Gazundered day before exchange

[BenjiCat]

We were all on track to be exchanging this week with completion on for the end of next week. We were waiting on our buyer's searches etc for some time and they finally came through earlier this week.

Call this morning from the estate agent. Buyer has dropped their offer by £15k due to 'immediate issues flagged in the survey' with no details about what these are, no copy of the report and no estimations on how that figure has been calculated. We've said we'd need to see the report to understand the basis for their drop (and to potentially renegotiate... No promises). But they've been reluctant to do this and says they'd be happy to proceed with exchange tomorrow still should we agree to the £15k

Fuming does not cover feelings right now !!

Fingers crossed for you, Benjicat.

I'm not very experienced with the buying and selling process, so apologies if this is a really dumb question, but compared with taking a £15k loss, how much would you stand to lose in terms of solicitors' fees and other expenses if you do pull out of the sale and remarket the property?

Not advocating that Benji capitulates, just wondering what potential £££ hit is, in case I'm in the same position in the future!

The whole system is a disgrace. It is so stressful and costly. Tony Blair's Labour Government promised to sort it out. If I remember correctly, they introduced a "sellers pack". This included the EPC and some other information that the seller had to gather before selling. I can remember it costing approx £350. It was useless. It did nothing to address the real problems that still exist. The "seller's pack" was eventually ditched except for the EPC. What a waste of £350, no refund there of course.
I have always left every house really clean and ready to move into but if I was in your situation I would be so angry with them I would pack up my things and not do any cleaning, at all.
Hope all goes well after the BH

BenjiCat

This is exactly what happened to my mother . My parents had separated and she had confided to the agent I imagine about her situation and that she needed to sell asap .
I would now never tell an agent anything personal based on this unless it was to say I am in no rush and no bother
Anyway our family home exactly what happened to you massive drop at the last minute before exchange. It must be such a tactic and my mother took the price drop because she was needing to sell and in such a vulnerable place emotionally she just let them pull this tactic to get the place sold.
It’s daylight muggery praying on high emotions its the criminals oldest trick in the book.

I hope it all works out for you OP.
Tremendously stressful situation to find yourselves in.

I think adding to the chaos is the ethical vacuum I’ve experienced amongst estate agents. Very unclear who they act for (other than themselves in hopes of simple transactions gaining east commissions/fees). It’s ridiculous as a seller lpaying a huge amount of money to them to feel totally lacking in any trust about what they tell buyers. I have downright lied to estate agents before as I have no faith in what they say or where their professional relationship lies. Eg ‘if I don’t get asking price I’ll rethink and maybe move next year’ (when happy to think about lower offers and really wanting to move) or ‘I may just rent this as my purchase isn’t funded from this sale’ when actually that may be true but I don’t have any intention of becoming a landlord) etc etc. Paid around £25k in recent sale and there was no professional relationship at all !

@northernstar0412 £15,000 to start with, she may also lose the house she wants if the chain is disturbed while she is trying to get another mortgage.

Personally, I have not minded overpaying for a house I really wanted in a volatile market or accepting a lower offer for my house to secure my next one. But having someone throwing that shit at you on the eleventh hour taking advantage that you are pregnant, effectively robbing you of £15,000 while keeping the house is not the sort of resentment I I am prepared to carry around with me for years to come.

I would have put the house back in the market immediately. What I definitively wouldn’t have done is what the OP did… telling them is going to be taken off and put back in the market on x number of months. They may have no hurry to move if they are renting so telling them that may have made the things much easier for the buyer but the op will lose the house she wanted anyway.

Had similar to this when selling my first house. Buyers had offered 15k over the asking price (we’d put it on at a low price, other estate agent had valued it 25k more).
So they decided to drop their price 15k before exchange - because they were paying too much! We’d had more than one offer over asking price, so said a flat no. Then they came back and asked for our curtains for the (huge) bay window we had - for a good will gesture! Not sure what good will going on towards me who was 8 months pregnant! Said no again. Sale still went through but now we knew we were our poor neighbours would be getting arseholes for neighbours.

Tell them no, put it back on the market and don't let them say 'oh ok then we'll revert back to our original offer'

I've had that, dropped themselves right in it. Dick heads.

[quote GrandmasCat]@northernstar0412 £15,000 to start with, she may also lose the house she wants if the chain is disturbed while she is trying to get another mortgage.

Personally, I have not minded overpaying for a house I really wanted in a volatile market or accepting a lower offer for my house to secure my next one. But having someone throwing that shit at you on the eleventh hour taking advantage that you are pregnant, effectively robbing you of £15,000 while keeping the house is not the sort of resentment I I am prepared to carry around with me for years to come.

I would have put the house back in the market immediately. What I definitively wouldn’t have done is what the OP did… telling them is going to be taken off and put back in the market on x number of months. They may have no hurry to move if they are renting so telling them that may have made the things much easier for the buyer but the op will lose the house she wanted anyway.[/quote]
I'm afraid you've misunderstood me - I am all for Benjicat playing hardball - the buyer deserves everything they get!

As an inexperienced property seller, I want to know what kind of losses are incurred, if any, if a seller were to pull out because of gazundering, and remarket the property.

I was not having a go at you just pointing out how the gazundering would affect the OP. 🙂

I do believe that, if you are not getting the maximum mortgage, it is easy just to add the loss to the debt but then, adding £15k to your mortgage to accommodate a nasty person means that those extra £15 k may result on several years extra to pay your mortgage or ending up paying £30k back for them if you are planning to have a mortgage for a long time.

