Attempted to negotiate price after survey but instead got gazumped. How to recover?

[miggles33]

After our survey we attempted to negotiate on the price. The seller did not budge. So we accepted this and agreed to continue. Enjoyed Christmas then found out that in the meantime they have gone back to another buyer who had been lingering and accepted a higher offer. So we have been gazumped. All fees paid for and close to exchange. I guess there is nothing we can do? How does anyone recover from this. We totally love the house but stupidly thought we could negotiate with problems in survey. We are nearly a year into this now and I want to give up. Uggghh.

We are nearly a year into this now
How has in taken you a year to get a survey done?
Offers are subject to survey, so how have you ended up so invested and out of pocket before the survey results?
and if you have dragged your heels for a year, and then expected a reduction, whilst the house is rising in value, I'm surprised they waited that long to withdraw from the sale.
I don't understand how you've ended up with this huge timeline - or how you've ended up with a survey at the end of the process, are you not in the uk?

Maybe op meant a year of house hunting?

Almost every survey shows some work needs doing. Did you genuinely make your offer believing the house needed no work done?

Perhaps the sellers had originally been offered more after accepting your offer but their scruples made them turn it down. You then trying to renegotiate the price after agreeing it might have made them reconsider.

I don't think it's very reasonable to expect other people to have better house buying/selling scruples than you have.

You have had a lucky escape. What the survey has shown you is that you can't afford this house. You can't afford fairly major repairs.

I'm also amazed that you think what they did was immoral, when it was you that re-opened price bidding!

I'm surprised at the people saying you were unreasonable to renegotiate after your survey results! We did this this year, and when we've previously bought. One house needed fairly major drainage work. The vendor wasn't aware, how were we meant to know?

It's not very nice to have done to you. Immoral? I'm not sure. When we were gazumped recently what made me feel better was to put myself in the vendors shoes. They must have needed / appreciated the extra £k they got, as everyone knows it's a rotten thing to do.

Be very very cautious of damp quotes.

We just bought a 1700's farmhouse - quoted in excess of £30k for remedy. Surveyor said the place was wringing wet. Recommended a specialist damp companiy for quotes and yup. They really went to town! In the end we got a quite from a guy out of the area who was lovely but it wouldn't be worth his while to travel daily to do the work.

He quoted £1500 And £300 of that was a good dehumidifier.

Most damp companies have 'relationships' with surveyors now, who push for buyers to have excessive work. Damp companies quotes are often done by individuals that have a target to hit. No problem with targets - I'm a sales director myself. But that's a huge conflict of interest IMO

You haven't mentioned whether you suspected there might be work needed before the survey and what percentage of the value 6k represents. Trust is really important and I think the vendor would be worried you would try to mess them around again just before exchange. We once had to delay exchange and the purchasers tried to negotiate about 10% off in a rising market. I gave them the weekend to come to their senses and complete for the agreed price - woman wanted to but guy would not. I put it straight back on the market and got an extra 5% within 2 days (ie. 17% more than his revised offer). To my mind a deal is a deal unless something really untoward is thrown up at the survey.

15%!

Good on your vendors! Sorry but that's my view

Call the EA and offer to sell the survey to the new buyers, save them time if they want to re negotiate the price.
Even if the sellers wanted to sell to me again, I'd move on to a different house.

We are a year into house searching. We have not gazundered. That is when you lower the offer right before exchange of contracts. Unforseen and unknown structural work came up that we could not have predicted. We lowered our offer to complete this work that was recommended to be done immediately. And I do think it isn't right for other people to continue to try and buy a house where a sale has been agreed by offering more money. They should try and buy house that is on the market.

Are you saying you would be happy if you were buying a house and far into the process other people offered a higher figure and you lost the purchase?

Of course I wouldn't be happy, but this is an economic decision. Just as yours was to offer lower.

There's a good chance your buyers were worried about losing money on the deal and that you might chip the price just before completion, having suggested it once.

