Am I being unreasonable?
We had our offer accepted on a house in July 2024, the terms of our offer stated we needed to exchange contracts by December. An elderly man with early onset dementia lives in the house and his son was looking to move him out into a flat. Things were moving at snail's pace, the sellers were very unresponsive and by the end of November we finally heard from them - little progress had been made with finding a new flat and they weren't willing to place their father into a care home/rent a flat for him. We were furious as we felt led up the garden path completely plus the EA said what the seller was looking for was unreasonable (crazy low price, no ground rent, etc.). The EA seemed very frustrated with the family and their antics, which says a lot. We didn't retract our offer but went actively looking at other houses, it was tough as Dec-March is the worst time of the year and very little was on the market that we'd consider. In April the sellers finally found a flat, their offer was rejected but luckily they ended up getting it accepted a few weeks later as the original offer fell through. For context, this was the only offer they submitted on a flat in that whole search period (7 months). We are now looking to exchange in about 2-3 weeks time. On our side, we had found two potential other properties but these didn't end up going anywhere due to issues like subsidence and probate (we wanted a clean, easy chain free purchase). We feel very frustrated with how slow the sellers have been, the lack of urgency and their dishonesty have not only rubbed us the wrong way but have cost us extensively. We have to pay £4K additional stamp duty as it rolled past April, we need to pay for new searches (as it passed 6 months), we have gone through x3 mortgages and paid premiums for some of these. We also had to extend our rental contract meaning increased rent for a few months. We don't think it's fair that we should have to incur all these fees plus the amount of time it's taken them to get their act together. The EA actually said this has been the longest sale he's ever had (almost 1 year!). We want to ask for a reduction of £10-15K which we feel is reasonable (and no doubt they will counter so we'll likely end up with less). It's a very small percentage of the overall house price (<2%). My partner is nervous that they might get upset and act in a reactive way but I personally feel the worst case scenario is they just say no. Additionally, a few houses on their street have gone on the market for cheaper asking prices than we anticipated (or have been reduced) and if they relisted the house tomorrow they probably wouldn't get the same offer we agreed - likely £10-15K lower. Am I being unreasonable to ask for this discount or is it justified? And when should I tell the EA that I want this reduction? I'm not being sly or trying to leave this last minute but I wanted to wait to see if this sale with the flat they're buying is actually going through (as there's been false hope before). All feedback welcome!