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

Share the link on here (even for a short time - then delete the post) there are many of us with an expert knowledge of the London flat market who can tell you if the EA is relieving you of tens of thousands of pounds. Did you get 3 valuations and which one did you go with - highest, lowest, mid? Surely the short lease was baked into the price?

How many viewings did you have? When did the offer come in?

Er...that's my point.

A couple who are ftb and need a mortgage and are less likely to make cynical gazundering moves will not buy the OP's flat. Because they won't be cash buyers

Our buyer did this to us. We said fuck off. They paid the original offer price.

HOWEVER in your circumstance I would take it. Its a horrible market right now and leases and flats are hard to sell.

Its annoying. I know! I would go back and say yes but let it be known youre fucked off about it and its a dirty rotten trick.

They haven’t.

Who is paying the running costs of the flat? Has the second home council tax kicked in yet? Are the service charges coming out the sale? Who is paying utilities?

Will all of that be less than £8k over months of having it back on the market (even if snapped up immediately sale will still takes months of accumulated running costs).

I see you’re going to accept the £8k drop. Sensible decision if you ask me. That £8k wouldn’t last long running an empty £500k flat.

Depends how much you need the money. I’d rather take 15k less from someone who isn’t taking the piss than 8k less from a twat

Sure you would lol. 🤥

I know someone who has reduced the asking price of her London flat by a huge amount. She’s an estate agent so knows her market.
Loads of landlords are offloading their properties there atm. So this is affecting the market a lot.
Just get rid.

OP this is very naive. First, London flats have dropped by 30% in that timeframe so 600k in 2026 was never a likely price. There will be significant costs in renovation and extending the mortgage.

However, your buyer is a professional and they know what they’re about. If it were a naive 1st time buyer who’s just discovered an issue they hadn’t factored in, ok. But this is not the case, it’s merely tactic to bounce you into a lower price.

As I have explained, refusal is not the end of the conversation: the buyer will either capitulate or come back with a smaller drop of say 4K.

Everyone involved in property purchase and sales needs to learn to negotiate!

tbf though, buyers who have chosen a house they want as their first home, or who are upsizing to accommodate children, or moving for schools or lifestyles, will have invested emotionally and psychologically in the property.

A cash buyer property developer of landlord doesn't give a toss about the home per se, and will walk away and find a new one.

Which isn't to say that the OP should or should not attempt negotiation p it's just that it isn't the same kind of sale.

I would take it, it’s really hard to sell flats over 500k due to stamp duty relief. It’s also the bar where companies have to pay more for residential properties.

I know it might be annoying but I’d take the money and move on. If you say no you might be looking at years for the right buyer.

The interest on £500k is around 20k per annum. If you lose this buyer then end up in a chain you might have lost 10k of guaranteed income. I’d take it for sure.

Likely going to be best to proceed with the buyers.

The’£75k off’ isn’t relevant. The market ‘going rate’ and situation for a property in that location, with the lease duration, property features etc, what buyers are out there for properties like it, are more relevant.

If from what you can find out from information online the price the buyers are now offering is close to what you might get if you start again, after another long period of time, best to continue with them.

If you add details of the property or start a thread separately with the details people will give opinions.

I was merely confirming that this is indeed going to a cash investor, as it says in the OP.

Its this one - Advertised as share of freehold but thats incorrect - Freeholder is some guy who has onwed it for years

www.winkworth.co.uk/properties/sales/upland-road-east-dulwich-london-se22/DUL260055

We were advised to pay for an extension of the lease on a flat we owned prior to putting it onto the market.
Think it cost us iro £4k 10 years ago to sort it out.
Take the offer.

If the buyer intends to refurb and sell for a profit, they’ll be looking to extend the lease so is making you pay for it now.

I think you're right to just accept it. Yes it's cheeky, but it's not like you need every penny from this sale to buy your next place - this is an inheritance and the sooner you get shot of it, the better. In this market and with the short lease and you living in Scotland, you'd be mad to jeopardise the sale.

The 75k off and the 600k you say you could have got are red herrings. EAs always overstate the value of a property so you never know the price until you have an actual offer, and that offer is the value of your house. Anything else is notional, a guess, an aspiration.

Lol that is crazy 😂

I’d take it. Probate sales are emotionally charged and you need to be able to put this to bed so you can move on. You’ll be incurring costs having a property empty for another 3 months if they pull out.

I would be asking the agents why on earth they listed it for £575k if they don’t think you can do better than £492k. That’s wild.

Take it and get rid of the flat. The council tax burden and service charge etc will soon eat up 8k if you lose the sale.

Your sticker price was completely unrealistic because of the short lease. Even in a healthy market a 70 year lease is a big problem. London flats are far from a healthy market.

They listed it at 600 and expected it to go for 575K with the shortish lease and to a cash buyer - Thats what we were told

Then they said market is dead and qualified buyer is willing to pay 500K which is a good price for speed and certainty and we tried to negtiate at 550 and then 525K and eventually agreed 500K

Its all hapened fast and now on day of exchange they ask for a further 8K

Agree with this. The more the house sells for the more the EA gets (in most cases, not all ) so if course they always bump it up a little bit.

Buyers want to feel like they have gotten a bargain so will usually go a little under anyway (in most cases, not all) especially in this market.

I bought my first home in 2021 and actually had to go over the asking price by £15k to get it - but that was a very different time and a very different market.

A home is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.

It's annoying, but I'd take it, it's not a seller's market for flats and it's best to get it over with. I accepted a similar % drop at last minute when selling my first place although in that case I had accepted a lot more than I thought I'd get so I didn't mind that much.