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.

This is what I was thinking.

In 2010 I was selling a big house in a prime location, due to divorce. I had spent money preparing it so it looked good, no issues. A couple fell in love with it, offered a little under the price, agreed because they could proceed quickly and I told them 'no further reductions '.
They asked if various tradespeople could come round to measure up/quote for work they wanted done. I told the EA yes, no problem, but remind them no further reductions.
Then I get a letter from the buyers, ie bypassing the EA and solicitor I am paying to deal with the sale. "Due to xyz we want a reduction of £25,000".
I got straight on to the EA, told them to re list it ASAP...
Cue much consternation on EA's part (turns out they were also selling my buyers house, so they stood to lose two lots of commission).
End result they bought my house at the price we'd agreed...

The system is really shit, we need to adopt the US/NZ/Aus system - once an offer has been accepted it is legally binding on both parties.
Cynically, I think solicitors don't want to change it because they make money on sales that fall through...

Good luck, don't drop your price!

Good for you holding your ground! Come back and tell us what happens @Roseyliv78 !

Tell them to get lost!

My husband said he believes they will go ahead “this is just part of the game”

We also did this! It was very satisfying.

Lot of it about. Had this selling my late Aunt's house this time last year. Buyers asked for £20k off their offer price accepted months before (when we had other parties interested at the time). We swallowed it, because we wanted to just get the deal done.

If it had been my own house, then no way would I have tolerated it. I'd instruct the EA to give them 48 hours to confirm whether they want to move forward with the purchase, if not to remarket it. Sick of this kind of behaviour from people quiet frankly. Make a deal, and unless there is substantial reasons (ie survey issues come up) then be a person of your word.

Are you saying your buyers after agreeing a price for your house house want a reduction in price of 11k before completing?
Because thats not "sold".
I would instruct your solicitor to advise your buyers that you will not be agreeing to a price reduction and to ask if they are still in a position to proceed at the price previously agreed or not. If not, you will re market the house.
This happened to me and my solicitor just asked their solicitor if they were in a position to proceed at the agreed price or not and we would remarket if not.
It saves time to be firm and concise.
I can appreciate this decision is determined by market conditions.

Oh God yes, I've experienced and had friends experience all kinds of tomfoolery like this.

My friend had an offer on her flat which she accepted. The legal process started and then her buyers said that they had become aware of the profit she was making between buying it years earlier and selling it and thought she should share her good fortune with them, so were reducing their offer by £30,000.

Another friend was second in a chain and her buyer at the bottom of the chain, just didn't complete on completion day. So everyone was packed up in their respective removal vans, waiting for the money to go through, and it didn't. Nobody moved that day, because the buyer at the bottom of the chain allegedly realised on completion day that they were £10k short and rather than saying something, just disappeared. When this person was tracked down, the other people in the chain clubbed together to pay the £10k that was short, and a covenant was put on my friend's old house so that if the dickhead ever remortgaged or sold it, he had to repay the £10k, which he eventually did. Everyone moved about a week after they were meant to. No, I don't know how or why the dickhead's solicitor hadn't ensured adequate funds were available.

Don't underestimate cheeky fuckery when it comes to buying and selling houses and be prepared to stand your ground.

This happened to my dad. They randomly requested £5k off a week before exchange. Unfortunately my dad was coming up to 65 and as he still needed a small mortgage he had to accept.

Our equity is close on 273k, the buyers don’t know this or will never know this.

only here because we overpaid mortgage and had lots of extensions on house done etc.

To anyone who has bought property outside of England & Wales, the whole system appears to have been specifically designed to enable abuse of this type.

In France, you generally put down 10% of the purchase price when you put in an offer. (Sometimes this is a cheque that isn't immediately cashed, but it's made very clear that if either party backs out or attempts to vary the deal unilaterally, that 10% is at risk.) In effect you sort-of "exchange" at that point. There is no gazumping or gazundering.

When DD bought her house she put in an offer when there was almost no chain. Then a chain developed (because someone changed their mind) and it took 8 months to sort out. This was just post-Covid when prices were rising weekly. Her sellers didn't change the asking price, but she was worried every week that they might do. In the end she probably saved £30,000.

FTB - sorry your going through this , from past experience I’ve found them to be the worst at trying it on , no means no !

I don’t think they can afford to back out.

When we first listed for sale we had 8 viewings in one week.

Fuckin' tyrekickers.

I'd pull out and instruct the EA to put the house back on the market.

We can’t as EA agent said we would have to pay there fees if they pull different story.

The buyers are asking to change the agreed terms - not your fault. The EA is trying it on.

It certainly isnt a new thing. 60 years ago my newly wed aunt and uncle were gazumped 😡

Lots of people will try this sort of thing.

forget reasons and ‘fair’ you have a decision to make. Accept it, refuse it, negotiate it.

I would tell my estate agent to manage it. The buyer is playing games. Tell your estate agent to stop them playing games.

but you run the risk if pulling out. Good luck.

God what’s with all the faux confusion over the OP’s use of the term sold. It’s pretty clear from her decryption of the situation where they are with the sale. Jeez some posters are just so tedious!

You’ve done the right thing by saying no, stand firm. You might not be able to pull out but I would instruct the estate agent to resume viewings in the mean time.

Also agree that this is where your estate agent needs to be earning their money and dealing with them. A week of silence is not acceptable the agent needs to be calling them every day.

We are willing to relist but don’t think it will come to that “why didn’t they ever say we’re withdrawing” they just gone silent it’s a tactic IMHO.

Just relist anyway. No harm

In the process of buying now ourselves and holding our nerve in case anyone decides they want to pay less/ask for more. We have been very very clear with EAs that we won’t play those games and will simply walk away - but we had heard of all types of shenanigans so discussed this in advance. When we offered (we did for several properties) we were clear would wouldn’t mess around.

The behaviour of your buyers is disgusting.