Am I a mug for not gazundering?

[Togazunderornot]

We made an offer a couple of months ago for a house in North London that, although is not our forever home would be our home for the next 5 to 10 years.
We like the property and offered asking, mortgage would be long but around what we pay in rent now so not an overstretch but will be paying it in our sixties.
Survey came back with 25k of repairs but to be honest it felt like surveyor was catastophising a bit so we did not renegotiate.
We are now getting closer to exchange and all of these news do make me fret and now thinking we might be overpaying. I come from a country where there is not such thing as gazundering gazumping and an offer is binding unless you can't get a mortgage.
However I do feel like this is part of the game in England and not doing it is simply plainly stupid. I think it is a bit distasteful, and believe in karma so am I a mug if I don't gazunder?
Note we are still a couple of months from exchange as sellers would need to serve notice to tenants, doing it days before is really out of order!

Ok, I have a question for you.

Let’s imagine you’re in the same situation but instead of markets falling, they’re rising. What would you think if the sellers came back to you this late in the process and asked for another £20k to reflect the change in the market price?

Your response to this provides your answer.

If you think it’s fair that you should have an offer accepted and then suddenly when you’re close to exchanging, the sellers ask for more - then crack on and drop your offer.

If you’d have felt aggrieved at the sellers asking for more money, then it’s equally unfair that you now ask to pay less.

If you absolutely believe that you’re paying a ridiculously high price then you might need to consider it. You shouldn’t buy a house out of politeness.

However, as a general rule both gazumping and gazundering are rotten things to do. If you have to do so, you should have an extremely good reason because it’s a shitty thing to do.

Do make sure you’re certain about the survey though. We thought our surveyor was being a bit over-cautious too and it was fine. We didn’t ask for a reduction either - but this was last summer and there were buyers queuing up to take our place!

Renegotiating after a survey is completely normal though & not gazundering

We offered in November and exchanged recently. The survey showed the usual old house issues but we didn't renegotiate as there are always issues with older houses. We know we've bought in a falling market didn't feel it was fair to reduce our offer at the last minute, it just didn't sit right with us.

I'd be more worried about the tenants and if they can get them out

Crack on and re negotiate for goodness sake, values are about to start falling rapidly in my opinion. You have a very reasonable reason with the report of 25k of repairs. Add to that the fact the property has been a business for the vendor and not a home. They will be expecting it.
You would be a mug not to.

Surely you have agreed your mortgage now anyway based on previous rates?

You can’t keep changing an offer that’s been accepted based on fluctuations in the market no that would be highly unfair.

However I think you missed an opportunity to negotiate down a bit after the survey. That would have been normal and expected for the buyers.

Either pull out completely if you are no longer happy with the agreement or forget talk of lower prices and just be happy you have a house sale proceeding.

Hang on. Do you mean that the sellers haven't even served notice to the tenants?! Don't proceed any further until this has been done. You do not want to end up in a situation where they don't move out for whatever reason. Please check old threads on here about pitfalls of buying with tenants in situ.

Secondly, it's no gazundering to renegotiate after a survey.

If you do renegotiate, have a look at this which might be helpful:

Overall, do not overpay at present in a (probably rapidly) falling market.

I don’t like the bit about tenants not having been served notice and this would 100% put me off, but in terms of not gazundering, no I don’t think you are making a mistake: we are just about to complete on a house we offered 10k under asking price for. Our survey came back with work that needed doing (our vendors were upfront about this and happily accepted our initial offer under asking). As far as I’m concerned, our mortgage is agreed already on the price the house was and I’m sure prices will recover at some point. I’m very much of the opinion in our situation that - as much as this is a business transaction - gazundering at this point would be unfair, and potentially lose us our dream house; in much the same way that them gazumping us if prices had risen instead would be.

DO NOT buy that properly with the tenants still in situ. Whatever they tell you.

You are stupid for not renegotiating after getting a survey that has quoted 25k repair work. Unless your getting the property for an absolute bargain in the first place.

