Buyer tried gazunder before exchange

[PickNMixwe]

Selling a house but I've already moved, so though I'd like to complete sooner rather than later, there's no chain, just the buyer due to move from rented upon completion.

It is a very good house in a popular area. There were multiple offers back in June when it went on the market, it was priced low (my choice) as I wanted to get on with it. The buyer has a mortgage offer, survey with no known issues and all legal work completed.

We were due to exchange this week, but the buyer unexpectedly said they want to do some renovations due to parts being a bit dated and so they want a £10k reduction.

I have said no, the agent also advised me to say no, they've got a great house at a great price. Now I'm waiting to hear on Tues whether we're proceeding at the agreed price (which apparently they can easily afford). The agent is very decent and it won't cost me £10k to start again, he can easily get another buyer at this price, but the whole thing is very frustrating.

I think often buyers go ahead once a gazunder has been declined? They've spent a load on surveys and legal work. Feeling a bit fed up.

I think the OP might mean gazumping! You are correct; a gazaunder is a potty which ‘goes under’ the bed.

Oh tell them to fuck off if you don't need to sell quickly.

Not down ten, but up 10 now

I'd bluntly tell them you'll put it back on the market. You priced it to go, not out of desperation but just to move on, but you can wait.

I had this.
Told the agent that unless we exchanged and completed on x date, at the previously agreed price, I would take off the market and re-list in the spring - with another agent.
We did exchange and complete on x date.

The Ten Year Yield will have something to say about that.

I think you’re being very generous. I would have told them to fuck right off.
My friend 's husband did exactly that.

A bloke left it to the evening before signing and said something along the lines of ' Dont worry about everything going through, I'll sign tomorrow but you have to knock £15k off to my friend. She was a wreck but dh said he woukd handle it

He was told to do one. The arrogant twat ( the would be buyer) is well known in our area spied his arse because my friend took the house off the market immediately. They weren't in a rush to sell and 4 years later dont regret their decision. They said they would have regretted giving in to him because he just assumed they would crumble or start bargaining with them. They are correct when they say them types are bullies just looking for a weakness.

From what I remember the guy started to back track but my friend and dh weren't having any off it.

It's absolutely not the seller's fault if a buyer has over-stretched themselves and is shamefully expecting the seller to cover their lack of funds (or integrity). There's plenty of time earlier on to make a low-ball offer of what you actually can afford to pay, and you might just be lucky and get it for that price; but once the sale has been agreed and is going through, that window has (honourably-speaking) now closed.

We had it the other way around, when we were buying our house - we had offered (and had had accepted) the asking price. It later turned out that the sellers needed to pay an extra £8K above what they had expected/said they had available on the house they were buying - going on their other shocking behaviour, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if they'd planned on gazumping all along and had been thwarted - and they genuinely thought that WE might want to pay THEM an extra £8K to buy the house from them so that they wouldn't 'lose out' by having to pay the correct price for their own purchase! If anybody had maximum CF Main Character Syndrome, it was them!

They also tried to convince us that the asking price in the EA's particulars - the one that we had offered them and they'd earlier accepted without ever mentioning this - had been 'mistaken', and should have been £4K higher, so maybe we would like to increase our offer by that amount! They also tried to 'sell' us the 'carpets' for £3K - the most pathetic, threadbare-flea-ridden things ever. We politely declined, but 'oddly enough', they left them behind anyway for us to have to get rid of.

We really loved the house and had wanted to be honest and straight up with them, hence offering the asking price in the first place; but we reckon they must have misread that as a sign of weakness or gullibility on our part and seen us as ripe for the plucking. Nope!

Gazumping is a different thing - where another buyer swoops in at the last minute and offers the seller a higher price than they already agreed on with their original buyer and have going through.

Gazundering is when the existing buyer suddenly drops the amount they've agreed to pay at the last minute, in the hope that the sellers will cave rather than risk the whole chain falling through. A gazunder is indeed also a chamber pot that 'goes under' the bed - a word particularly used in the north; I can only assume that it must have been a southerner who originally coined the word to apply to sharp house-buying practices!

House buying is replete with dishonest buyers who will offer as high a price as it takes in order to secure the sale - even though they have no intention whatsoever (or even ability) to ever pay that much.

