House sold months ago, buyers now want a

[Roseyliv78]

Hi all, wondering if anyone can give me some perspective…

We sold our house a few months ago and the buyers were fine up until last week. Out of the blue, they suddenly asked for £11k off a £300k purchase. They also apparently told our estate agent that, because we’re moving to a much bigger house, we can afford to give them a discount. We have no idea how they even got our new address, the estate agent says they definitely didn’t give it out.

The mortgage valuation guy said there were no down valuations at the end of the visit, and all the surveys came back fine, so nothing has come up to justify this. Our buyers said it was due to local area but the surveyor and bank surveyor both said it’s been extremely strong.

We obviously said no. We also offered to talk to the rest of the chain to see if the £11k could somehow be sorted that way, but they didn’t respond. Then they said they were disappointed we didn’t renegotiate, even though we had already negotiated properly at the time.

Honestly, we’re just a bit confused by the whole thing. Has anyone else had buyers suddenly try this months after the sale?

is this a classic attempt to try and give us a headache?

its strange as know they’ve paid all the legal fees, surveyor fees. Surely very risky as we could tell them to do one, and they could lose all the fees if we didn’t want to sell to them now.

allot younger then us as we both in our early 40s and our buyers early 30s don’t know if it’s a social media trend etc.

EA normally on a % of sale so they will want the higher asking price. Solicitors don’t make more/less money on the based of the house sale

This is not the position in Scotland

Say to your estate agents that you think they are flaky and you’re considering putting it back on the market if they don’t exchange in a week. Don’t sound reasonable sound annoyed. We had this and ended up dropping it £1k which was a small amount against the agreed sale price but maybe made them feel they’d got something? If the estate agents think their chain will collapse they’ll push the buyers. They usually put the pressure on the sellers as that’s their clients. Certainly don’t drop any more than a token amount and even then at the last minute.

No they don’t care about a percentage of £11k. They just care about the sale going through.

Never exchange and complete on the same day. Always give time between exchange and completion to pack up the house and book the removal van. Otherwise you put yourself under too much pressure and leave yourself vulnerable to these kind of tactics.

The Scottish system isn’t necessarily better. Although neither party can back out without penalty once missives of sale are concluded, it is increasingly common for missives not to be concluded until just before the completion date so a seller could still find the buyer wanting to renegotiate or walk away at the 11th hour.

Well, I think it depends on how much you need the £11K and what the market is actually doing. My in laws had this happen to them. Their house was a high value house at a time when that market was starting to wobble, it had taken a while to get a buyer who wasn't offering a stupid price and they really needed to sell to move to the house they'd identified. The reduction was 5% of the asking price and they would have taken that if offered at the start.

I thought they should go for it on condition that exchange was brought forward to the next day (which was doable). Much to my surprise, the estate agent (who was a bit temperamental and also convinced he had a cash buyer in the bag) told them to tell the purchasers to bugger off. He was annoyed because they'd had a surveyor assess the house and recommend a 5% discount and had sat on it until a week before exchange, which was admittedly very bad behaviour. My in laws understandably trusted the estate agent over me and followed his advice.

The purchasers then pulled out saying they could now not get a sufficient mortgage without the reduction. The cash buyer turned out not to be a cash buyer and also to be claiming that she could only pay 2/3 of the asking price. So the estate agent (somewhat embarrassed) then went back the original buyers, who didn't try to play silly buggers and get a bigger discount, and agreed to the 5% on condition exchange took place the next day, and then it all went through.

So I think you're right to call their bluff, OP, but it's a funny market at the moment so it's worth getting your estate agent to be very straight with you about how quickly they anticipate finding another buyer and whether the same thing is likely to happen again. If you can't manage without the £11K then that's the end of it and if you don't mind the current chain and purchase falling through then that's a really good position to be in but don't lead with pride and a sense of offence if the reality is that you need or really want this to happen now.

Nope EA’s want the house sold as quick as possible, 1.5% of 11k is £165. EA’s will push a price reduction if it gets the property sold.

EA wants to be able to put STC as quickly as possibly on the website as that looks good: but they then want the highest possible price: they don’t want reductions this far down the line as it might lose them the sale completely. I have worked in EA and housing finance for 15 years

@Thelittleweasel sadly that's not entirely correct. As I said above we had someone try to gazunder us and I was gobsmacked. Gazundering is technically illegal in Scotland but until missives are signed either party can pull out for any reason. I think shitty behaviours are just on the increase as everyone is just out for themselves and has no concept of anyone else.

It’s not illegal in Scotland

Glad you’re holding firm.

I’m sure they’ll go through with it because of the expenditure they’ve already incurred.

Not the same situation at all, but years ago, we were buying a house, all agreed at the very early stages, and then out of the blue the vendors wanted £15k more. We pulled out, no discussions. It took them ages to sell it after that for what we had agreed in the first place.

Your EA is a lying fucker. You are not liable to pay your buyers fees if you pull out, as long as you have NOT exchanged, you owe them nothing.

You did the right thing saying no. Utter cheeky fuckers, I do not pander to game players. As for the 6 viewings, you have the patience of a saint. I wouldn't have enabled any of that nonsense. They can measure up after they've moved in FFS.

We had a cash buyer do similar to us on the day of exchange, we told him to fuck off. Ended up keeping the property and letting it out, and found a better house to buy in the end.

Buyer tried to do this when I was helping my mum sell her bungalow, they asked for 6k off. We told them to do one. They caved.

We had buyers suddenly asking for a £5k discount (for no reason) shortly before the exchange of contracts. We just said no and they carried on with the purchase. They're probably just trying it on, thinking you might cave in rather than risk the sale. Ignore them. I doubt they'll back out and then have to start all over again.

Agree. I really don't see why it shouldn't be more like buying a car. Seller should have to get a survey done (by a council/neutral party), views arranged, once a price/moving date agreed, all must stick to it or fines, which you could mutually agree to wave.
OP, wonder if the buyer has been looking at socials, or knows someone you know? Cheeky anyway, you can't necessarily assume anything about finances based on where you live.

We know people who only last week offered higher than they were prepared to pay with the sole purpose of knocking off £50k the day before the exchange. Luckily enough the sellers accepted someone else’s offer and saved themselves a headache. It’s disgusting.

So it's basically blackmail?

I’d say it’s more manipulation at its finest!

I can get people making a realistic offer and then deciding to chance it, but this takes it to a whole other level by outbidding everyone knowing that they’re going to then withdraw a significant amount right before completion. Possibly jeopardising the vendors onwards house purchase. That is pure evil.

I wonder what would happen if you suggested to the chancers that you view it as blackmail, and reminded them that there are laws about blackmail.

My non-legal opinion is I don't think it is.

It should be a criminal offence.

This happened to my friend the day before they were supposed to move!
She said no and pointed out that if the sale fell through the buyers would lose all their fees, survey costs etc and the buyers backed down.
Really horrible thing to do

We had the same with my late father-in-law’s house. Accepted an offer, no chain either way, all proceedings well under way, then the buyer pulled out. We had to pay part of the solicitor’s fee. I did try to argue but apparently that is how it’s legally done! Luckily we were able to sell to the next person who had offered to buy and that eventually went through.

i have never heard of that. What contract do they have that would have forced them to contribute?