WWYD About these Buyers

[F4ttyBumBum]

Put our house on the market in late July - had a flurry of activity, lots of offers but decided to go for the couple who offered the asking price and said they understood the quirks of older properties in early Aug (we're selling a 110yr old house). After the survey was done they came to us with a list of "deal breakers" that we didn't even realise that buyers needed nowadays and at considerable cost and time, obtained the certificates, regularisation and inspection reports. We submitted them in mid-Sept and so far the cost to us has been about £1500, not including the conveyancing fees (another £500). In the meanwhile we have been busy trying to sort out our own purchase which has involved a survey, land searches & specific legal advice (approx £1500 not including conveyancing of £700).

They have now (mid Oct) reviewed this documentation and say we did the wrong type of electrical report so they feel uncertain about the state of our electrics and have also brought out other issues in the survey that they feel uncertain about. I'm waiting for an email that will outline their position and I wonder whether it will be that either we repair these issues or knock off monies for them.

If you were in our position, what would you do? We almost feel bullied by this situation because we have already spent £3k (not including more money for conveyancing and stamp duty) in order for us to satisfy them and make plans to move on. If you put yourself in our shoes, how much less than 200K would you consider bearing in mind that things are tight as it is?

They need to assess the property themselves. They either want it or they don't. Don't keep paying out.

Do not keep doing these things. They either want it or they don't. Have you got a competition date yet?

You need to get your solicitor to send an email to theirs explaining the expense you have already gone to in order to satisfy their demands.

They haven't set a completion date yet because they are still "unsure" about the electrics and are considering issues with the cable ties (?!) and seals doing on some double glazed windows. Are these usual things for buyers to get concerned about? Genuinely interested in what others think because we haven't been motivated to be picky with the home we want to buy because we anticipate that as long as it is structurally sound, you end up putting your hand in your pocket at some point when it comes to houses.

For anyone who has done this and called an end to this palaver, what was the outcome?

With my last property the prospective buyer kept finding fault after fault. My default response was " the price reflects this". Just be prepared to tell them to do one.

we sold an old house and didn't have any of these issues. tell them to take the house as it is or you will find another buyer.

You'll have to call their bluff. If they pull out, you should get another buyer quickly if you had plenty of offers when it first went on the market. And you have lots of surveys and inspection reports you can provide to the new buyers so money not lost.

Not normal and especially bad form of them to make you pay for all the unnecessary checks. What is your solicitor saying, are they not peeved with it all?

Ask the purchasers to direct their demands through their solicitor together with appropriate parts of the survey copied as evidence of the "faults". Your solicitor will forward these to you for your comments and you can say no! Continual maintenance is part and parcel of owning a property. Unless something is potentially dangerous or requires certificates/guarantees, then the purchaser must rely on his own inspection of the property. Sounds to me like they are trying it on or are completely clueless.

We're buying a 450 year-old house. I had a specialist survey done - all 125 pages of it. Got the Listed Buildings chap out, then a specialist builder.

We then went back with a revised offer knowing that we need a new roof, complete rewire/plumb, complete repointing etc etc. Surveyor reckoned that we are looking at £100k + of works to fix everything and before 'fun' things like new kitchen or decorating. We negotiated less than 1/5 of that in price reduction.

There are no reports on electrics (according to our EA when we were putting our current property up for sale we didn't legally need one - but we did it anyway), or gas, or central heating or anything much. We're not insisting on them as we know that the electrics need re-doing anyway.

Frankly they should have sorted out all the survey issues and any follow-ups straight away. Ridiculous coming back now.

Worth considering that they will have forked out for a survey and convenyancing fees so their 'deal breakers' will cost them a fair amount to walk away from.

I would just put my foot down - either they want it or they don't. At this point I wouldn't agree to a reduction or to doing the repairs yourselves.

What is their situation - cash buyer, no chain etc?

Wah when I bought my house I was expected to pay for those reports especially the one about electrics if I wanted it done. That was only 2 yrs ago as well.

You paid for an electrical survey for them??? Why? Please don't tell me you also paid for damp reports and drainage surveys too! If they wanted an electrical report, they should have paid for it themselves, all you needed to do was allow access to the property. When you say they approached you with a list of things that needed doing, do you mean they came to you direct or via the EA/solicitor? I can't believe that someone didn't advise you on what actually needed to be done legally, what you might consider doing and what should be an outright No!

I would call their bluff as someone else said. You are 9/10 weeks down the line and it doesn't sound as if you are anywhere near exchange. If you have had offers in the past, you will have offers again. Speak to your EA and tell them you are not engaging in any further reports, testing or expense for these buyers. If something legally needs to be done or certification provided, you will do that, but no more. Your buyers have a week to come up with an exchange and completion date to work towards, otherwise property is back on the market.

OP, you sound like you have been more than reasonable and agree with general consensus that the buyer needs to satisfy themselves on the condition of the property they are buying.

We had a challenging buyer when we sold our old house earlier this year. Our buyer made several offers, we accepted the best one and then she came up with every excuse to reduce the offer as the sale proceeded. She even had the cheek to ask DH to put some shelves up for her.

We ended up giving her an ultimatum through our solicitor to proceed with the sale at the agreed price or the house would go back on the market within 48hrs if she did not agree or respond. She agreed within 2hrs of ultimatum and sale went through.

I would just set a date for completion, and tell them that, unless they complete then, the house is going back onto the market.

Why did you pay for the specialist reports? When we bought a house and our survey said that we needed damp, timber, electrics, structural etc reports done (as they all seem to do nowadays to cover their backsides) we paid for them ourselves as buyers. We were buying an old house and that's what you expect with old houses.

Well just to fill you in, we ended up agreeing to £2000. Left a really bad taste because it's a shitty thing to do 9/10 weeks down the line. I hear stories of buyers who insist on £5000 off on the day of completion though. Outside the London bubble, I don't think people like us have the buyers queuing up necessarily (though there was a good amount of initial interest) I couldn't face going through the hurdles with new buyers again so chickened out. I wish I had the guts but now we've moved out I don't feel as bitter. Hoping that karma will bite them back.

The house buying and selling system in England is so wrong, I can't believe how unprotected the sellers are in this process. You could argue that sure I don't have to do anything but modern life is such that with a family, you must have plans of where you are going to go and when. I think the whole system needs a drastic rehaul, wish I had asked for a deposit when I agreed to find those extra reports for them (after the survey) so if they then decided to play silly buggers, they would have lost out.

Cheers for all the responses, made me know that I hadn't lost my marbles!