Can't sleep... Vendors changing things on day of exchange, what would you do??

[Halfwayoranges]

Hi all.

I feel like I'm having a breakdown!! Meant to exchange yesterday with completion this Friday, and the vendors have suddenly said they want to leave their shed until their next purchase goes through, and collect at a later date! Their reason for this is apparently that they are waiting for probate on their next purchase. They agreed to move by end of June as our tenancy runs out then. We don't want to be stick with their shed until God knows when! And how would it be removed? How would we communicate this?

We said no and have heard nothing from the vendors. We need to find a new tenancy within 7 days if they don't exchange.

What do you think we should do? We feel totally drained with it all!!!

Tell them that the either complete by the end of June or you will pull out entirely. They need you to buy their house. Remember that. They do not hold all the cards.

Tell them that you do not want to buy the shed and are not willing to let them store it on your land after completion. They can either remove the shed themselves or leave it. If you really object to them leaving it, you can ask for a retention in case you find it still there when you complete.

Don't just give in the them. They are not doing you a huge favour; they need you to buy their house.

Cross-posted. In that case it's a game of brinkmanship, who blinks first, i.e., you go back and say "If we don't complete by Friday, we'll need to pull out as our tenancy ends then, so we'll get another 6-month tenancy and start the property search again.We're happy to speak to the vendors again at that time if their property is still on the market"

Although for the sleepless nights such a dangerous strategy would involve, you might as well buy the shed for £150, put it straight on ebay and you'll prob have it sold for more than that within the week.

OP I know this is stressful, but focus. Talk to your solicitor right now, they will sort it

I still don't get why you'd want to pay them anything, for anything to do with the shed.

It was made clear on the legal papers provided by the vendors and their solicitors (property information form, and fixtures and contents form) that the shed was excluded from the sale, ergo, you are agreeing to buy the house and garden minus shed.

They now want to leave the shed. It is worthless to you and an inconvenience. TBH it is irrelevant how much it cost them, how much they think it's worth, and indeed, what it is. The point is that they are planning to leave a pile of assembled rubble in your garden. Would you be offering to pay to store a load of black bin bags full of rubbish? No, you'd want them cleared at the vendors' expense. Same deal here.

As I said we went through something similar. I told the vendors that the situation (of their making) would be resolved at their cost or we would exchange on the sale of our house and move into rented, walking away from the purchase. Not ideal but with stagnating/falling house prices forecast, we'd be in a much stronger position as no-chain cash purchasers than they would be trying to buy onwards with a fallen-through sale and going back in the market.

Time to toughen up. Either demand they remove it before exchange, insert a retention clause/removal date/lack of liability into the contract, or offer to keep it for a reduction on your offer price and dispose of it yourselves at your convenience (having used it first - if there's access to the garden not through the house, I'd be keeping that shed until all necessary work was done on the house! ).

Remember - you don't want it, they said it wouldn't be there, you are not going to pay for their rubbish.

I've said that origam.

Their response is...Apparently it will cost more than 150 and they don't see why we can't just keep it until they can move it

good for them. You disagree.

It's their problem though. Not yours.

At the moment they are risking their sale falling through over a few hundred pounds. That's stupidity.

They need you to buy the house. They know that you have a deadline that the sale must complete by. Their purchase is taking longer than they'd like and one of the consequences of that is that they need to move their shed earlier than they'd like. In the grand scheme of things, that's nothing important.

Tbh, it sounds like they're just being pains in the arses.

I'd be tempted to keep it verbal then rip the darn thing down. Some people are cheeky - they basically want to use your garden as free storage. It's not fair on you if its so big and getting in the way of your summer garden work.

I'm just so fed up now. Agent called back to say the seller was stressed!! Well stop being such an arse then.

Think it's time to draw a line and start the search again. At least this time we can have a rolling tenancy.

Tell them this. Call their bluff completely. Say "this goes ahead as scheduled with the damn shed gone or we are pulling out, you have until the end of the day to decide" and mean it. Phone the EA and ask what else is on their books. I bet they'll all panic at the thought of losing the commission.

yes and contact a rival agent, next door if possible, and book to see some other properties on saturday. Youll be amazed at how quickly they chnage their tune.