I would have negotiated after getting the results of the survey - 25k may be an exaggeration but I would still say I am worried about all the things that need doing, I expect you to meet in the middle with a 10-15k reduction.

You don't need to watch that tedious guy that @rainingsnoring is always promoting - believe me that Charlie goes on & on to say the most basic stuff.

Just tell the estate agent to pass on that you expect a reduction after the bad survey. And it is worrying that the tenants haven't been served notice yet. You should tell the estate agent that you want notice served now or you will walk away from the deal. They need to give 2 months notice and you need to view the house just before Exchange to make sure the tenants have gone.

I would say that a knowledgable friend read through the survey and reckons that you need to spend 25-30k on remedial work. Then ask to drop that much.

I don’t think it’s gazundering if, after a survey identifies hidden problems you couldn’t see, you revise your offer based on the new information you have. To me gazundering is waiting until the 11th hour to make a lower offer knowing it’ll be hard for them to back out.

What did your survey flag? Did they rate the repairs red (urgent) or yellow (you’ll need to do it eventually)?

Also don’t exchange until the owner had vacant possession, giving notice doesn’t mean the tenants will actually leave.

Sorry OP, but you’re a mug to pay out for a survey before the tenants left, let alone before they were given notice.

They could still be in the property for months and months yet, if the landlord has to evict.

Keep looking for other properties.

Why on earth didn't you renegotiate after the survey results?!
That's not gazundering, that's just common sense and very normal
Fine for you to do that

Do not exchange until the tenants are physically out of the property

Yes 2 months notice is standard, but many will not leave and owner may have to go through court to get them out, so another 6 months or so

Agree with the advice above, do not exchange until they have vacant possession, finding new rented accommodation could be hard for the tenants because it is a competitive market, but you don’t want to be waiting on that to happen, it could stretch into many months. If you are also selling you could lose your buyers if they can’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. Do they , your mythical buyers, even know about the tenants in your new property?

In short, yes - you are being a mug.

Plus the tenant issue.

I also think you have to be clear what is gazundering and what isn't. Gazundering is generally thought of as trying to negotiate the price down immediately before the point of exchange.

Negotiating the price down because you've had a bad survey is perfectly reasonable. That is part of the whole point of having a survey in the first place !

It's just thought of (by some people but by no means all) as more ethical to do it as soon as you have the information that you want to negotiate down rather than wait until very close to the point of exchange.

We negotiated a couple of thousand off due to a bad survey. We also walked away after a really bad survey. Saw the house having a new roof four years later so glad we dodged that.

No need for you to interfere as you always do @Twiglets1 . Why do you always feel the need to do this? It's really odd behaviour, a bit creepy really.

Charlies may be waffly but his advice is very helpful to many and that video may well be v helpful to @Togazunderornot which is why I posted it.

Oh what a surprise, a personal insult for me and a recommendation for Charlie’s YouTube - how predictable!

Gazundering is done but it's massively frowned upon. It can break chains if the person you're buying from is relying on that money for their onward purchase. If you put your offer in assuming a certain amount of works needing doing, you need to stick with that. If you genuinely are worried about affordability that's a different thing.

@Twiglets1 would you mind not following me around MN in order to insult me and derailing other people's threads? It is in indeed odd behaviour.
If you stopped jumping in and criticising advice that I intend to be helpful, this would not be a problem.

Of course you can renegotiate. Its a shitty thing to do in a stable market but in the current market no one knows what is going to happen and realistically 20% falls are possible.

I would go back and suggest that surveyors report came back with 25k of repair which you were minded to accept but that in combination with current flux in market and yesterday's dramatic interest rate rise which makes house price falls look inevitable you need to agree a serious reduction. I would be asking for 10% by the way. Unless they are deluded they will be expecting it.

Oh get over yourself. I just post a lot in the property forum as do you. Hardly following you around 🙄

This is the fair way to explain it to the agent and well worded.