Selling property

[shininglight16]

I'm in the process of selling my flat to a buyer who's an investor and is trying her level best to knock the price down even further. We're midway conveyancing and she's been playing pressure tactics to knock off another £10k.

Asking price was £300k, we got down to £290k and said that is it, no more negotiation. They agreed at £290k but since the valuation has come to £275k they want us to come down to that or £280k max. We would be losing money and are not ready to sell at that price since we bought for £260k and spent roughly £25k in doing it up (got burnt by the builder).

Now the thing is, a comparable has gone for £285k just opposite our block of flats and does not come with a private garage or a 900+ lease. We thought of putting our property up with the same agent who sold the flat in the opposite building and he came for a valuation today. He mentioned that someone from Connell's surveyors had called him last month and asked for the sold price of that price. It doesn't appear on the land registry yet since it was recently sold and I believe it takes about 6 months for the price to be updated.

Despite having that information, the surveyor from Connell's has undervalued our property which has additional features/benefits. Can we contest this? The buyer hasn't shared her valuation report. She's only been bargaining and using excuses such as 'I won't be living for 900 years', 'I don't need a private garage ' and other nonsense.

She's switched stories, changed solicitors, mortgage companies and wasted a lot of our time.

I just want to know what would be a sensible thing to do and tactical as well going forward, to contest that look a variable with lesser features, smaller size has gone for 285k recently and you're asking me to sell mine for 280k. Should I ask her to show me the valuation report, speak to Connell's directly and make an appeal? I don't know what's the best way to do this and for us to stand firm and complete this at £290k.

We don't have a like for like comparable to compare with in the history of sold prices within the last 6 months.

We need to close this and get on with our next purchase asap.

Many thanks in advance!

Sorry I sound complicated. We're new in this and haven't sold before. Worried she may play a dirty one on us at exchange of contracts.

Bottom line, you can't make her do anything.
You can say that you will remarket your property. But only do this if you are prepared to do this

Thinking out aloud if I can get 5k off the seller of the property we're buying.

Should I try that?

Very unlikely they will knock 5k off for no reason related to their house.

I can honestly see your chain collapsing because you are being unrealistic and tying yourself up in knots. You’ve now admitted your flat has attacked 2 valuations lower than the agreed price. Therefore if you lose this buyer - who hasn’t actually done anything wrong as far as I can tell - you’ll have the hassle of finding a new buyer and their valuation could equally be low. Plus you would have to pay EA fees next time. Plus you run the risk of your seller getting fed up with you as buyers & putting their property back on the market too.

Yeah this. I'm sorry you're being offered less than you thought but either accept it (and like PP's are saying it's really not that much compared to what it's valued at - especially with no EA fees) or say no and put it back on the market. But then you WILL pay fees and you might struggle to get anyone paying over the valuation (assuming they get a similar one) at all. Up to you.

Should have done that. Came down to £285000 and she said no. Played all sorts of pressure tactics. Said they're pulling out if we don't come down to £280k.

Feeling a bit sad. She played all sorts of games and said no for £285k. She said she was pulling out. It's going to be a start all over again. We will just need to shell more money out of our pocket to keep it, put it on rent and move to another house.

Why would you rent it out? Contact the EA and get it on the market.

Get it on the open market. If she's keen she will come back, if not then no more time wasted. It is shit though and I feel for you. I believe lots of people try this. Play her at her own game and let her go.

We're in a chain. The lady who's home we're buying is unwilling to wait any longer, she wants completion before Xmas. She has to move out of her home (the one we are looking to buy), hence, we can't sit with two properties and pay both mortgages out of our pocket. We need to rent this one out to pay the mortgage towards it and move to our new home by end of Dec.

Honestly we tried but we're in a chain that may fall apart. We need to move to our new home by end of Dec or they're pulling out. We spent over a year looking for our home.

Also there's no way we will find another buyer for our flat and have the sale completed by end of December. It's not happening. It takes 2 months at least.

Just feeling so cheated. First, the agent who sold us this flat cheated us and we overpaid by 10k in my opinion. Long story, I wish we weren't naive at the time. We were FTB. Then we got cheated by someone known to us (a so called family friend) who's in the building trade and who we trusted with the refurbishment of our home. He cheated us by 5-8k, did not finish the job, did a crappy job, and disappeared. Then we struggled with a fleecing managing agent who does not maintain our property and has risen the service charges from £1200 to £1700 within 3 years. Zero justification. No sight of other owners except two. One sold his flat recently under the asking price, he was desperate to leave. The other owner won't respond to emails. Now, we're getting screwed over again by a potential buyer who was very keen in the beginning, but ended up spinning stories, making excuses and knocking the price down more and more. If she had it her way, she'd want us to give it to her for free.

I feel cheated in every sense. It's been one after the other. I've heard of friends and family say, this property was very lucky for us, I feel that isn't the case with us. In total I'd say, we've lost 20k.

Well at least the situation is clear cut now.

You did the right thing to counter offer at 285k but they said No. They weren't playing games, they really meant it that 280k is the highest they will pay for your flat. Not completely unreasonable after a valuation of 275k & escalating service charges which they will be aware of via their solicitor.

