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Original poster

Aargh - reduce for buyers or stand tough?

59 replies

Thurlow · 01/11/2021 11:57

Had a bit of a saga selling and buying anyway so am at my wits end here. Buyers bought in May, we lost properties in the summer, now waiting on a lovely chain-free property that we really want.

Our house is 120 years old and needed cosmetic work compared to other houses on our street, so was priced 10-15k less that other propertiesto take account of this. Offer accepted was 6k under asking. Buyers have held on for months while we found another property, so on the one hand we're grateful to them. But survey has come back and buyers now say house needs more work than they expected so have asked for a £14.5k reduction Shock - this is apparently for some building work a contractor has said needs doing, but is the kind of thing the contractor was never going to say didn't need doing, so it's pretty hard to trust that, and anyway if the work does need doing, it's not so urgent the house is going to fall apart within 5 years if it's not done...

We can't afford that reduction. Plus that would mean they got our house at an absolute steal for a property this size in a very popular part of town. And of course, in 6 months the property has gone up by about 20k anyway!

We could say no, it's offer price or we relist (house should sell well at the price we want, market is sparse, and we could be more open about work needed doing) - but obviously that means we do risk losing our onward property, which is a dream house.

Gah! What would you do?

OP posts:
Viviennemary · 01/11/2021 12:03

It depends. House prices are ready to dip IMHO. But if I thought I would lose my dream house then I would be prepared to negotiate a drop to cover the work needed.

Clymene · 01/11/2021 12:05

I would tell them to sod off.

Original poster
Thurlow · 01/11/2021 12:07

I don't really think we could reduce more than 2-3k and that's not really anything compared to what they want. Anything more and I suspect that we'd have ask to borrow more money on our mortgage.

I can't read them - on the one hand they say to the EA that the last thing they want is for this to all fall through, then in the next breath they say they want a reduction.

OP posts:
LakeShoreD · 01/11/2021 12:09

We can't afford that reduction
That answers your question doesn’t it??
Given you’re hoping to move to the dream house, rather than telling them to sod off I’d personally be inclined to negotiate and hope you can agree on a reduction that will make your buyers happy but still ensure you have what you need to move. Fingers crossed for you!!

NoSquirrels · 01/11/2021 12:14

We can't afford that reduction.

Be honest with them.

Say you understand their position, but it’s impossible to sell to them at that price. That it was listed to take into account £15,000-worth of work needed at a point in the future, that they got it for £6,000 under that, and you cannot move forward with your onward purchase if you don’t sell at the price they offered originally.

So you’re terribly sorry but if they are prepared to walk away over this you understand their position and will resist the property.

(It’s a polite and sympathetic ‘fuck off’)

Original poster
Thurlow · 01/11/2021 12:17

@NoSquirrels

We can't afford that reduction.

Be honest with them.

Say you understand their position, but it’s impossible to sell to them at that price. That it was listed to take into account £15,000-worth of work needed at a point in the future, that they got it for £6,000 under that, and you cannot move forward with your onward purchase if you don’t sell at the price they offered originally.

So you’re terribly sorry but if they are prepared to walk away over this you understand their position and will resist the property.

(It’s a polite and sympathetic ‘fuck off’)

Grin I think that might be the answer we have to go with!

DH is sitting here saying "can we quote that exact phrasing to the EA?"

OP posts:
ISaidDontLickTheBin · 01/11/2021 12:20

How far through the conveyancing process are you on your purchase? If you are fairly close to exchange, it might be prudent to compromise with the buyers. If it's early days, relist.

Original poster
Thurlow · 01/11/2021 12:22

We're pretty much ready to exchange (only 3 properties in the chain).

If they were to look at what else they could get in this town for our agreed sale price they'd be lucky right now to get a 2-bed.

God I hate this process.

OP posts:
wallowmall · 01/11/2021 12:27

If you can't afford it then you can't afford it. However I think it's going to get tricky over the next few months if interest rates do start to raise, tax increases kick in so you may not want to lose your buyer.

We are selling soon but are preparing for the above.

NoSquirrels · 01/11/2021 12:32

The only other thing you could do is go to your upward purchase and say the chain is likely to fail as your buyers want a huge reduction - do they have any leeway in reducing their sale price by a couple £K so that you can pass that down the chain.

But I’d be loath to do that.

What’s the big cost thing they say needs doing, out of interest?

NoSquirrels · 01/11/2021 12:32

If they were to look at what else they could get in this town for our agreed sale price they'd be lucky right now to get a 2-bed.

