Threatening letter from unsuccesful buyer

Londonsu

Milliewilly wrote: »

But we need more information - was the OP sending back the fixtures and fittings form SPIF form etc etc to the £10K less buyer and letting them think the house was theirs and the conveyancing was proceeding or did they just get to the survey stage?

The OP did tell them the house would be kept on the market.

If there had only been a flow of paperwork from the £10K less buyers in one direction then I would only feel a little guilty as the conveyancing would not have been able to proceed very far, I would however have paid their costs when the EA asked.

If the OP has let the conveyancing proceed in a 'contract race' then no that is unnaceptable and he should compensate them - but not to the tune of £5K.

No FF form had been sent and it was made clear the property was still on the market and also I did tell my solicitor about the other offer , when the EA asked us for the money I mentioned to my Solicitor who said they should not have had the survey done until they had it in writing that the offer was accepted, which was not done.

GreenSheep

not_loaded wrote: »

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.

I'm not completely up to speed on this - I'm only defending the moral side.

But let's be honest, everyone knows property - be it buying and losing money on a sale not going right or renting and being stiched up for your deposit when you move out for a stain that was always there - is a bit money pit anyway.

But regardless - they say the buyer wants the money back for a survey of the house and you mention they were told they were the buyer...

Purely, from a moral point of view, I can see a problem that this doesn't cut both ways - the buyer could have backed out if the survey came back less than good and the seller then writes to them at their new address telling them they owe them £500 for a storage unit they rented for a month?

Ditch_Crawler

GreenSheep wrote: »

let's be honest, everyone knows property - be it buying and losing money on a sale not going right or renting and being stiched up for your deposit when you move out for a stain that was always there - is a bit money pit anyway

That was the point of my earlier post - in real life, a contract is a contract even if it is only verbal (the written bit just makes it easier to prove...), but the property market is not real life.

Yet, people in general are led to believe that owning a house is a simple 'right', and all the normal rules of society and commerce will apply to property transactions. But actually that is not true, and the property market is an unfathomable minefield subject to a unique and inexplicable set of ancient and unintelligible rules which are completely unconnected to 21st century living.

hugheskevi

Londonsu wrote: »

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.

Not telling them about the first buyer I can live with, accepting two offers, okay. Morally questionable, but hardly unexpected given the way house sales work.

But as soon as I had exchanged I would have telephoned them - telephoned note, not e-mailed or written - to apologise profusely and ask them what the cost of the survey was and making sure I gave them that back at the very least.

Why? Just because you have 'the right' does not mean you have to exercise it.

When you are part of a group buying a round of drinks - you have no legal obligation to get your round in, but only a pretty pathetic type of person doesn't. When your mate runs a marathon to raise money for a charity that helped her sick partner, you don't have any legal obligation to hand anything over, but only a particular sort of person wouldn't.

That you are now trying to hide beind justifications to yourself makes it even worse. I think I'd find it better if you just said that this is the system, tough, I had the right to rip them off, I did it, so what.

Everyone has problems in life, it doesn't justify treating others like scum. Still, at the end of the day you didn't do the right thing, you left them out of pocket, you are a few hundred pounds richer, and you have the legal right to do all that.

Milliewilly

Londonsu wrote: »

No FF form had been sent and it was made clear the property was still on the market and also I did tell my solicitor about the other offer , when the EA asked us for the money I mentioned to my Solicitor who said they should not have had the survey done until they had it in writing that the offer was accepted, which was not done.

Well more fool them really for proceeding with a survey if the offer had not been formally accepted - how did they get your solicitors details as this is normally done by the EA when you accept their offer in writing? In their defence you shouldn't (I wouldn't) have let them carry out the survey though. It looks like your buyers are more peeved that they had the chance of getting the flat at £10K under market value and got gazumped.

There have been a lot of insults thrown at you but I am sure secretly lots would have taken the 10K and run the risk. If no FF forms etc had been sent then how they have run up more than a few hundred pounds is beyond me.

My last buyers thought nothing of pulling out because they had seen a brand new house they liked and cost me £500 in solicitors fees but I am not stalking them.

Tony_R

As someone who has recently lost approximately £1,000 in a similar situtation to your buyers, I find you a nasty piece of work as well.

While I didn't write a letter the the sellers myself, I share the same feelings about who I was buying from.

Last week we agreed on a new house, I hope this one goes to plan this time and someone doesn't do this to me again.

GreenSheep

I hope none of you invest... Because for you to gain, someone will lose.
And you'd all be so racked with guilt....

Doozergirl

Londonsu wrote: »

What would you have done.

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

I'll tell you what I would have done if I were you. I would have remembered what I'd already written on this board.

That I the house I eventually bought was £20,000 under my budget so I'm obviously not that skint after selling up; and I'd also appreciate the fact that accepting an offer at the beginning of November, knowing my flat had a 47 year lease and needed extending for my buyer, that this meant I was never going to complete before the SDLT threshold and I couldn't really blame my buyer for that. That my redundancy wasn't my buyers fault.

Legal fees aren't paid until completion - paid out of your equity. No mortgage valuation fees, just one survey payable upfront. Where was that house you bought going - really? You had two buyers on the go - as a vendor I'd be quite satisfied that someone with two buyers was a better bet than starting again to try and find myself a new one.

No doubt perhaps you were desperate but you walked over people and you came out the other side with money in the bank which you could have used a small part of to compensate those people that you used. You used them to get you out of a situation and if you were decent, you'd have put them back to the position they were in at the start - they did nothing wrong except try to buy a house as urgently as you were trying to sell it. Legally no, you don'thave to pay anything.

And would I put my money where my mouth is? Yes. In dozens of transactions, I have never pulled out of a sale on anyone and pulled out of a purchase once, after we were selling two houses to buy one and one sale collapsed. We ended up moving back to that house in order to sell it again. We gave the vendor £300 to cover their fees so far. It wasn't even our fault that what happened did but we felt terrible for them; and it was a probate sale - they weren't even moving on themselves and the sale money was all theirs for the keeping so not the same as a FTB using all their savings to buy.

You must appreciate their situation if you yourselves were wondering how you'd afford to buy a different house if the one you were buying fell through?!

Treat others as you deserve to be treated; be honest.

Londonsu

Actually the price the first buyer agreed to was already 30k below market value for a quick sale we purposly put it under the Stamp duty threshold to make it more viable for FTB, then take of 41k for marriage value for the lease extension it left us with about 70k less than we had hoped to get to buy a house and have some money left over to live on, 70k is about 3 years salary for two people to live on, thats 3 years worth of money we havent got, we cant afford to pay anybody 5,000 not when they cant prove they have spent it.

Oh and all the paperwork for the lease exention would have been in place if we had sold before 31st December

Doozergirl

Not £5000. But how much did they genuinely lose? You should have offered it at the time.

How cr*p your life is or how you gave your flat away isn't the issue - those are your own problems. We're each of us, very frankly, lucky if we don't have to contend with our lives being a total mess at some point. You don't use an unsuspecting candidate to stand to give yourself a lift up.

You used somebody to move yourselves on. That's wrong. We all know what the legalities of it are and we know it's business, but I know it's people's lives I'm dealing with. Not just my own.