Buyer wants £8k off parents' London flat just before exchange

[LondonSeller]

Parents flat for sale as they passed away in london - Took 18 months to get probate sorted out but finally got it - Property listed with agents and it is in dated ocndition and needs work - Also has a 70 year lease. EA told us not an easy market

After five weeks advertising price agreed at 500K which was a bit lower then we had hope for but EA told us buyer is known to them and this would be very quick sale

Was meant to exchange on Friday and EA has come back and said buyer is ready to exchange, has sent deposit monies to his solicitors but wants a reduction of 8K. EA has said this is less than a 2% drop so not massive and believes we wont get better if we reject the offer

Buyer is cash purchaser investor so quite rare and I worry that if I dont accept property will be stuck for months for anothr cash buyer who might offer lower.

I live in Scotland and the flat is in London so I am miles away - Paid to have the place emptied and solicitor fees so am already down. By contrast buyer has not paid anything other than a few hundred for solicitor fees - No mortgage, no survey fees nothing

Whats the best angle here - Call buyers bluff and risk losing the sale or take the money and run. Feel quite cross as this money was going to be used for real stuff and to clear debts

If you have a personal experience of this, that’s different. I still think you should clarify whether or not this is Winkworths.
I’m neither a lawyer nor an EA but, so far as zi can see, this is bribery and that’s why I felt your post was iffy,

Tell estate agents to take a not so massive reduction of 50% off their fees. Most estate agents are charging a minimum of 2% these days so £12,000 including the VAT.

Csll his bluff by saying about auction house will get me the figure and the buyers pay the fees, and that we are ready to exchange, the paperwork is already in place for the legal pack.

my initial feeling is the estate agent in on this

Surely , if he’s the freeholder and he wants the whole house back, he’s not going to risk loosing the chance for £8,000, is he?

Yeah, he’s not going to lose a 1.2 million sale over 8k.

If its the property op linked, I wouldn't do anything until I had clarification from the agent, if it's the same property then the whole house sale can't proceed without op selling even though it's listed as being under offer. Someone is chancing their luck here.

Take it. It's probably a dirty trick but you will be done with it. I would take a different view if it was your flat & the sale was essential for you to move but (unless I've missed something), I'd take the money & run.

Short lease.... get rid ASAP. Nightmare

You are so close to it all being resolved after a long 18 months so I’d agree just to keep things moving.

When you made this post OP, did you not think it might be relevant to mention that the freeholder was actually the buyer?!

With your willingness to take the hit and not try to negotiate they will be kicking themselves they didn’t ask for more! Haha! Good luck and hopefully it will all be over in a week’s time.

And the freeholder has an offer for the whole house..

We kind of figured it out though.

We never did hear if the freeholder had given them RFR on the freehold…

Posters keep commenting who didn't read the update about the mortgage and service charge debt. Every day the OP is losing money.

There is a mortgage on this property (presuming equity release) which means every day more debt is being built up (compound interest picks up speed frighteningly fast the longer lifetime mortgages run for). Every day the short lease gets shorter meaning the cost of extension grows. https://www.lease-advice.org/lease-extension/flats/marriage-value/
There will be debt interest on the service charge owing. They are also spending out on debt interest for their own loans and for whatever maintenance costs the empty property incurs. This makes their negotiation position very weak. Looking at the roof of the house compared to the neighbours, it looks like it is coming to the end of its life. Nevertheless, 2 flats coming up together is very attractive to a developer and they may have continued without their extra 8k discount, depends who can hold out longer or what other options the developer has.

One hope for OP might be if a property or personal finance journo picks up this thread and decides to do some crusading on their behalf.

I predict the EA will find this thread early in the week due to the sudden rise in traffic the listing will have and it will need to be deleted because there is criticism of the EA on here with no right to reply.

Good call. It all sounds like an almighty hassle to keep for the sake of £8k. Good luck! I also have a probate property hopefully completing this month. 🤞

Id still jump at it. Its a tiny amount on the grand scheme of things and do you want to go through all this again

Another Londoner who owns a flat. We’d have not touched a 70 year lease with a barge pole and depending on where located, what they are offering is still a good deal. You need them to act quickly or say you’ll move on.

Not RTFT but worth asking the EA to cover some of the £8k by reducing their fee.

Absolutely refuse....he's not going to pull out the purchase, just chancing his luck

and its worth 675k

no @LondonSeller . It is not “worth” what you decree it to be. It is “worth” whatever the market is prepared to pay for it.

am I the only one suspicious about the EA knowing the buyer?

One would think so!

So it makes me wonder about the entire scenario really. I don’t imagine this OP has been the most straightforward of vendors

No council tax as I get 12 months empty discount due to probate so I am seriously thinking of relisting

You might want to check that given that probate took 18 months (and some councils only allow six months).

How do you know this??

I had a similar situation with my flat (although it was selling for less than half the OPs, the discount they asked for was higher) they had been nightmares through the conveyancing process, didn't do a survey but asked for multiple discounts . What's worse is that they were friends of friends, i had met them at a wedding and had made direct contact to try and keep things friendly and jolly things along. I was ready to walk away and asked my estate agents to relist it but keeping the flat empty was costing me over a grand each month. I asked via the estate agent to meet in the middle which they agreed to and then on the day of exchange/completion my solicitors rang to say their solicitor had sent the paperwork through with a much higher discount on it! I told my solicitor that I wouldn't sell it to them, i was so furious. My poshest colleague who has a few buy to lets basically laughed at me and said let it go, it's only a few k. I called my solicitor and said just let them have it. As soon as the sale was over i sobbed with relief. I ended up selling my totally renovated new kitchen new bathroom fully rewired beautiful trendy flat for the same price as the next door flat which had 40 year old shagpile carpets and the original 1970s kitchen. Now 6 months on I have no regrets whatsoever. I'm so glad I didn't have to deal with the cheeky buyers or the reems of admin and calls any more and frankly I would pay that much again to get the stress out of my life.

You’re entitled to think whatever you like.

Paying for a specific service is how these transactions are referred to, not bribes, on the rare occasion that they are ever spoken of, over drinks and/or some lines.

Don’t get me started on the racket probate solicitors have with chartered surveyors and estate agents.

@LondonSellerthe London flat market is atrocious at the moment.. appreciate how annoying this is, but I’m probably with your EA - it’s less than 2%, just move on sell the flat. In truth, it’s probably dropped that much anyway during the time it’s been u/o, so it might be the buyer, rather than you, getting the worse deal.