In the process of selling and buying. 9 weeks in and process has been smooth so far, everyone collaborative and it looked we were ready to exchange this week.
The buyers own a flat that they were not intending to sell for now and were hit with the recent increase in stamp duty rate for 2nd properties. They claim they don’t have the money to pay the difference (approximately £9k) and their suggestion is everyone else to wait for them to sell the flat.
Estate agent say they are not open to ask for loans. I suggested then they decrease the deposit amount and increased the mortgage amount, same dismissive answer from the agent, “this is not something they are open to do, it will likely change their rate etc etc”. I find very unlikely that £9k added to the mortgage would have a very significant impact in their eligibility, interest rate or monthly payments, or am I missing something? They would need a new product but surely worth to explore with their broker if it could save us all time?!
Feeling quite pissed off over this as the buyers can get a tax refund if they do sell the flat in the next three years; or potentially can even maintain two the properties depending on their final monthly payments and rent they will be getting from the first flat. It’s seems to me a very privileged position where they just have to find a short term solution but won’t be losing money in the end. But the estate agent kinda suggest that the only option is to wait! I lost my patience today and said that isn’t reasonable.
I really want the house we are buying and spent £££ in the process but I’m not comfortable at all with how passive the agent is and how our buyers, who are the ones with less to lose in the entire chain, seem unwilling to try and sort a solution.
What would you do? We received several offers for our property but we had two first time buyers changing their mind early on the process, so we do feel quite disheartened with the idea of going back to the market.
Sorry for the long post, just needed to vent, feeling very sad about this…