Reducing offer price at last minute before exchange

missile

If you watch enough house programs to see how widely the "experts" can vary on valuations.

You are correct this is a business transaction. In business my word is my bond, but not for you it seems? You are in a good position to play hardball and you don't even need a reason.

I don't know how many people do reduce their offer at the last moment and how much stress this causes to everyone in the chain.

shirlgirl2004

Ian_W wrote: »

Then you're not living in the real world.
Your buyer has made you an offer based on the condition of your house as they can see it. If the surveyor finds a problem that neither you or the buyer appreciated was there, for example rot in roofing or floor timbers, costing hundreds or thousands to put right they have every right to seek to re-negotiate and you'd be foolish to refuse. After all you'd need to put it right yourself or at least honestly declare it before you accepted an offer from someone else, wouldn't you?

That is very different from what the OP intends to do. To a degree I can see that having received the information about another valuation does put a different perspective on his offer. What marks him as a complete little !!!!!! is that he has decided to wait and gazunder on a day when several parties are due to exchange thereby trying to apply moral blackmail to his vendor and others at an already very stressful time. I would tell him to Foxtrot Oscar!!

I also really can't understand if he's so not bothered about the property - why the hell he's buying it in the first place!

I'd have the same response to the OP if I were the vendor. However I can totally see how the OP can walk away easily. We're buying a house well into the upper stamp duty bracket but despite the large investment I could walk away tomorrow. We don't all get emotional about houses we've never lived in. I should imagine with flats they can all be much of a muchness is the same area so another will come along sooner or later and in the meantime the OP can keep saving.

chickmug

Thankfully in my career I found gazundering, the same as gazumping, relatively rare.

Sometimes it happened at the bottom of a chain and with:-

1) First Time Buyers, in a poor selling market, deciding they would try it on and if it failed would carry on renting. They felt they would save more and find somewhere cheaper in the future.
2) Buy to Let investors & developers who agreed to buy a number of places but then, at the last minute, proceeding with the one where they could offer and succeed with a last minute gazunder.

The sellers reaction it varied very considerably such as: -

1) Those who were so desperate they caved in and agreed to the whole of the lower price being offered.
2) Those who agreed to a part reduction.
3) Those in a chain where the amount was shared amongst the others in that chain.
4) Those who stood their ground and refused to reduce and so sometimes it went ahead, at the originally agreed price, but sometimes meant the whole chain collapsing.
5) Those who refused and furthermore who then turned it on the gazunderer by increasing the price by the same amount.
6) Those who instructed their EA & solicitor they were pulling out on principle and many did.

So it seems if the OP wants the house, but which clearly they are indifferent, the attempt will be met with one of the above 6 scenarios.

However I have no doubt that the EA will be blamed as they often are yet another example of a buyer behaving less than honourably. As I have said thank goodness it wasn’t that common.

Jomo

Cold feet??

fflsh

I was also going to post I bet the poor Estate Agent gets the unfairly blamed , as they seem to take the flak for everything that goes wrong in a transaction. (I'm not one by the way, just an observation after buying and selling several homes over the years!)

daveb975

I'd see if you can get any type of confirmation that the £13.5k for lease extension is correct. It sounds quite high on a flat of that value, but it can vary quite widely in my experience - you wouldn't want to buy it and find out it is going to cost £25k!

In terms of reducing your offer to £170k, I think it has got to be worth a go. There is a chance that the vendor will tell you to get lost, but if you are not 100% committed to buying the place anyway that does not really matter.

i'd also advise against buying this place if you are planning to move again in the next couple of years. The transaction costs and hassles of buying a place are really not worth it if you are only going to be there for the short term. The housing 'ladder' does not really exist anymore, so you may be best of renting and saving a bit more to get a house that you will be happy to stay in a while longer.

Welshwoofs

Well I'd echo what others have said, valuations vary so there's no guarantee that the first valuation is right and yours is wrong.

You can, of course, attempt to gazunder knowing your vendors are in a chain. What I would say however is that if you go ahead with the purchase, one day you will be selling and most likely in a chain. Consider then how you'll feel if some cynical FTB comes along and gazunders you at the last minute, knowing full well that it's going to cause you enormous stress and possibly financial hardship (as they'll have no idea of your own circumstances).

With the safety net of living with your parents it is, of course, very easy to play fast and loose with people who are under great stress (again, just wait until you have no parental safety net and see how stressful this proccess is!) in an attempt to screw more out of them. That you can do it, doesn't make it moral but if you can live with causing misery to others then you go for it. I know I couldn't.

Scabs

This happened to me however I was the seller, at the last minute the buyer dropped their offer price and I just refused to drop anymore and they eventually agreed to it.
I fully understood why they did it as it was probably their biggest financial descision ever made. I didn't and will never know these people and realise that this is a business transaction and had total respect for them for trying to get a bit more money off.
I would definately try and get the price you believe it to be after reading the survey, after all you are the customer and they are the seller. If they dont agree they just wont sell.

Lady_Hamilton

Look at the end of the day, if you are concerned about saving a few bucks and you are in no pressure to buy anyway, why not wait a year - it will be much cheaper to buy a FTB home.

Will you be happy in a few years time when your property is valued at 150k and you have to remortgage in negative equity?!

Gwhiz

"I'm not willing to pay an extra £5k or £10k to be a nice guy and be moral. I'm more concerned about staying on the right side of the law."

Nuff said. The OP's a knob!!!