prepared to wait till things pick up in Feb/ March next year.

If it’s currently up for £735k the average drop @2% brings that to £720k your offer is below that ( and of course they’ve already dropped it from £750k ).

Its also worth noting that they may think you’ll string them along to the last minute and make a lower offer after your survey. Whether there’s a viable reason or not. I wouldn’t do this as by then you will have spent money on a survey and searches and the sellers will just put it back on the market. It not like they are in a chain.

Offer your best and final and then leave it with the vendors to decide if they accept. You are in a good position but as others say, it is a difficult time for the family who are only trying to do their best for their relative. They are not ‘being difficult’ - under POA they are legally bound to try and get the highest price for the property and to act in the best interest of the owner. If you can afford more, offer more if you want the house. If you are at your max, say so - but you are still a long way off the original and current selling price. It sounds like a lot of money, but if the relative is still reasonably young, the family may be facing care fees for a lot longer than you might be aware of. Care homes vary vastly in terms of facilities and price and unless you have been in this situation, or assume the state steps in, you have no understanding of the pressure the family might be under. Your EA might want to delicately point out the costs the family are incurring in utilies, insurance etc for every month the house remains unsold - you might want to up your offer to match the costs across 4 months (likely time you’ll exchange and complete in). You also have to factor in that if there is more than one attorney involved they all have to agree before accepting. Be mindful of the fact that they attorneys are unlikely to have all of the paperwork/answers to queries that your solicitor might have, so be prepared for a lot of ‘not known at this time’ replies.

I took it that @AffableApple means the sellers want to sell for as much money as possible so they have more money to pay towards the care home fees, which seems a reasonable view.

He also thinks they won’t negotiate on price if the survey reveals faults.

And maybe the seller is thinking you will demand money off for spurious reasons.

So do I.

You can't predict the seller's behaviour, nor demand that they keep dropping the price until you can afford it. You've made an offer that the owners think is too low. You can increase the offer, or you can move on, but this is a two way transaction so you have to take on board that nobody is obliged to behave how you want them to. We always had the rule that either can veto, it's an important rule because you both need to live there, so if your DH thinks the house isn't worth more then you'll have to accept with good grace.

By the way, do be careful making silly offers. We had one putative buyer on the old house with multiple silly low offers, until we had to tell the estate agent we would not be willing to sell to them. It might feel all very clever arsing about to try to save a few £k, but it comes across as wasting people's time.

If there are comparable properties at the lower price go for one of them instead.

I recently sold my mums house as POA, only a little 2 bed house (just pointing this out so people don’t think she was sat on hundreds of thousands)
she has enough to pay her living costs without the house money.
the buyer obviously thought she desperately needed the money so tried every way he could to get money off.
he eventually got us to the end of our patience and we told him to stop it or we would pull out, this was a month before completion.
we were the top of the chain(as most houses being sold as POA are) and would have lost nothing (all fees only due on completion). He would have lost thousands.

my point being, don’t assume they are desperate just because the owner is going into a care facility.

It’s quite amusing to watch OP being told that she’s offering too low, when the house is not selling and all the threads on ‘why won’t it sell’ are ‘it’s always the price’.

OP this is a business transaction. Don’t get too emotionally invested - it clouds judgement. It’s irrelevant what they are selling for, because if the asset they are selling isn’t worth that (which you say is the case based on condition and local market), it’s not worth it. They need to become more realistic.that will take time.

put in a final offer as a pp has said, and leave it on the table until you find a better option.

We bought our house as a probate sale from the buyers. We offered just under asking and got it but were then gazumped and had to max out our mortgage to go £20k over asking to get it.

That was 10 years ago. The market is not as good now. We are trying to sell and despite 2 price reductions have not sold. At the price agents are telling us now is realistic (as opposed to what they said 9 months ago), we will be in negative equity on the sale.

I wouldn't increase your offer.

We purchased ours from the executors of a lady who had passed away, so not quite the same but similar. It was fine, they were helpful and it progressed normally (though this is in Scotland which is a bit more straightforward than England when it comes to property, if England is where you are).

If they are paying care home fees already they will be incentivised to sell the house to fund that so I don’t know that they’re more likely to be difficult than anyone else. But if you’ve already offered what you think is fair and it has been refused have a hard think about whether it’s definitely the house for you. It can be easy to get caught up in chasing a purchase but if it’s not this house there is always another!

I’ve sold my mums house for care fees. I did accept a slightly lower than asking price offer but I wouldn’t have sold for less than I personally thought it was worth.

Although I needed the money for the future, she also had a savings pot that I knew would pay for the care for about a year so there was no desperate rush. I guess that stopped me being lowballed by prospective buyers who knew the reason for the sale and were trying to be opportunistic.

I’m with your DH.
if give it a week and if not accepted walk away. Before that I’d be clear with the EA you are motivated and want a quick / clean sale but if you can’t get that you will walk.

we saw 2 AMAZING houses (which retrospectively would have financially ruined us given the spiralling cost of building work) both were similar type sales and were a nightmare. We dropped out of both and went for a divorcing couples house instead.

good luck.

fwiw I don’t think that the offer is massively low offensive

Don’t be so absolutely silly. A house purchase is a transaction in which both parties are equally represented. Neither party has the power or authority to take advantage of the other, it’s simply a commercial negotiation in which both parties are empowered to make decisions on whether to proceed, under the advice of professional agents.

You also have no idea what the sellers have authorised their agents to say about the situation. Perhaps they have told them to share the information about the POA on the basis that it might encourage prospective purchasers looking for a house which isn’t subject to a huge chain.

under the advice of professional agents.

I wouldn't trust one as far as I could throw one.

They had an offer of £735k in the summer and they are not desperate, so I'd say they are likely wanting to wait till Spring to see if they can get their asking price (more houses sell in the Spring). On the other hand, we were told most sellers accept offers of up to 5% below asking price and your offer falls well within that.

If you're keen on the house, I'd up the offer. If very keen and you can afford it, I'd say offer what they've asked.

Otherwise, keep looking.

YABU - if a seller doesn’t accept a low offer it doesn’t mean they are likely to mess anyone around further down the line.