Should i ask for a price reduction

[KonfusedLondoner]

We got the offer for our purchase accepted around mid March a few days after the SDLT extension was announced. We have been ready to exchange since mid May but our sellers have been extremely slow with their purchase process (though they had found their new house before our offer was accepted) and have been moving the exchange dates since last week of May and have been informed by their solicitors last week that completion will not happen by this month end. So, we would end up losing the whole of SDLT reduction (purchase price is more than 900K). Do you think we should ask a reduction in the price to match the additional tax we would end up paying??

You can ask. The sellers can say yes or no. Most people making offers after the extension was announced have been advised repeatedly not to bank on making the new deadline and to assume they’d have to pay stamp duty so I wouldn’t be surprised if your sellers tell you to suck it up. It doesn’t seem to be any fault of theirs that things have been held up, very possible their own seller stalled or they just have a slow conveyancer.

Yep. Are you prepared to walk away from the house over it ?

You can ask. They can say yes, no, or meet somewhere in the middle. You can equally walk away if you so choose.

These things are all negotiable.

I think you need to think less about asking (which is fine to do so btw), but what if they say no. Have your strategy ready.

Maybe everyone in the chain will take 15k off their sale... only person who loses out is top of chain

Where in the country are you? If it’s somewhere that £900k houses make up a small % of houses, then wyes you should try. The seller would have to think carefully before refusing it as the house may not be so easy to re sell.

Perhaps you could say that you're willing to complete at the current price by the end of the month, but if that's not possible then your new offer is £x.
Do you feel like they're reluctant to sell?

I think it would depend on what was agreed at the beginning. Did you make it clear that the offer was dependant on meeting the deadline? House buying does take time (annoyingly) and 3 months is cutting it fine a little bit, but if you made it clear at the beginning then I would say it's fine to offer slightly lower.

We had offer accepted at the end of March. Luckily our house is cheap so not affected but our buyers are. If they put the price up now (as we may or may not make the deadline) I'd be very cross as it was always going to be tight.

Everyone is going to have to pay stamp duty now in the chain though, not just you. 3 months was cutting it fine anyway.

Did you say your offer was conditional on the SD deadline?

You can ask but are you prepared to loose the house over it if they say no?

Apologies.. It was a un expectedly busy Friday. We did not explictly state that as a condition but it was expected to complete before the SDLT since it was a short chain. Infact it was the sellers initially who were pressing for a June completion initially.. Agree with all your comments that it depends whether we are ready to walk away if they say no.

With the current market situation, what we are unable to predict is if we would be able to find another similar sized house within the same price bracket and complete by September. Sellers have been extremely slow in general with their process and now the problem seem to be due to their mortgage not yet approved. Reason not known to us so far.

The very thought of involving in the bidding war again is putting us off from making the call.

I'm going to reduce my offer if we miss stamp duty (very likely!). However, we put on our offer in October, so plenty of time for the sale to complete, and the hold up has 95% been due to the vendors and their solicitors.

Like others have said, the vendors may say yes, they may say no. I personally think it's worth the gamble as you may get something out of it. Worst case scenario is they say no and you have to pay it (which would be the outcome anyway) and best is a percentage off the sale! I think it's unlikely the sellers will tell you to eff off after asking for money off.

Another question is, reduce by how much? Cost of stamp duty? Extra cost of solicitor's fees having to rearrange a reduction in price?

@JaffacakeJanine I think the reduction request should be ideally covering both but at least the cost of additional stampduty..