Found myself in this lovely position today :(
Accepted the buyers offer at start of summer. Wasn't the highest but they seemed like a nice older couple. One red flag was this was during Lockdown when it was only two people per visit. They came about 3 times and on the last visit brought 2 builders, their grown up kids who don't live with them, and a random friend who didn't even know why she was there! Acting as if the house was theirs and the wife was a real attention seeker.
They were mortgage free as downgrading from a larger house and wanted to move quickly. Conveyancing started swiftly - seemed like they were stupid enough to think they could beat Stamp Holiday.
However, they picked a bargain-basement solicitor and a terrible surveyor so no chance of that!
Then - 2 days after the Stamp holiday when I was on my honeymoon they started brining up 'issues' in the survey which had been delivered weeks ago. Demanded £15k off the price. Ridiculous things that the we only just replaced in the big referb last year that their crappy surveyor who spent 10 mins (no joke) surveying our house. Every single item we could counter with the fact that they were band new.
It was like this for a few weeks of them becoming stubborn, rude to our EA and entitled, threatening to pull out over trivial matters (mainly because their comedic solicitor wasn't passing info on). Every time they realised they didn't have a leg to stand on it would all go back to being that lovely retired couple. Then try their luck again or go quiet for a week - trying to play hardball. It was draining.
This week, everything finally satisfied with conveyancing and they wanted to see the house before exchange day to 'measure up'. So after a professional clean, they they spent two hours at our house until 9:30pm (not taking the hint we have a 2 year old that needs sleep) - measuring, asking daft questions about standard fridge sizes, wanting to know how things worked and where the wifi box was etc.
All went perfectly - in person they were lovely and even my partner who really grew to detest the wife thought she was nicer in person.
Then today - the day we should be exchanging, they wake up and decide its not for them. Had a chat with them and they loved the house, loved the area - but said things like 'oh my wife doesn't like the style of the front door' and 'we would have to extend into the loft to get the space we want' (something they said they would do on day one when they visited).
Our house isn't even that much smaller then their current house which they sold for nearly twice the price. Basically they want their existing house for the price of ours. Good luck!
They dangled us along for months, ruined our purchase and have already received the deposit from their buyers (who are renting) and claim they are going to wait around for them to restart the house hunting process again with their shoddy solicitors.
Whether this is all a game - I don't care. I would rather put my house between two slices of bread and eat it then sell to idiots like them. I like my neighbours too much to do that to them.