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 !!

Good luck!! I feel your pain, selling is so anxious making. At the very least they need to say why they want that money off.

My feeling is that it will go through. We will see!!

In my case a sale fell thro at the last minute. I was living elsewhere having lived in the flat I owned for 11 years, I rented it to try elsewhere, then put it up for sale, got buyer, tenant left, I paid the mortgage and my own rent for two months, then buyer just didn't come back to us before exchange. Just stopped responding. I had to make the call to hand in my notice and move back to my old area.

In retrospect it worked out as I was living with my fiance properly, in my own home, and when covid came along, we were safe and stable. We sold the year later and are now buying where we have moved to. I feel the pain of people buying and selling.

I will watch your thread with interest and have fingers crossed for you xxx

Of course they’re first time buyers 🙄. I’ve stipulated to our EA that I want nothing to do with FTBs when we sell. They are notorious for these stunts as they have nothing to lose.

Yes set a 12 or 1pm deadline. Do not give away 15k.

Happened to me - signed contracts and removals booked etc when the bd wanted £20k off because of the results of the survey (structural). I argued £10k off as I was so desperate for health reasons to move and he was a (friend) who had made the offer as he knew the house.
I argued that no builder had come round to quote (I would have seen them). He had had this survey done 6 weeks before and had not argued the toss then. It was blatant tactics prompted by someone who advised him to play the game.

In the end I agreed to £12k off (which hurt) and wished him very bad kharma.

I do not understand why people think they are so clever doing this. He knew I needed to move (like you OP) and knew I had already shelled out solicitors fees, moving fees and the rest.
I do wish I had told him to forget it - which I would have done had he tried this trick earlier.

Buying and selling in the UK is horrendous - something needs to change (or some people need to be more honest)

Do FTBs really have nothing to lose? Many are on the limits of affordability/LTV so money spent on surveys/solicitors eats into their deposit and is money down the drain.

Also they could be paying rent so the longer they delay buying, the more they have to pay on rent.

Totally awful of any buyer to pull a stroke like this when you are so close to exchange, if they wanted to re negotiate at survey, you bring it up when you have the report not the day before exchange.

I am pretty sure they are bluffing.

Our buyers tried this after survey, EA wanted to send us a copy of the report, DH a said NO I am selling not buying, I am not interested in what the report says, our buyers need to confirm today that they are going ahead at the agreed price or we are re-marketing. It worked our sale went through at the agreed price.

You can’t go over the bank hol worrying about this, say exchange today at the agreed price or the deal is off. Stand firm.

Good luck

Don't do what saleorbuoy suggested in asking your agent to fabricate an alternative offer- tempting as this feels it's illegal for an estate agent to do this and goes against their professional code of conduct. Hope your chat with solicitor goes OK this morning and your (possibly naive?) FTBs see sense!

I'd be furious!

Of instruct my EA to put on their site immediately at today's valued price - which is surely more than it was in March- and line viewers up for this weekend unless they exchange today then viewers are coming

They really are cheeky fuckers Op. stand your ground as prices are going up, not down!

Hope you exchange today!

Your proposed response doesn't sound firm enough and sounds still open to negotiation. 'No, sorry. This house is actually worth more now. Proceed by 12pm today or it will be back on the market for the weekend at a higher price' As you've said, a bank holiday wondering would be torture

You need to genuinely put the fear of god into them that they are about to lose this if they don't get on with it.

Your responses need to be much firmer. If there is ok exchange at the original price by a set time, the house is back on the market immediately and any future offers by them will not be considered.

[quote TakeYourFinalPosition]**@perfectasalways* The mortgage company would have needed to see the surveys before producing the mortgage offer.*

When do they usually ask for the survey? We’ve got our full mortgage offer, and paid for a RICS building survey, but the mortgage offer was through before the survey was done and nobody has asked to see it.

Should we be expecting them to ask for it?

I know they did a desktop valuation, so they haven’t visited the place we’re (hopefully) buying.

Thank you![/quote]
They might not! Our homebuyers survey valued our house significantly under what we'd offered (to the point that we knew the seller wouldn't be able to come down even close) but thankfully our high street mortgage provider felt the house was worth our agreed price based on location alone so we were able to secure the mortgage and they never asked to see any surveys.

We had wealthy relatives at the top of the chain who stepped in and bought the equivalent of the ops house at the bottom of the chain when the FTB at the bottom of the chain pulled out 😁

We were recommended to do this by our mortgage advisors! We absolutely did not, horrible horrible trick.

