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.

The Scottish system has changed over the past couple of decades for reasons I can’t understand. It used to be that as soon as searches complete and valuation agreed with lender that missives were signed - usually about two weeks or less after offer was made and accepted. Once missives are signed that’s it. It is possible to pull out after missives are signed but it’s so financially onerous that no one in their right mind would do so.

Now, as others have said, missives aren’t concluded until you’re almost at entry date. I don’t understand why this has changed as it makes a good system much worse.

I think you’d be an utter fool to do that, before the survey is done, my daughter is buying, there is potentially a structural issue revealed on survey, personally if I was asked to do this I’d pull out immediately and assume there was a major problem with the property. Of course you can do it, but agreeing to it, you’d be an idiot of the highest order and most solicitors would strongly advise against any buyer doing this prior to survey and enquiries.

This happens a lot. Check with your agent that they have ticked all the “due diligence” boxes in regards to the buyers affordability. There’s an unlikely chance that they are not able to borrow as much as they assumed they could. More likely than not that they are just being CFs. Options you have are to simply put your house back on the market, and call their bluff. They might back down, seeing the money they’ve already spent washed down the drain. The onward chain might be prepared to wait for you to find a new buyer. Or try to pass the loss on up the chain. Everyone takes a hit of £1-2k. Both are quite “normal” outcomes. Idiotic FTB are the bane of an estate agents life, along with the catchphrase “it’s a buyers market”.

So they do have clauses which allow for the survey returning genuine issues. It’s to stop the situation OP has. It’s usually an amount broadly similar to legal fees, and aims to stop all this last minute price drop BS.

I know it's not the point of the thread but the fact they're younger than you and in their 30s so you think offering less on your house might be a social media trend has cracked me up 😂 Also they may be younger than you but I wonder if they know how to spell 'a lot'

I had the same just over a year ago, our buyers had done all searches etc and out of the blue they wanted to reduce by £25k. They said it was due to delay. We said no and they pulled out, causing us to lose the house we were buying. A few weeks later they asked to come view our house again, we said no and they got really angry!

I just think there are a lot of cheeky people when it comes to house buying!

In my area there are a lot more houses that are empty for sale now. The market has changed on just months.

Someone at the bottom at a chain and knowing how fragile they are could be rejudging how much they want to pay for a particular house.

I do sympathise as we had someone pull the opposite years ago. We were the buyers and months into a chain and just before exchange the seller demanded an extra 10% to proceed. We refused and eventually they sold it for around 5% more but it took a long time. The chain collapsed.

I would have a look at your local market and see if there is a similar chain free house that has come on the market or anything obvious

But aren't contracts exchanged after surveys etc.?

They are trying to blackmail you into dropping your price just before exchange, and assuming you are desperate to sell and keep the chain intact at any cost.

It is a disingenuous and unprincipled practise.

If circumstances allowed, I would say no. The house would go straight back on the market. I would not let them buy my property. They would be dead to me!

When this happened to me in the past we gave the wife the weekend to persuade her DH change his mind and pay the agreed price (it was the husband who was after a deal). He didn’t. I put it straight back on the market for 10% more and accepted a new offer within the week. The market is different now, but if you think you agreed a fair price, I would give them a day or two and then remarket.

What an earth kind of contract do you have with your agent?! If you relist the house and sell they will get their fees anyway so what is this business about having to pay if your buyers pull out? I think you have misunderstood something along the way.

6 times!!! Why indulge that nonsense?

The bank surveyor said no down valuation two weeks ago. Where we live is very strong values.

They are chancing their arm. Sadly part of the crap of buying houses in UK (except Scotland)

We are actually on the other side of this and it feels horrible. Found a place we love but the survey has come back with some major unknown problems that are going to cost an extra 25k to fix. Unfortunately we hadn’t budgeted for that so have suggested to our seller we go 50/50. Just to give the other side. We certainly aren’t doing this out of spite.

OP, your estate agent is employed to represent you and sell the property. You accepted an offer for a given price. If the buyers change the offer, unless you accept, the deal is off. Your estate agent needs to persuade them to stick to the agreed purchase price. Depending on the contract with the EA, you could walk away from them too and remarket with someone else.

This happened to us a few years ago , 3 days before Christmas , we said absolutely not.
They didn't pull out and the sale went through 3 weeks later.

@Unicorntearsofgin Does the survey state the property is not worth the agreed purchase price? It could quite possibly need 25k spending on it and still be valued at the purchase price. Depending on the size of your deposit, it may not be the building society that is taking the risk.

We’ve said our estate agent to tell our buyers need to know by Tuesday by COB.

OP, stand firm and I wouldn’t be letting them come back to inspect the house again as they will probably come up with a lot of spurious nonsense.

Hopefully that should focus there minds.

We know the solicitors they used and they’ve legally done all paperwork and no more work to do so they would be faced with a full bill, as we was going to go with them originally.

We’ve already reiterated this. Last week

So because you worked hard to overpay your mortgage and have earned enough to move to a bigger house, they feel entitled to a discount - ie. your money? Cheeky sods!

Gazumping.

Yes.

I had my buyer skip the survey & want to be in in a week, most things had gone through but I had very little notice.
Within a day is had removal men shipping containers & my contract signed & the following week I was out.
Only then did they decide they wanted a 2nd viewing before signing.
Luckily the guy got the flu & couldn't attend
Then they didn't sign the contracts until completion day. Then started complaining the boiler had broke (it was mid Dec & the outside pipe had frozen.). If the house had not been empty then that wouldn't of happened. I didn't get asked for money off as id dropped it 5k anyway, but they were disgusting in their behaviour.

Looking back, as I've now been renting for 4 years & everything has rocketed in price I shouldn't of sold.

OMG yes, do this OP. Counter with a request for £5k more than they originally offered 💪