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Original poster

Aarrghhh!!!!!!!! Buying/Selling Houses!

99 replies

fio2 · 15/12/2003 12:47

Just want a bloody rant really. The people who are buying our house have a had homebuyers survey done, about 3 weeks ago. And today I have had a phonecall, well not me dh. They have just decided that there are a couple of little things that have come up on the survey. The purchaser wants to send an elctrician round because something has come up with the electrics, a corgi engineer to check the CH system (which is only 18 months old and cost us 2.5k to put in!) and apparently not all the windows open!! (they do) I asked the esatate agent to explain properly what was the actual problem is but they cant tell me in more detail. Why? I just think its really funny that they have waited 3 weeks and now have decided there are problems, hardly major are they? We have already dropped the price by 3k but they obviously want to knock more off. Why are people always like this when you are selling your house. We never do it to other people, maybe we are too soft. I just want to scream and shut his stupid little head in one of my windows that 'doesnt' open! Where do we go from her? Rant over

Ahh feel better now

OP posts:
wilbur · 15/12/2003 13:16

It's so frustrating fio2, isn't it. I'm sure they are trying it on as Xmas is around the corner and they want you to panic. Why not say they can have the c/h checked (at their cost) and that everything else is fine, you are not knocking any £ off. I bet that would call their bluff, esp if you mention to your estate agent about how you expect the housing market will pick up in the New Year now Saddam Hussein has been caught, and maybe you will not accept their offer after all. I'm not normally this cynical or hard-nosed, but after an experience selling my dad's house where a nice lady came to see it and wanted it and then her son got involved and told us that she was 80 and would have to go into a home if we didn't accept a lower offer (turned out she was 67, very fit, and had plenty of money, just the son trying to put one over as he knew it was an estate sale and we didn't want to haggle) I am getting fed up with this kind of thing.

Hope it works out soon.

dadslib · 15/12/2003 13:19

Message withdrawn

ks · 15/12/2003 13:21

This reply has been deleted

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GeorginaA · 15/12/2003 13:38

fio2 - it's a risk, but we had this when our buyer (after dragging us along for MONTHS, the cow) decided that there were things she didn't like about the house. We told her we were fed up of her messing around, we'd already (like you) had dropped the price for her and basically we turned around and said that if contracts weren't exchanged by the end of the week we were pulling out and looking for a new buyer.

It was a HUGE risk for us at the time (dh working away, months apart, very stressful time of our lives) but we had got to the point where we'd been so mucked about by her and her solicitor that we were going to lose the house we were buying anyway so we might as well have started with a clean slate. You have to decide whether you can afford your buyer to pull out after all this, but calling their bluff worked well for us.

Hope it starts getting better soon!

LIZS · 15/12/2003 13:40

Don't get too worked up about it. It does sound likely that it comes from a caveat in the surveyor's report. We have to have annual Gas Safety Inspections to rent out our property and this costs just under £65 . Similarly before we could lease it out at all we had to have an Electrical Inspection which I think may have cost a little more. Establish from the Agents whether your vendor is prepared to pay for it, if not could you go 50/50 as it would stand you in good stead anyway with future purchasers should they were to pull out. They may well be stalling (I'm sure you could show them the windows opening on a further viewing anyway)but equally they could be inexperienced and may have only recently received the report to which they have a knee jerk reaction. It is also possible that these reports are going to be requirements of the Vendor's Pack should the govt implement it in the future and they have picked it up from there.

Good luck

Batters · 15/12/2003 13:42

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Gumdrop · 15/12/2003 13:50

I'd absolutely agree. Our last buyer faxed through a considerable list of "points which needed to be remedied" arising from their detailed survey, presumably in the hope that we'd be panicked and drop the price.

However, they forgot to detach said list from the survey itself, the first sentence of which read "Although there are a number of point which could be remedied, the house itself is structurally sound, in good repair and, in our opinion, is worth the asking price of £X".

This prompted dh (a lawyer) to call their estate agent and lawyer saying if they didn't stop faffing about, only that wasn't the f word used, they could whistle for the faffing property!

Good luck!

Original poster
fio2 · 15/12/2003 14:30

Thanks everyone for your messages I have calmed down a bit now!

Wilbur - your message about Saddam Hussein made me laugh out loud!

I have decided they can have them done if they pay for it themselves, if not they can go and jump. Our house is in one of the most desirable roads in town, hardly any ever come up for sale. When we first put it up there was loads of interest - so if they drop out we will just put it back up for sale after christmas - WITH ANOTHER ESTATE AGENT!

I will ask if I can see the homebuyers report as there has been no mention of the value of the property, my guess is it is worth more but we were after a quick sale. Georgina, we are in the same postion. Dh was relocated in June and has been down in kent since then (we are in the midlands), it is not nice. The thing that irritates me is the estate agent told them our situation, which we had asked them not to do. They then advised us to go with this couple as they are first time buyers (he is in the forces, so they travelled alot) and the chain would go through quicker. They then nagged and nagged for us to find a property and now we have found one they are playing silly buggers - typical!

Thanks again to everyone for your advice and for letting me have a moan. I dont know what I would do without mumsnet!

