My house purchase has fallen through

[Woozlebear]

Absolutely gutted. This was the one in a million house we've been looking for for years. Since we offered we have discovered- subsidence history, and needs full replumb and rewire (complicated- looks well maintained on surface, beyond fucked underneath). The sellers are refusing more than £5k off the agreed price. It was top of budget anyway.

3 months of hell for nothing, and we are going to loose THOUSANDS in survey / solicitor fees. Can't even just say fuck it and console ourselves with a holiday- all our money's gone on the bloody house.

There's nothing else out there.

:0( sorry to hear that.

Have you shown them the relevant parts of the survey? They might change their mind and reduce the price (unless you want to back out anyway - insurance after subsidence can be expensive even once it's fixed). After all any other prospective buyers would also find all that out.
It all does suck though. No wonder it's known as one of the most stressful things you can do. Hope you get a decent resolution on the end whatever it might be.

Could you ask your solicitor to explain to them that every subsequent buyer after you will also have surveys done and no one will buy their house at that price? And they can either accept your lower offer or sit there forever.

Icantdecide- yes, given them everything and got second opinions. I think they're being really stupid, and yes, we have pointed out that anyone else would find same things, especially now agent is legally obliged to tell anyone about the subsidence up front.
Pillocks. Their purchase will fall through and they'll have to reduce price at some point anyway. Would be amusing if it wasn't so galling for us.

Yes adorabelle- we could! We have! They're really really stupid!

Reaching mildly amused point now, mainly thanks to intake of wine.

Jesus Christ I never want to move again.

THOUSANDS?

A survey costs a few hundred. Solicitors ditto.

if they won't sell at a realistic price, there's nothing you can do. They are lumbered with this money pit, at least you are not.

You've probably had a lucky escape, though right now you are gutted.

Yes, special, thousands!

Full structural 1k
Bank valuation 400 (we don't trust the automatically allocated bank survey so we pay more to get a surveyor of our own choice- burned really badly before with incompetent survey via bank)
Drains survey (drains implicated in subsidence) 400
Electric survey 400
Plumber 200
Solicitor fees well over 2k for buy and sell as both are very far progressed we will have to pay almost the whole fee.

Thousands!

I know this is better than ending up with money pit, but just feel like we've paid money to...not get the house of our dreams. Salt in wound etc etc

If anyone is selling a house with a decent garden, backing onto woodland in a commutable location in Surrey, please let me know

Oh woozle, I'm so sorry. The vendors are going to end up cutting off their noses to spite their face but you just can't reason with some people!
We were in your position a few months back, lost our dream house just before exchange and lost thousands in costs. We're now on our third attempted purchase and wouldn't believe it but we have found a house I love even more ( and without any associated issues!)
There'll be another house out there for you somewhere, there really will.

Leaflet houses in the area some one may be thinking of moving but unsure of the market. Good luck.

Woozle, you never know. They may well come crawling back with their tail between their legs after realising they can't sell it. Then the ball will be in your court and you can haggle down.

Won't other people just find out the same information and the sellers will always have the same problem?

Maybe once they have a good think they'll realise your offer is too good to be true then you can haggle even more money off!

Tbh a full rewire and replumb wouldn't put me off.

The biggie is the subsidence issue - do you know if the subsidence is historic or has been underpinned/repaired in the past or is this a new problem that the owners were "unaware" of?

If it is a new problem, then the current owners need to sort it out because they will not be able to sell the property while this is ongoing.

If it is historic or has been dealt with in the past, then there should be paperwork/guarantees and then you would need to take a view on whether you want to buy a property with subsidence history as it is expensive to insure. A lot of people would consider an underpinned house to be more secure than one that hasn't been underpinned.

Are there some big trees with roots that have damaged the drains? Is it just the drains that are damaged or are there cracks in the walls of the house too?

Don't forget surveyors have to cover themselves - a lot of the jargon is ambiguous because they don't want you to sue them for not disclosing something whether or not it is a serious problem.

Christ alive, what a weekend. Shell shocked, upset. No idea what our options were. Then thought back to a house what we'd viewed last year and loved but dismissed because commute would be a pain. It came back on the market a month ago. Drove down, spoke to agent, they were in for viewings. Looked round again, had long chat to vendor. Lovely couple. Long and shot of it we had done a deal by Sunday and got ourselves another house!

So were in the very pleasant position of being able to email the stupid original vendors today saying 'found another house, such a shame you won't compromise, but oh well, never mind.'

The 'replacement' house is newly renovated and move-straight-in finished. Totally to our taste. We've never done that before! Always bought wrecks. It's also 90k cheaper in the first place it's very different, smaller, and almost certainly not the 25 year house, but after spending the last 6 years mortgaging the present (literally), our time and money to try to climb the housing ladder DH and I are both weirdly relieved to have been forced into choosing a let's-just-get-on-with-our-lives house. We might actually have some spare time and money for once, rather than signing up for another x years of chasing the dream, living in a half done mess.

Woozlebear that is great news. Yup start living!!!!