We made an offer at the absolute top of our budget on a lovely house, thinking it needed little to no work. The building survey came back saying that the loft conversion is not actually a "habitable room" (despite being marketed as a bedroom), partially on the basis of not having all the proper fire safety measures in place (okay, that's fixable), but far more worryingly, because the floor has significant movement (joists not strong enough to support habitation etc.), and we would need to basically do a full re-conversion of the loft in order to make it usable as a bedroom.
The plot thickened yesterday as, due to an error by the vendor's seemingly incompetent solicitor, we found out that the EA had lied to us about a previous offer that had been accepted on the house. Basically, an offer had already been accepted, but that buyer's chain fell through, and so the vendor put it back on the market, which is when we viewed it and put in an offer. The EA had told us that the previous buyer had offered asking price. It turns out that actually they had actually offered 2% lower than asking price and had it accepted. We felt pressured by what the EA said (as the previous buyer was still interested, and the EA made it sound like there was a lot of other interest too), and so went in much nearer asking. We are cash buyers, so probably did not need to go in so high, as the vendor doesn't need the money for their move, and are clearly keen to move quickly.
What should be our strategy for negotiation? We want to ask for a reduction that will cover the cost of making the loft conversion habitable (as it was advertised), but I also want to mention how disappointed we are to have found out we were lied to (not their fault, but it affects how we feel about the purchase, given that we're really pushing at our limit — they should be angry at the EA/solicitor really). Clearly if they were willing to accept the previous lower offer, the house was overpriced, since the previous buyer must have given the highest offer (perhaps even the only one).
One final complicating factor is that I believe they had a competing offer at the same time as ours (though who knows anymore?), which was higher than ours. They went with ours for the cash-buyer convenience, so clearly that aspect does matter to them (also evidenced by the fact that they pulled out of the previous sale when the buyer's chain fell through, in order to get a move on), and I'm wondering if that will help us here.
Please help! I have a constant nervous sick feeling in my stomach because I have no idea how this is going to go, and I feel cross about the lies, the inconvenience of fixing the loft problem, and the fact that we seem to be overpaying regardless. We do really like the house, but we would have to draw the line somewhere, and I don't know where that somewhere should be.