What I definitively wouldn’t have done is what the OP did… telling them is going to be taken off and put back in the market on x number of months. They may have no hurry to move if they are renting so telling them that may have made the things much easier for the buyer but the op will lose the house she wanted anyway.

@GrandmasCat Surely it is clear that, no matter when it goes back on the market, OP is not going to agree again to sell to these buyers? So the timing of remarketing makes no difference. In fact, by saying it will go back on in a few months, she is signalling that she is not at all desperate to sell (whereas “straight back on” could indicate urgency that they might try to use to their advantage).

Hi Grandma'sCat - I realise you're not having a go at me but I still don't think you understood my question. I've obviously communicated badly. Don't worry, it's no big deal

Fingers crossed for benjicat

So much of this goes on, it's a crazy house buying system.

It's made me decide that when I sell my house I'm going to lay down ground rules with the EA and buyers solicitors so they know to tell any buyer that the agreed price is the absolute final price and the house will go back on the market at a higher price if there's even a sniff of this kind of fuckery.

Do you think it will work if buyers understand the outcome before they try it on?

Empty every hairbrush in the place, form a large wodges of discarded hair (helps if you have teenage DDs, I will admit). Remove grills from shower, bath and basin plug holes and ram those wodges down as far and as hard as you can. Replace grills.
Incredibly annoying and absolutely undetectable.

OP you have my heartfelt sympathy. These tactics seem to be commonplace. I've mentioned in a different thread about nightmares we discovered in our house when we moved in but left out how awfully our sellers behaved. Our buyer was something else....not only did he demand £10k off because apparently the survey said house needed rewiring (we had never had a problem with it) in fact he asked for £15k and we eventually agreed on £10k. Then just at exchange he said he was £3k short because his purchasers had demanded a last minute reduction. We were told by our estate agent that everyone in the chain had been asked if they could contribute a small portion towards his ',missing ' £3k. They all refused. So yes it was us (mugs) who ended up 'gifting ' him - well the equivalent of - £3k. We suggested it be a loan that he paid back. He refused. We asked if perhaps he had a nice piece of furniture he could offer us in exchange- he said no. And yes absolutely all the parties involved- the buyer, the seller and all the fucking estate agents took full advantage as they knew we were in desperate financial circumstances and to top it all, were in the process of organising two- not one but two - close family funerals due to Covid all while exchange was going on. And the chain had been mostly in place for 5 months. We were in a state of despondency and heartbreak and all concerned took full advantage. I read so often that this happens to a pregnant buyer or seller and it makes me so furious how vulnerable people are preyed upon like this. But it's happened to so many of my friends now I think you almost need a contingency fund unless you really have balls and are in a position where you don't mind losing your purchaser or the house you've already fallen in love with. Months later i still feel traumatised by it all. DH not so much as he is thicker skinned. But it's definitely a reason we have put off moving so often in the past because the stress involved can be so debilitating. And the meanness and selfishness of some people just constantly amazes me. I always try to look for the good in people but when it comes to house buying it's like they turn into wolves!!

@mybalconyiscracking - I hope I remember this in the case of my ever needing it! Up till now, I had enjoyed the idea of the dead fish behind a radiator or prawns sewn into left-behind curtain hems, but this, not to split hairs, is genius!

Call their bluff, ok we’ll put our house back in the market…bye

Losing all the window keys is mildly irritating, replacing a few kitchen bulbs with dead ones, a random padlock somewhere-shed or garage with no key, turn off some of the more obscure stopcocks, contact every charity you can think of and tick the “information by post box”, dig up a few plants, cut the roots and put them back. cheap masking tape around a few window frames and light switches, lock all the windows and don’t leave a key..

Everything crossed, @BenjiCat, it’s such a dirty trick.
Happened to me once, a couple of days before exchange - and what pissed me off even more was that the EA urged me to give in - and it wasn’t as if the place was at all overpriced.
But I called her bluff and she went ahead at the original price.

Re rubbish left behind, etc., I bought a flat which was in a bad state anyway, and was told that the vendor would almost certainly be returning to his own country right afterwards.

I strongly suspected that he’d leave a load of crap behind - despite a stipulation that it must be left empty - so arranged to meet the EA there shortly before the money was due to be paid over.

Sure enough, he’d left a manky old sofa and lots of other rubbish. I refused to complete until he’d cleared the lot - so it was delayed for 24 hours.
He also left a stack of unpaid bills, around £20k’s worth, so later there were fun and games with debt collectors, but that’s another saga!

Thanks everyone. We're trying to be positive with a sunny bank holiday and seeing it as three days to 'de-stress' with non house related activities now.

For those asking about costs sunk we'd probably lose approx. £3.5k should it all collapse. Luckily I hadn't paid a deposit for removals yet and we ensured our estate agent agreement had no cost /penalty whatsoever for pulling out (payment on completion). So it would sting to lose the money, but not enough to give in to a reduction £15k. Totally agree with others that it would haunt me with bitterness forever if we did!

I will note our estate agents have been bloody brilliant actually. If it all pulls off then they have definitely earned their fee in the last couple days alone.

@Mybalconyiscracking,dig up plants and cut their roots.....what sort of person would do that?

buffoon good plan BUT surveys can identify things neither side had any idea about and which are unexpected and significant. Thing there is for buyers to be upfront, give evidence, get quotes - ie justify any proposed reduction. My buyers also understood I might want to get my own specialist quote (they sent me three specialist reports and quotes). So good to be very clear and at the same time realistic, quietly.

I wouldn’t actually, apologies. May have got a bit carried away!

That’s great news OP - fingers crossed for you!