I'd hesitate to even sell shameful people like this a Mars bar; much less an actual house.

Don't back down. We had this recently. House sale due to be completed in a matter of days, and the cash buyers came up with a story that their valuation was less than expected and wanted to drop £20k off the agreed price. CFs.

no way in HELL would we agree to this. We had plenty of other interested parties, so it was an outright “no” with the message being to remarket the house after the weekend. Sure as anything they came back straight away agreeing to the original price.

why oh why? Is this something they’ve seen on TikTok or some nonsense?

You have nothing to lose except a bit of time, especially if they already had a relatively low offer. Bet they proceed as expected. Idiots.

Well yes, you are right the buyer should get the price straight early on and offer what they think it is worth to them, but things can crop up at the last minute that make people want more off, I think that when people do what the OP"s buyers are doing they are genuinely having second thoughts and are looking for the seller to give them an excuse to bail or stick, the 10k is almost just a token, it isn"t about the money it is more about affirmation that they are getting a "deal" and should press ahead, your sellers sound like people with no manners or social skills and no idea how to play whatever hand they had before it descended into street beggar level "Have you got a pound for the bus so I can sign on/visit someone in hospital/go to an interview/get home to.....etc."

Well, I’ve learnt something new today already! It was always just the pot my Uncle Bill kept under his bed to save toddling to his outside loo!

I’ve bought and sold many times and always have a conversation after accepting an offer along the lines of ‘house moving is stressful enough so I’m letting you know now that I don’t believe in gazumping and gazundering so I will not be messing you around’. Laying down expectations on both sides. Not foolproof but a useful thing to say.

Never had a problem with any of my six sales. I did reduce price based on survey once but that was fine and different. Have twice been offered higher price after agreeing a sale too but have stuck to agreement. Wish everyone just behaved decently. It’s hard enough in rising and falling markets.

As always first post nailed it.

I had this - senior military officer - we took a lower price because he was guaranteeing a quick turnaround with no chain (I had higher offers). Last minute wanted 30k off the price. I’ve never hated one so much and to this day I would thump him if I saw him in the street. Should be illegal!

Our buyers tried this when we sold a while back. We told them to feel free to return to the drawing board with their property search and hoped they had enough time to go through the whole process again before it was time to apply for the coveted school place for their 3 year old that our house was in the catchment for. Funnily enough, we exchanged a few days later ....

I think they are matched by shitty sellers tbh

Yes it is as they should get the survey before making the offer.

That doesn’t make sense? You offer then do the survey, that’s how it works here

People like that are awful, trying to take advantage of a situation. Luckily you are not desperate but many people would be. It’s awful behaviour.

There really needs to be an overhaul against behaviour like this in England housing market- gazumping too

Friend was in a similar situation, was already living at another property & was trying to sell inherited house.

Greedy buyers already got a decent reduction on original asking price then just before completion insisted on another 10k for vague reasons

My friend just went ahead with it as she was just wanting to complete/get rid of it- so this actually paid off for the sellers who got another 10k reduction CFs!

Seriously there needs to be more legal binding re price before exchange/completion

Ooops!
Reread your message, you have used the same spelling as a definition of both!
🙄

I would be raging at this and would likely cut off my nose to spite my face:

• don't reply to buyer at all, put house back on Rightmove and grey rock them
• eventually respond, telling them if they still want the house, it is now £10K more than the original agreed sale price

You're in a strong position to teach them a lesson. Do it do it do it 😇

Pretty obvious that it's a typo and what she means though. 🙄

OP if they had the survey weeks ago they know the value or the building society wouldn't lend on it.
Plenty of times I have had appalling surveys come back with listed houses with serous faults which are very costly.
One had taken out a structural wall another dry rot. Both times the buyer expected the original asking price. I had to walk away from both as the cost was ,£50k plus. I was banned by an EA for not buying the aforementioned house!

Many years ago we sold in the crash. The reduction asked for before exchange was £40k.
We've had a similar situation recently and we chose another buyer but the damage was done as the market had dropped. It cost us £3k in aborted fees.
Personally I'd still say no if you are very sure of another sale. We had direct competition from similar houses so it was a case of the CF (the EA who wanted to buy it for himself) being told no. He's really not happy about it and almost snarls at me in the village! Luckily two other buyers offered.