You have a clear decision now, to accept 280k or start arranging to rent yours out. That will be a load of hassle and you have to consider things like there may be periods when you can't get a tenant in, or you may get tenants that damage your property. You probably think I'm being negative but I'm just being honest when I say that in my opinion you should just accept the 280k and get shot of that flat. I've lost money too on my first flat so I know it hurts. But sometimes it's better to just move on with your life.

It sounds like the pragmatic solution is accept the 280k and move on with your life.

I agree. With any work you have done to a house or flat you can't be sure you'll add value or even recoup your costs, plus the cost of materials has gone up hugely since the start of the pandemic. Presumably in the time you've lived there you've paid down some of the mortgage? Move on or you'll just feel trapped and resentful. You might be effectively starting again with the finances, but it will be so much better. You should buy somewhere to live in, not to make money.

@HellsBalls It's a tough situation but if I were you I'd sell it for 280k. It's three working weeks until Christmas so you are very unlikely to rent yours out in that time and when you do rent it you will incur costs by being a landlord. You'll also have to pay second home stamp duty which is 3 to 5 percentage points above the standard rates of SDLT.

Just accept the £280k offer get on with your life!!

This. You’ve made bad decisions before. Accept the £280k and move. This is why you pay estate agents to handle all of this.

I'd take the 280 and carry on.

This £5k will be cheaper than finding the additional stamp duty you'll need if you keep the flat and rent it out.

Did that they apparently now want to come down to 275k. They're jokers, untrustworthy and deceiving. We learnt from our mistake. We're just renting the flat out. Can get stamp duty back if we sell the flat within 3 years of purchasing our home.

We're learning a lesson from this. We'll never repeat the same mistake again. We were foolish. Thank you for all your comments and advice, really appreciate it 🙏

Have you had EAs in to value it? Would you not consider selling with one of those instead? I wouldn't necessarily change my plan because one private buyer turned out to be a no go.

Yes we did, they valued it at around 290. So that's what we went for but these prospective buyers had a survey done which came at 260 first then 275k. So that's a huge disparity there already.

Let me explain to make things clearer. The private buyer said ok for 290k. We involved solicitors and started conveyancing work. They appointed a solicitor first then after 1.5 months told us that the solicitor had changed because they had been told by their mortgage broker that they had to use their solicitor. (I'm not sure if this is true).

So 1.5 months wasted and they didn't bother informing anything.

Then came the surveys, it took another month for us to chase up and them to send a surveyor to do the valuation. First survey was done with Kensington Mortgages and the company they used was Connell's Surveyors. Survey's valuation came to£260k. We said no way and disagreed to sell at that price. The woman had the cheek to ask if we'd be ok to sell for £265k.

She then moved to Nottingham Mortgages and got 2nd survey done by Connell's surveyors which came to £275k. She told us she couldn't offer more and after back and forth came to £280k. We were standing firm at £290k, knowing the flat opposite our building went for £285k with lesser features. She wouldn't listen, she kept going on about the survey and didn't care about agents valuation or what the house opposite us sold at.

She's been an absolute nightmare to deal with and came to with poor excuses to make us give away OUR flat to her at the price SHE demanded. All sorts of pressure tactics. The mistake we made was not going through agents, that was a BIG mistake and we have learnt our lesson. This buyer came to us through a neighbour so we didn't even have any agent in between us. We just shouldn't have entertained her from the get go.

It started with 'I need a place for my mom from Nov, she cant stay with me I have no space' to 'My mom's abroad so till end Jan it's cool' to finally saying this before pulling out 'I don't need her to move in anywhere quickly she can stay with us for a couple of months'

Should have known better, we learnt a good lesson. I'm glad we did. Makes us wiser. Too many deceiving, lying and conniving people out there. Tbh I feel she's played some sort of game given that she's the Director of a very big housing association near Central London. She definitely knows the tricks of the trade.

I got no explanation whatsoever why two surveys conducted just a couple of weeks apart, by the same company Connell's, gave contrasting valuations. One at 260k and the other 275k. I told the buyer your third survey might come to 290k.

Anyways, I'm closing this chapter thank you all!

She shared the valuation report I told her I wasn't happy with her trying to knock the price down. Nowhere is it written why the property is undervalued. No justification. Comparables not taken into account. She says they probably thought it wasn't state-of-the-art modernisation. Sounds like a whole load of bull.
She says the lease and garage doesn't matter. She's just pissed me and my husband off so much. Makes me wonder if she really paid someone to lower the valuation. We don't have any structural issues, no cladding, no major works. All written in the report yet she had the cheek to initially ask for £265k.

There are such opportunists out there we have to be careful! So much desperation in the beginning asking us to hurry up since her mom needed a place to stay and she had nowhere to keep her since her place was too small and now she says her mom will stay with her for some months not a problem, everything is great at her end.

Honestly, I'm disgusted. I could never do that to a person, I mean to say spin stories and use pressure tactics to knock the price down. I got so sick and anxious over the last few weeks. One thing is being genuine, having ethics and integrity,.the other is being conniving and deceiving all along.

Lesson learnt - cried so much when the deal fell through