OP posts:
LIZS · 15/12/2003 14:41

fio2

Unless things have changed in the past few years you may well not be entitled to see the Homebuyer's report in any detail, but no harm in asking. We had our potential purchasers (who did stall over a Christmas and finally pulled out at New Year) extracting relevant terms to raise doubts but we never saw what the Surveyor actually said. In our case there were suspicions about the possibility of tree roots in a drain and highly aluminised cement (very 60's). Sounds like yours should be minor issues, if any, and as your property sounds desirable (in Estate agent speak) definitely stick to your guns.

efmach · 15/12/2003 14:52

fio2, nothing useful to add but had to say..hang on in there!!! I know exactly what you're going through. We are hoping to exchange by the end of this week. We've had so many setbacks along the way. Every time the phone rings I think it's bad news. I'd rather have my teeth pulled out than go through this again.

GeorginaA · 15/12/2003 15:55

fio2 - my heart is really bleeding for you. Our experience is all so recent that I can feel every ounce of stress oozing from your messages!

Hang on in there, it does get better, I promise you. I know it doesn't feel like it now, but it'll all be over very soon and in a few months you'll be feeling really settled in your new home, enjoying having dh home every night and will realise that all the aggro was worth it.

Let us know how it goes, won't you?

Nome · 15/12/2003 18:11

I also really feel for you - we exchanged and completed today, at the same time, after months of faffing. At least I will stop having nightmares about them pulling the house off the market leaving us several thousand out of pocket, but everything is so last minute now...it's such a hateful, uncertain process. Good luck.

Original poster
fio2 · 15/12/2003 20:17

thanks again for your messages

dadslib you are right, it was in the small print..'we have not tested elecs' blah, blah, blah...you know the sort of thing!

anyway they are sending us a copy of it and they are paying for the extra surveys, so just wait and see.......

OP posts:
dkdad · 15/12/2003 21:06

Move to Denmark.

As a buyer, once you have an offer accepted, you have FIVE DAYS to complete. If you fail to do so, you have to pay the seller 1% of the price.

Keeps the mind focused!

Original poster
fio2 · 15/12/2003 21:32

will move to denmark then

OP posts:
naughtynoonoo · 15/12/2003 21:57

Fio2, I can sympathsise with you too. We went under offer in October and have been given soo many dates, it is like a roller coaster ride, but hold on tight!! We had hoped to complete on Thursday, but no sign of that, so I have given up now until the new year, finally put up my tree. As long as I am in my new place by 10 Feb as DS should be coming along then. It is such a stressful time, I gave up waiting for the phone to ring, but it is soo hard when all this house crap is hanging over your head in a big cloud! Good luck and try not to worry, if they are investing more money it is normally a good sign and shows they are really keen.

santafio2 · 16/12/2003 09:29

thanks naughtnoo

They have sent us the homebuyers report through this morning and it is valued at the asking price and there is hardly anything in it that is of concern. Just little jobs, but it does say in a house of this age, these kinds of jobs need doing anyway. No structural probs or anything major! And the window problems was that they were locked! Well if he had of asked me to open them, I would of done!

So what do you reckon? They are trying it on? Dragging their feet just before christmas?

santafio2 · 16/12/2003 09:29

I am fio2 btw, just a festive version

Festivefly · 16/12/2003 09:32

Nutter

santafio2 · 16/12/2003 09:33

I just forgot to change back!

Festivefly · 16/12/2003 09:36

Same here

GeorginaA · 16/12/2003 10:07

"Dragging their feet just before christmas?"

Almost certainly, fio2. The reason our lady dragged it out for so long was that she didn't actually want to move until August/September, despite us being very clear from the start (she offered in February?!) we needed a quick move (and were being flexible with the price from the start because of that).

She didn't bother getting a survey at all until the very last minute as a delaying tactic (like yours our houses weren't available very often and she'd already missed out on 3 because other people had got in offers faster than her) then picked holes in absolutely everything - even stuff we'd told her about already (we'd been upfront that the roof would probably need changing soon as next door had had theirs done - flat roofs again right from the start and the price reflected that).

Her bastard solicitor invented paperwork problems that our solicitor said just didn't exist then swore and put the phone down on our solicitor when it was pointed out that he was stalling.

We had the last laugh though. A couple of weeks before we moved we had what I think was a rodent infestation (not sure whether mice or rats but they sounded LARGE!) No signs inside the house, but in a passageway between the floors at night - very noisy. In the bustle of moving we didn't get a chance to call anyone out of course

GeorginaA · 16/12/2003 10:08

Oh, we moved early July in the end!

santafio2 · 16/12/2003 14:26

Thanks Georgina, I read this earlier on but forgot to post to thank you I am glad you think they are just dragging there feet. Have not phoned the estate agent yet as I want to make them sweat. And if these stupid people are so keen to get these tests done why has no-one rang to organise them? Aarrggghh!!!!

Loved your sweet revenge btw

efmach · 19/12/2003 11:42

AAAAAhhhhhh,indeed! Just to make you feel better, fio2. We were hoping to exchange today. Not going to happen. More setbacks and just found out one of the solicitors in the chain is off for two weeks as of today. We're now heading into the sixth month of agony.

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