Equally my poor friend’s survey came back with 40k worth of work. They asked for 15k reduction (way before exchange) and the owner refused. They continued anyway because there was nothing else on the market. When they started work, it revealed even more. Ended up costing an extra 15k, the house was absolutely disgustingly dirty to top it all off and the previous owner couldn’t even be bothered to set up a re direct.

It works both ways sometimes!

That said I hope you stick to your guns and they exchange without being twats. They’d have had the survey done ages ago!

Don’t negotiate with them, be firm and give them a dealing of 2pm today before it goes back on market. Then get it sold in an auction if you want fast and guaranteed sale- go with a specialist auction selling agency and get more money dor it with a fast sale.

Good luck!

Agree a firmer response is needed. Proceed today or we re-list. Yours suggests you're willing to negotiate.

Get it back on the market now and get your EA to send them a link to the rightmove listing.

Omg complete cheeky fuckery. Stand firm.

Hold fast OP.

I would tell the estate agent to

• get it ready to go back on the market at noon
• make a call list of anyone else who expressed an interest, and to be ready to call them this afternoon
• call the buyer and say —fuck right off you absolute fuckwits— complete by noon or it’s back on the market and will not be available to you.

Then you sit and wait. Important to make it noon as it then gives your agent time to line up new viewers for the weekend.

They are being absolute bastards.

So you need to refuse and point out the following:
Not going to reduce the price as the report / details have not been shared.
Any price change at such a late stage in the process - administration changes ,mortgage amendments etc will now mean you miss your October move window anyway.
You will give them till 1pm today to decide whether they want to continue with the purchase and then it will be put back on the market.

They are being CF

I wouldn’t even ask to see the survey. Just tell them it’s going on the market this afternoon unless they exchange.

First time buyers often panic when they see a homebuyers report because it's always full of arse-covering phrases from the surveyors who don't want to say "the roof is fine" or "no problems with the drains" because if they missed something small that costs the buyers money the surveyors want to be sure they could never be sued. So the report is full of "no immediate issues were seen with the danp proof course but you'd need a full report from a qualified specialist to be sure" which can be scary to read as if you take them all seriously then any house looks like a money pit.

The points above about prices rising not falling and that any change in price will affect the LTV arrangements along thd whole chain are both sufficient grounds to refuse to budge.

The reason they haven't shared the report with you is because it concludes with the surveyor confirming that the agreed purchase price is a reasonable value for the property despite any issues highlighted.

I think you need to go back HARD and not at all
Sounding like you’ll compromise.

It's a real pain and dreadful tactics BUT you need to take a deep breath and work out what's best for you.

It's invariably a tactic by your buyers but you can't rule out that if you say no they'll walk away.

At bottom line, you need to work out whether you can live financially with some price drip and if you can't, you can't and tell them that.

If you lose the buyer and have to remarket, will everyone else in the chain wait for you? They might do up to a point or they might not.

If the buyer pulls out he'll have wasted costs but if that causes the chain to collapse, so will you. If that happens and you need to buy a different house, will that then be more expensive ie outweighing any increase you then get for your house?

It's then down to what negotiating position you think you've got, what you think the buyers actually want (ie is £15k their opening gambit but they'd take less) and how you want to play it. If you call their bluff that might work but if them walking away when there was a compromise, that's not really a great outcome for you.

You also need to know what the timings are : are they saying that if you agree a price drop of some amount that they will exchange today and complete as planned or would then need to get that signed off?

If they'd need to get a price drop signed off then I'd be more tempted to say that if they can't exchange today you'll need to think whether you still want to go ahead.

If they can exchange today, I think I'd be tempted to offer a very small reduction (£2k with perhaps the agent throwing in a small
amount from the commission....) but only on the condition they exchange today. I'd offer it through very gritted teeth but pragmatically that might get you where you
need to be. Or chance it and just say you can't accept that and it needs to happen today.

Personally I wouldn't threaten anything you aren't sure you want to act on.

I wouldn't bother asking for the survey as that implies you're going to consider it and possibly give them the money off.

Good luck....

Our buyer tried exactly this..We told them that if they didn't show us the survey we wouldn't even consider shifting. They refused. It was a but if a stand off but we held our ground and they crumbled and exchanged the next day.. Iftjeres something serious in that report they'll show you.. After all its potentially worth £15k to them!