Just say you want the shed gone when they go or you're pulling out, they'll be banking on you being desperate enough to say yes.

Also, if they leave it in your garden and its damaged, your home insurance won't cover it and they could claim against you!

They might just turn round and say ok as they are waiting for probste which could take a couple of months anyway

It'll take them more than a couple of
Months to get to this point with other buyers, stay strong! You are in the position of power and they're playing silly buggers

Ie they could just find another buyer

I feel exhausted and had to take the day off work today as it's just been like this for weeks now :(

I don't know what to do. Shall i call and say let's call it off? I didn't want to have a dispute with them, I didn't want it to come to this

Feel so stressed, we could have nowhere to live soon

I would call their bluff.

is this the first time you have bought a property in the UK? if so, this type of thing is sadly all too familiar. You are in a much stronger position than they are. It take months to get to exchnage with a good buyer that can get a mortgage. They'd be morons to risk that over a shed. Unless they want to pull out anyway in which case theyre going to do it no matter what you say.

I'm a mortgage adviser by trade and people pull all kinds of crap when they think the other party is desperate. I would leave it with your estate agent until 2pm, then say you'll be pulling out at the end of the day and you'll be using another estate agent to buy with. The vendor will then pull their finger out or agree with you. I'd say they want to deliberately delay the process to stay in their house for longer, so they can play games but you stick to your 'it goes when you go or we don't buy the house' line. Hugs honey xz

That's true, I suppose they would pull out regardless if that's what they wanted.

I just feel so stressed, I almost want them to say they're not selling just for some clarity and control back to our lives! We have 'supposed' to have been exchanging three times now. Had enough. And nobody has called me back again

It's easy to say 'I'll just find another buyer' but not necessarily as easy to do so. And, even if they go back on the market today and sell again quickly (for the same amount), they've still got to go through many weeks of conveyancing.

They're being arses.

Our vendor's have been complete arses. They've been aggressive and annoying and all sorts. The thing that seems to have stopped them being such arses (at least in such a way that we're aware of it) was DH getting the solicitor to tell them that we'd had enough. They either stopped with the nonsense or we'd pull out, sell our house to our buyers and rent somewhere. Then we could buy somewhere else without a chain. Theirs isn't the only house in the world and we really don't need the stress or the harassment for an aggressive vendor with a very flexible relationship with the truth.

I'm willing to bet that your vendors would rather sell their house than not. We were willing to bet that about our vendors too. Turns out we were right. And even if we weren't, we would be better off without being harassed and getting unncessarily stressed just because our vendor is a complete wanker.

You are making it more than it needs to be by dithering about.

Don't just call and pull out. Give them the ultimatum and go from there. The outcome will either be 'ok, we'll carry on and take the shed', if they do leave it, you can sell it and make money, if they say 'ok pull out', you know where you stand and start looking again. As house buying problems go, a shed in the garden isn't the worse thing that can go wrong!

Thanks so much for the supportive replies! Really making a difference as I feel so utterly drained right now.

Why can't people just be reasonable! We've offered extra money ffs, what more do they need to compromise

1. Stop talking with the Agent directly, get your solicitor to deal with any communications.
2. Instruct your solicitor to tell the Agent (who is acting on behalf of the vendor and not you) that you are ready to complete the purchase of the property under the following conditions

(A) that the shed is removed before you complete the purchase of the property OR (B) that the full asking price is not transferred to the vendors until X weeks after the purchase which will afford them time to either dismantle the shed and remove it or at their decision, leave it and just accept that they can't take it with them. I'd suggest giving them a month after the purchase transaction is done to give them time to sort this out.

That's it. Just that. But do it through your solicitor.

If they haven't sorted themselves out enough to take their shed after a month (or do something with it by then), you finish the purchase entirely and the shed is now yours to demolish or sell or do whatever you want with.

Get your solicitor to do all of the to-ing and fro-ing on it though. That is what they are paid to deal with when carrying out property deals.

Thank you everyone.

I have called the agent and said they move it and agree by 2pm so we can exchange or that's it.

What do I do now? My guess is they won't actually say 'no,' and we will hear nothing, so if I want to pull out we will need to actually say so and call back?