Your estate agent should be pointing that out to them…

Original poster
Thurlow · 01/11/2021 12:33

It's the roof (was trying to sound a little vague in case they were on here!)

It's not about to collapse. It's an old house and so will need a new roof at some point, but it's genuinely not about fall in on them.

OP posts:
Peaseblossum22 · 01/11/2021 12:34

Do not agree you a in a strong position, if they pull out they are unlikely to find anything else at that price , you have already accommodated the 15k in the original asking price plus prices have risen. They have to ask after all you might have said yes but I would be completely honest and just say no .

Original poster
Thurlow · 01/11/2021 12:34

Your estate agent should be pointing that out to them…

They have - we have a good EA and they have been going back to the buyers and saying look, you're getting a great deal and there's nothing else on the market - but not sure its working.

OP posts:
NoSquirrels · 01/11/2021 12:35

Roof? I’d tell them no, then. Original roof is a thing you can see on arrival at a property.

Hunkydory99 · 01/11/2021 12:51

If they’ve been hanging on for you surely they’ve had the survey and known about this ‘issue’ for some time, why are they bringing it up now? My guess would be because they’re being opportunistic. Say no.

wallowmall · 01/11/2021 12:55

The thing is if I was them I'd do the same so it depends how much they want it.

Didiusfalco · 01/11/2021 12:55

I agree with pp. They knew it was an old roof, that’s barely even a survey issue, it’s common sense. I think given everything you’ve said I would hold my nerve and give them the ‘sorry but no’ answer a pp suggested.

fruitbrewhaha · 01/11/2021 12:55

I'd put it back on the market today for £25k more. Ask if you can buy the searches from them. Then see if they are still interested.

MoiraNotRuby · 01/11/2021 12:56

What is it about your dream house, that makes it your dream? If it fell through, you would find somewhere else wouldn't you?...

My advice would be not to reduce your price. Everyone knows that roofs need to be replaced every so often its hardly a surprise to them.

jackstini · 01/11/2021 12:58

This happened to my BIL & SIL

They put it back on the market and sold for £20k more

I would call their bluff. You can't afford to meet the reduction anyway (& wording from pp above was perfect!)

Original poster
Thurlow · 01/11/2021 13:06

What is it about your dream house, that makes it your dream? If it fell through, you would find somewhere else wouldn't you?...

It's a huge house for the price and in a great location and we'd be so disappointed to lose it. BUT we don't need to move, we're just able to afford a much bigger house, so if fell through we'd all be really disappointed but it wouldn't be the end of the world. There's always a chance that our vendors would wait for us to relist and give us a week or two to get new buyers, it's not a given that it would all fall through. There's little else to buy ATM though, so if this all fell through I think we'd have to put the whole house moving thing on hold for 6 months or so.

Glad the consensus is pretty much "no". We've decided to use PP's post and amend it slightly. We can offer 2k off and that's it.

After detailed consideration, we have decided that the only reduction we can offer is to take the property down to £XXX.

We are unable to sell the property at any lower price. The property was priced by to take into account the £XXX worth of work needed at some point in the future to bring it up to a similar standard as other properties in the local area, and the offer we accepted was then a further £XXX underneath that price.

Without receiving the price originally offered, we are unable to move forward with our onward purchase.

We would like to remind the buyers that all legal work has been completed and all parties in the chain are not in a position to look at exchange and completion dates.

We understand the buyers position but we are not able to accept any lower price for our property. Should this price not be acceptable, we will unfortunately have to relist the property.

And we're not going to reply until probably Wednesday morning.

How does that sound?

OP posts:
TheEconomista · 01/11/2021 13:06

I'm always surprised how aggressive people are about this particular issue. A house needing a new roof isn't a small thing. I'm not a surveyor so unless it literally had holes I'd have no idea on viewing what state it was in. I really don't see it as 'opportunistic' it's thousands of pounds a buyer wasn't expecting to pay.

However, if you can't afford it, you can't afford it. The reply above is perfect.

Out of interest, if you found your new house needed an extra £15k of work (which you don't have, as you say) wouldn't you want/need to renegotiate too?

wallowmall · 01/11/2021 13:21

Out of interest, if you found your new house needed an extra £15k of work (which you don't have, as you say) wouldn't you want/need to renegotiate too?

Of course, I definitely would & have so I always except my buyers to act similar to me but that seems unusual on MN.

EdgeOfTheSky · 01/11/2021 13:32

I would point out that prices have risen since you accepted their offer.

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