Difficult Buyers

[micci124]

Good evening all.

We are in the process of selling our house, accepted an offer on our already reduced house. Things were progressing nicely until an error was spotted on the purchase price, nobody is sure what is going on for sure, but our buyers are maintaing they offered 5k less than what the estate agent offered to me over the phone. They were understandably angry and shocked, however despite being sent a memorandum of sale with the purchase price 30 days, only just actioning this now. We are at the top of borrowing for the next house and cannot afford the extra 5k. Even though, this isnt our fault we offered 1.2k extra. This was flatly refused. There seems to be no empathy for us by them and they seem to be going beyond the realm of politeness. I think there is foul play here,and I'm tempted to tell them to shove it. Any advice? Thanks

If they record phone calls, do they also have the recording of your buyers making the offer?

Surely the buyers either emailed their offer or rang with it? Can’t they check phone recordings?

So your EA has a recording of them committing the mistake and then offering you the erroneous amount?

Though ultimately I guess it doesn't matter. If they're not going to pay it, then they're not going to pay it. You either accept the lower amount, or remarket.

What a crappy situation OP, sorry you're having to deal with this.

No. It was just the Estate Agents giving me the higher offer on their behalf and me accepting.

Apparently they came in...in person to talk to EA, who rang with the offer.

That's your answer. They are not only trying to gazunder but doing it very deviously - sadly your buyers are wrong 'uns. The EA should tell them they have the phone records, and the price that was agreed still stands and won't be re-negotiated in future. If they pull out then at least the next lot might be decent people.

No one in the right mind wouldn’t review the memorandum of sale.

I’m another one who thinks they’re chancing it

I don't understand it either.

Just to be clear: there is no recording of the buyers offering an amount over the phone or in person at the premises? No recording of the amount they offered anywhere?

Ok, didn't see that, our posts crossed. So did the EA ring through the offer while they were sitting there in the office with him or her?

No. Only the EA doing iit on buyers behalf. Not the buyers themselves.

We don't know. Cannot get a straight answer on that one from the EA.

This EA seems suspicious. It’s awfully convenient of them to not have proof from the buyer.

I mean, that is a monumental fuck up on the EA's part. But then again, the fact your buyers haven't flagged this up within the 30 days is suss as.
What exactly does your EA have to say about it?

Wow that really is some devious master plan, if people are suggesting the buyers have deliberately gone into the EA to make an offer in person, to ensure that there’s no record, either telephone recording or in writing, of their offer, so that they can then dispute it later down the line to get 5k knocked off.

Or the more obvious scenario - that the EA have fucked up and rather than hold their hands up and admit that, they’re trying to get both the buyer and seller to split the difference - anything as long as the EA’s don’t miss out on their commission!

Even if it was their grand evil master plan, the fact the EA didn't ask them to put it in writing somewhere is a bit mind-boggling.

They don’t need to have empathy though, it’s a financial transaction.

I’d want a new agent.

They are chancers. Tell them to get lost. I doubt if this is a genuine mistake

Sounds like they're trying it on hoping you'll cave.

Tell them the issue is between them and their EA, and if they don't confirm they're going ahead by X date/time, you'll be relisting.

Yeah, nah… my memo of sale also went to my solicitor and mortgage company even though I had a higher % deposit. Massive transaction and you don’t check the document with the numbers on until a month later?

That said - do people actually have enough time on their hands to go make an in person offer in the EA office? Don’t normal people, you know, phone or email?

Bizarrely we were in a sort of similar situation last year - the Memorandum of Sale was correct, but our buyers solicitor put the wrong amount on the contacts. I think our buyers and EA knew about this but tried to keep quiet about it - until the contracts were exchanged and our solicitor pointed out the error (I think they were hoping we'd just suck it up). It had already been a difficult chain/process and none of us wanted to pull out but we couldn't afford to make up the difference. There were some fraught conversations and in the end our EA and the buyers solicitors reduced their bills to 'compensate'.

The whole thing was a lot more complicated that the I've written about but you don't want to hear all the gory detail. Ultimately we turned it around so the people who made the mistakes were forced to fix it or lose the whole chain. (I noticed that the agent who was dealing with our sale is now working at the Post Office - make of that what you will!).

If you cannot afford the £5K loss, and there is no way for you to find any more money, then you'll have to instruct your estate agent to tell the buyers they need to stump up more and the sale progresses, or you'll have to put the house back on the market, even if that means your chain breaks and you risk losing the house you were hoping to buy. You don't really have any other option that I can see.

It seems very odd that the estate agent apparently has no phone calls and, even more strangely nothing in writing confirming the offer at all. Very odd.
However, let's assume that the buyers are being thoroughly dishonest, if they refuse to pay the extra 5k, you will still need to re-market your home. There is therefore no point in agonising about whose fault this is because the outcome is the same if they cannot or will not compromise.