Hi MNers, got a bit of a quandary...
Had an offer of £550k accepted on a house that was on the market for £575k - probate so no chain, been on the market for over a year. It's a proper doer-upper. Think knocking down structural walls, re-doing the 70s kitchen, completely rewiring the kitchen etc.
We also accepted an offer on our current flat of £450k. While our flat is lovely (if I do say so myself - crowning glory is big roof terrace with views over London) and we've done a lot of work to it, the building it's in needs a lot of work. There's a high service charge for the next few years to do all of this work, and it's already started, and we took that into account with the buyers' offer. But I'm a bit worried their mortgage company is going to come back with issues and we'll need to drop price to secure the sale.
Now. The survey on place we're buying has come in and there are quite a lot of problems we hadn't really anticipated. Woodworm in basement, no foundations in the cowboy extension they did, damp, roof joists not strong enough to support the new, heavier tiles the previous owners put on, asbestos in the walls, historic subsidence. We were going to be doing things like the roof anyway as hoping to do a loft conversion, but the rest is big stuff we hadn't really accounted for.
Given all that, and the fact that the market here has slowed down massively since we put in the offer, we would like to renegotiate our offer. DH is being quite bold IMO and wanting to knock £30k off but I worry that will make us look like proper arseholes, even if it would help us massively if/when our buyers ask to reduce price and with the extra work that needs doing.
Can I get some MN advice on this please? Have you sold a house to buyers who renegotiated and did it make you pull out of the sale? Any success stories of renegotiating without being really horrible about it?