Offering a cash incentive for a specific completion date?

mattyh

I wonder if anyone can advise on the legal ramifications of our situation.

Our new-build house is nearing completion, and we have now been given a slightly more specific completion date of towards the end of Sept. We are also in the process of selling our current house (our purchase is not dependant on the sale). Initially, when the offer on our house was put in back in May, the idea was that we would have to rent for a short period before moving into the new house. Now, due to (genuine) delays with our buyers, it looks unlikely they'll be in a position to exchange and complete until next month (Aug).

Despite the delays, all the way along our buyer has stressed that they want to move in as soon as possible, so won't really want to delay further. However, the situation we're now in is that we're potentially looking at having to rent for a little over 1 month, which would probably not be possible to do!

Obviously there are other options (hotels, relatives, holiday lets) but the clear preferred option for us would be to stay in our current house until the end of September.

Would it be legally feasible to offer a 'cash gift' incentive to our buyer to complete on the date of our choosing?

bylromarha

It's worth a try...talk to your solicitor.

We recently did a similar thing...paid our buyers rent for the 2nd month of their 8 week notice period to ensure we all moved in June, not July. They wanted July initially so they didn't pay mortgage + rent, but they jumped very quickly when we offered cash so that we moved the day we wanted to.

Astaroth

Many people do link the cash to completion date though often the other way around by accepting a lower offer on their property on the promise of a quicker completion.

No harm in trying for it with them.

mattyh

thanks for the posts.

Well we've already agreed on a price of course, and I wouldn't want to negotiate that, i'm just checking there's no legal/tax implications of offering a 'sweetener'