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.

What news, please?

I've googled but am unsure!

Attacks on oil/gas infrastructure and processing capabilities, look at UK Gilt Yields for today as well.

Traders now pricing in THREE BOE rate hikes for this year! As I said in another post they should have started today, they are always behind the curve.

https://uk.investing.com/rates-bonds/uk-2-year-bond-yield

and is in other countries.

Very likely that the next reduction will be a lot more than 11k so really not worth losing a buyer over.

I'm inclined to agree, if interest rates do go up as forecast there's a good chance that house prices will start to unwind.

Good basic discussion here, but this is the sort of thing people need to understand BEFORE taking on mortgage debt. UK Gilt yields hitting 20 year highs today, crazy times.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/mar/19/why-mortgage-rates-going-up-bank-of-england-base-rate-same

Why is it “very likely”? I wouldn’t take an £11k reduction for no good reason, just as I wouldn’t give £11k away for no good reason.

UK borrowing costs just hit 20 year highs, mortgage rates and base rate are going to start going up, that is three very good reasons in my opinion. The buyers in this situation are long gone, even if they could still get a mortgage the valuation is probably going to be lower than first time.

Something similar happened us but we were the buyers. The owners accepted our offer (the asking price) and then a couple of months later said the house they were buying fell through and the other one they wanted was more expensive and unless we agreed to pay £2,000 more they would have to pull out of the sale and put the house back on the market. We had a young baby and really loved the house so we agreed but it probably was them chancing their arm.

Something similar happened to us when selling Mums house. The buyers seemed very keen, particularly wanting the large garden to build a garden room for a home gym. They pulled out on day of exchange and did not give a reason. We found out later from the estate agent that while continuing to proceed with our sale they were also looking at other houses and within 2 weeks of pulling out, moved into a different house! The estate agent was furious and said they were now banned by the local area estate agency association - not going to bother them as they had already moved in!

Luckily we soon found a new buyer and the sale proceeded very quickly as they were not in a chain.

They had been so accommodating with multiple visits to measure up etc.
The husband was a bit of a know it all arse, full of himself, wife was very quiet.
It was clearly so calculated that my friend was fxxk that, not on my time.

The final time he called to the door to beg them to rethink, my friends husband said it was now sale agreed with the underbidder and that if he called again the police would be informed.
He looked ready to cry.
We suspect his wife was absolutely furious as they had said they had places for their children in a nearby school.
A year on and not a single house has been up for sale nearby.
FAFO.

Your "back for more" comment jogged my brain. I had that twice with the same seller before walking away. I may get howled down for this, but I found that the worst for trying it on ( in 3 different purchases) were those who had bought council houses at a discount and didn't understand that you can't keep upping the asking when it's accepted.

We had this a week before completion. The chap phoned the EA and offered 5k below. I said no and that if they didn't complete, we would be putting the house back on the market for an extra 5k (they had already negotiated 5k down from the asking price) so 10k from what they were paying. Within 15 mins he was on the phone apologising and saying they would continue. During that call, I could hear his wife screaming at him to fix this!!
I think it is pretty standard to try it on, but you have to be firm.