Vendor asking for more money on exchange day

[cathyburke]

After a long few months we were finally ready to exchange, this was supposed to happen last week but keeps being delayed and we are due to complete on Friday.

Backstory the property we are buying had been on the market for a while, we offered on it and then reduced our offer by 2K after a survey which the vendor agreed to.

Our sale then fell through as our buyer pulled out, the vendor offered to keep the property off the market for a month if we paid them £1000. We said no, thankfully we got another buyer a few weeks later and they had no interest on the property so we were able to proceed again.

Fast forward to today, at the moment of exchange and our vendor is now demanding an extra £2000, reverting to the original offer price.

All contracts have been signed with the renegotiated price ready to exchange, assuming the vendor also signed at the reduced price.

I think it's worth mentioning that a couple of weeks ago we had the boiler serviced and it has been condemned and needs replacing of which the vendor will not reduce the price for or contribute and was pushing for completion despite us not being able to get the boiler replaced before completion. They are quite happy for us with young children to move into a property with no heating or hot water just before Christmas.

We are standing firm with our original offer as we are having to fork out an extra £3000 for the boiler but the seller is adamant that they will not accept anything less than the original offer.

Interested to see what others would do in this situation?

Bravo!

(I also got the boiler serviced and electrics checked before I exchanged btw. It’s perfectly normal)

The whole process needs reform, and would probably be a vote winner around election time.

Good for you!!! Well done for holding your nerve.

Well done for standing up to them. Now just expect missing light bulbs and other silly pettiness when you move in.

THANK YOU! Someone who agrees with me 🤣

Congratulations @cathyburke she really was being a cheeky fucker so glad you held your nerve and she had to back down.

Yes same here. Our solicitor actually advised that we sort the boiler service ourselves rather than the vendor, so that we were the ones with the contractual relationship with the heating engineer (in case of subsequent boiler issues). Ditto the electrical check.

Well done @cathyburke

Congratulations! Really pleased and relieved for you.

You’d have to redo all the paperwork so you wouldn’t be moving in Friday even if you did pay . Call their bluff!

Well done!
Hope karma repays them in some way!

If they’re insisting on the full purchase price I’d ask for an allowance of the £3k for replacing the boiler so they’d still be out of pocket. Ask your solicitor about it and say you’ll pay the additional £2k but want an allowance of £3k for the replacement boiler. It’ll be included on the contract so all that would be sent would the purchase price minus the allowance. Once he knows he’ll be £3k down on the sale proceeds he’ll soon backtrack or pull out. Unfortunately unless you’ve exchanged with the reduced price and no agreement about the boiler he can still pull out but so can you

Yes to this. Show them you mean business, but the business of no bullshitting around.

When I was house hunting my financial advisor said just remember... you can buy any house, they need to sell this one

Personally I would reduce my offer. Fuck them.

Similar situation arose for us on our last house sale except it was the buyer wanting a £2000 discount the day before exchange (to replace a fully functioning boiler) and there were no children involved on either side.
I was fuming…..we could have taken the hit and given the discount but it was a matter of principle for me, we declined to give the discount and it proceeded at the originally agreed price - it was tense though and the air turned blue for a while……our buyer also lost any goodwill we had towards them.
I wish you luck.

You don't have to change to the US system, over the border in Scotland has a better system. Once the bid is accepted, that's a legal and biding contract.

Great update! Good on your for not taking their nonsense, people like them are a nightmare. I hope everything goes smoothly tomorrow.

Not sure why people are getting hung up on the detail of the boiler servicing. It is a grey area, is my understanding. Under the circumstances then it was good thing it was done so the OP was in full possession of the facts, new boilers not exactly being cheap

Congratulations @cathyburke !

Well done for standing your ground on this.

Congratulations @cathyburke
I'm so pleased for you

I'd like to see a bunch of other reforms too, like only being allowed to buy/own residential houses as an individual not a company, and only being allowed to buy property if you're a UK citizen living in the UK more than 6 months of the year.

This