The other buyers may have had a purchase fall through and mentioned their ongoing interest at a time you were "back in negotiations" i.e. You had suggested a lower price and the sellers were considering whether they could live with that.

By the way, I don't think there's anything wrong with you offering lower, but by the same token, others are free to offer or accept higher.

I don't think that there is anything wrong with revising your offer - but you always take a calculated risk when you re-open negotiations that the sellers will choose to fully reopen the sale by looking at other bids

All surveys show work needing doing - until you get quotes you won't know how much it will cost often the surveyors seem to overstate costs to cover themselves

After our survey we attempted to negotiate on the price. The seller did not budge. So we accepted this and agreed to continue

I'm not following your logic OP. You made an offer and it was accepted. Then you withdrew the offer and made a lower one. This was refused and then, as you say, you agreed to continue with the original offer. If you withdraw your offer, you can't really be surprised if the seller reconsiders their options.

But it can't have been particularly serious 'structural work' if the price of that, plus damp work, was £6k. What was the issue?

And when you say unforeseen, you haven't said how much the house was on for and what you initially offered? And you haven't said whether you specifically set out that your offer was subject to survey.

Unless you offered the full asking price (or more if there was a budding war for example), the vendor has already given you a reduction. Even if the seller hadn't identified the particular issue that came up in the survey, no house is ever going to be 100% perfect - as others have said, issues are always identified in the survey. So the vendor probably thought the difference between the asking price and the offer would cover any issues that were identified on the survey.

If it had been a serious structural issue the surveyor would have suggested a retention and the lender would not have lent until the work was carried out.

I think it's fair enough really. You negotiate and you bring everyone back to the table and open up all outcomes. You had agreed a price. You wanted to lower it, as is your right. The vendor exercised their right to not to accept and to take a better offer.

Agree with backtoblack. You re-opened negotiations, not them.

Agree with all the other posters. You started dicking about with price - trying your hand to see if they would accept a reduced offer (and clearly you were trying your hand (some might say gazundering), since you subsequently reverted to your original offer when it didn't work, so clearly you still think the house is 'worth' the original price you agreed).

The owner probably thought you were flaky/underhand/greedy, and did not want to risk you gazundering again just before exchange, so are proceeding with a buyer who was probably in the wings with their higher offer all along, but until this point, the sellers had (honourably) told them they were SSTC with you.

So the moral outrage at what the sellers, or their new buyers, have done is misplaced.

It's a pain though, and very disappointing for you.

A house is worth what someone is prepared to pay. Either the gazumpers will go through with the purchase at the higher price in which case the house is worth that amount and you can't afford it, or the gazumpers will get a survey done and will get told that in fact it is worth no more than [your original offer less £6k] in which case the vendors will get their comeuppance.

Don't let it worry you. Find a different house.

I don't think it is helpful to rake over old ground and talk about who was in the right and who was in the wrong.

As a pp said, revising an offer after a survey is often done. But then again, I can totally see why the vendors would go back and take a better offer from someone else. All of which is discussed above.

The op wants to recover after this experience. Spending a year looking for a house and having it taken away from you so close to the finishing line is hard to take for anyone. I would take solace in the pp who said they found a better house after something similar happened to them.

You in fact, why not google "mumsnet gazumped" etc and look at some old threads. I seem to remember there are lots of posts where people have had purchases fallen through and gone on to buy a better house.

It seems this is what you must do. Take a deep breath and start looking again. Something better is round the corner.

Best of luck. House buying is stressful.

Sorry OP but you tried to gazunder and it back fired on you.

Thank you so much ShortLass for your kind advice. I just came looking for support and maybe some hand holding during a stressful time. It didn't need to be so harsh. It is typical to negotiate after a survey but ultimately we lost the house very close to the end. I just thought people would he a bit kinder and offer support for moving on and recovering from a lost sale. We are first time buyers and are a bit lost in all this.

This thread has made the last few days harder and it has been pretty tough already.