Threatening letter from unsuccesful buyer

richardvc

I have never posted a finger pointing post before but this will be my first....

Londonsu you have double standards.

Having looked at your previous posts you seem to enjoy raking in the cash but not too happy at paying it out.

In one post there is lots of whingeing about paying £250 fees to a land agent and the OP rightly got on the moral high ground but as soon as ten grand is flashed in front of you, it is a different story.

Everyone has their price and we have found yours.

I cannot believe you are alarmed that you got a grotty letter from the people you knowingly lied to.

OP, I apologise for my rudeness, which is really not my style, but this has made me mad and if I get a telling off from the mods I will accept it with grace.

Pinkshoes has the right idea and I have nicked the following from their post........

Read this, then read it again and then act on it -

"Legally, you don't owe them a penny, but morally, if you don't refund buyer 2's survey costs and genuine expenses, then you are a cold hearted tw*t, and I really hope that one day someone else treats you with equal disrespect. Send a polite letter back saying you will refund their costs, and could they send them a detailed list of costs with receipts."

timmyt

you are ok, but sending out a second contract without informing the first solicitors is a breach of your lawyers professional conduct rules....and so they might (I will check this) be fined to the tune of the second buyers losses as the penalty...

Londonsu

Sorry I have been out all day, well you have all called me a lot of names so let me tell of of my situation and see if any of you would have done any different.

In Feb last year my husband was made redundant at the age of 60 he got no redundancy as he was a contract worker and claimed contribution based JSA, in July last year I was made redundant at the age of 54 I got approx 4 months money and we had some savings, which is why we decided to move to the Isle of Wight as properties are cheaper and we would be able to live of the equity from our flat sale We put the flat on the market in October and hoped to move Nov/Dec, I didnt claim JSA as I was not going to be looking for a job in London and couldnt apply for jobs on the Island until I had moved. At Christmas we had given up on the first buyer and found our selves in financial trouble- we only had enough money to last us until Feb, and by this time my husbands JSA had been stopped.

First week of Jan we put it back on the market, we had approx £200 in the bank and nothing coming in.

The second buyer was made aware that we were not going to take the property of the market, but wanted to move by end of Feb, which meant that we could just survive on the money we had, we also faced the possibility of losing the house we wanted as our sellers were getting anxious.

Now our first buyer came back and wanted to move in early Feb, but that gave us problems, if we lost the second buyer and the first pulled out, we would have lost the house we wanted and would have ran out of money which would mean that we couldnt have afforded to even go back to the island , let alone pay for a survey on a new house in other words we would not have been able to move, we would have been in London with no jobs and not much chance of getting one at our ages, the only thing between us and poverty was the sale of our flat and we had to protect that at all costs, and believe me we would have lost a great deal more than the second buyer.

if we had had a couple of months worth of money to live on
if we had had the money to do the legal work on a new house if we had lost the first one, we would have told our first buyer to take a hike, we would have absorbed the 10k loss and we would have done it with pleasure, but we did not have that option as it was on the day of completion we had £25 in the bank and I had to borrow money from my parents to pay for the cat to be put into kennels whilst we moved

BTW we also had a marriage value payment of 41k and 2k legal costs that came out of our equity due to us having to extend the lease which had to be paid when we sold it, that 'offer' from the lease holder was only for 6 months if we had not sold the flat, we might possibly have had to go to a lease valuation tribunal which meant that we would not have been able to sell for years.

What would you have done.

My Solicitor by the way is adament that we owe them nothing

GreenSheep

I think you did nothing wrong.
This is part of the game.

I've been stung by other things (but I don't own any property because of the work I do) and have had to accept that it is the nature of the beast.

Ignore them.

And if that doesn't work, send the boys round. And by 'send the boys round' I mean still ignore them.

not_loaded

Legally it seems likely you owe them nothing. Maybe your solicitor does though!

Morally you owe them an amount for their actual losses, as you caused those losses.

Maybe they’ll be posting on here soon with their ‘sorry tale’ of woe…

GreenSheep

I went to an auction the other day to buy a rare bit of tat that only comes on the market every now and then.

Quite a bit of travelling but I'm a geek for the item.

I lost the bid - I wasn't willing to pay as much.

Should I contact the seller for my petrol money? I think I got an apple tart on the way there. Didn't keep the receipt. Worth trying my luck for the 79p aswell?

not_loaded

You knew the risk of not winning (and actually had control of it) when you went to the auction.

This property buyer was told, on acceptance of their offer, that they were the buyer, and spent money on that basis.

Ditch_Crawler

GreenSheep wrote: »

I went to an auction the other day to buy a rare bit of tat that only comes on the market every now and then.

Quite a bit of travelling but I'm a geek for the item.

I lost the bid - I wasn't willing to pay as much.

Should I contact the seller for my petrol money? I think I got an apple tart on the way there. Didn't keep the receipt. Worth trying my luck for the 79p aswell?

The difference is that if you had won the bid (ie if your offer had been accepted) then you and the seller would have been straight into a binding contract from which neither could escape - if only house purchase or sale would be so simple!

GreenSheep

Althought it has not happened to me before I know you can win an auction and lose the item.

Again, never happened but everytime I win something I check I actually have it before getting excited. Reserve could be higher or item not avalible anymore.

Lets say I won a... erm... hottub (no I wouldn't want one either!) and rung my mate to get round mine and build a hard standing before I'd got it packed up in the van... silly me, I have to pay him still for a days labour. And all the tea he's drunk - greedy sod.

coper

Quite stunned by some of the nasty responses so I thought I'd register my support for you OP.

Its a dog-eat-dog world out there with winners and losers on all sides and morals can be eclipsed by money, just ask our MPs.

IMHO you have done nothing wrong so you have nothing to worry about - ignore any future contact but keep a diary of it and keep all letters, envelopes, record any calls etc.