Threatening letter from unsuccesful buyer

Milliewilly

Its easy to take the moral high ground on here but I am sure 99% of people if faced with the prospect of a lifetime out of work (and at the OP's ages / illneses its entirely possible) then you have to look after number one.

In reality the FTB has not faced £5K of costs and their greed at claiming £5K is worse than what the OP did - its more like £1K if the FF & SPIF Forms had not even been exchanged and why was the FTB's solicitor not questioning why the sale wasn't proceeding?

No one on here thinks twice about advising buyers (particularly FTB) to haggle down the price then haggle down on survey and basically screw the sellers down as much as possible. The FTB is basically peed off that they have not been able to buy a bargain.

I have been stung by buyers pulling out on me I am not the only one but they don't get flurries of posts calling them scum and !!!!!! etc.

Life is like that I am afraid. I would have been more offended by the OP basically saying right I am going on benefits and letting the taxpayer fund me until I die.

Soubrette

Milliewilly wrote: »

Its easy to take the moral high ground on here but I am sure 99% of people if faced with the prospect of a lifetime out of work (and at the OP's ages / illneses its entirely possible) then you have to look after number one.

In reality the FTB has not faced £5K of costs and their greed at claiming £5K is worse than what the OP did - its more like £1K if the FF & SPIF Forms had not even been exchanged and why was the FTB's solicitor not questioning why the sale wasn't proceeding?

No one on here thinks twice about advising buyers (particularly FTB) to haggle down the price then haggle down on survey and basically screw the sellers down as much as possible. The FTB is basically peed off that they have not been able to buy a bargain.

I have been stung by buyers pulling out on me I am not the only one but they don't get flurries of posts calling them scum and !!!!!! etc.

Life is like that I am afraid. I would have been more offended by the OP basically saying right I am going on benefits and letting the taxpayer fund me until I die.

I am equally sure that 95% of people would have told the buyer as soon as they had accepted another offer rather than instructed their estate agent to conceal that fact.

I am also sure that over 50% of people would have been kind enough to offer to refund any costs incurred because they had let the buyer down, especially as they made £10,000 on the deal.

It's not the gazundering which is at issue for me (although I have my own views on that), it is the deliberate concealment that another offer had been accepted.

Out of interest, why is asking for £5000 even greedier than the initial deceit that the OP was willing to do for £10,000?

Sou

RobertoMoir

Milliewilly wrote: »

Its easy to take the moral high ground on here but I am sure 99% of people if faced with the prospect of a lifetime out of work (and at the OP's ages / illneses its entirely possible) then you have to look after number one.

In reality the FTB has not faced £5K of costs and their greed at claiming £5K is worse than what the OP did - its more like £1K if the FF & SPIF Forms had not even been exchanged and why was the FTB's solicitor not questioning why the sale wasn't proceeding?

No one on here thinks twice about advising buyers (particularly FTB) to haggle down the price then haggle down on survey and basically screw the sellers down as much as possible. The FTB is basically peed off that they have not been able to buy a bargain.

I have been stung by buyers pulling out on me I am not the only one but they don't get flurries of posts calling them scum and !!!!!! etc.

Life is like that I am afraid. I would have been more offended by the OP basically saying right I am going on benefits and letting the taxpayer fund me until I die.

Absolutely. Business is business and selling your house or buying a house is business.

I don't condone taking actions that disadvantage another person for the hell of it and the OP possibly could have handled things better to minimise expenses for the unsuccessful buyers, but at the end of the day the unsuccessful buyers are trying it on big time too, and are clearly at the very least as "bad" as the seller, if not worse.

I'm amazed at the posturing and preaching people are doing on this thread because I think the majority of people put themselves first in this kind of thing to some degree, at least and to pretend otherwise is hypocritical.

richardvc

hipposocks wrote: »

Londonsu

I have every sympathy for your situation,

I would stick to your guns on this and morally you have done norhing wrong

You are having a laugh aren't you ?

They lied, deceived and purposely didn't tell the second buyers about the first buyer coming back on the scene and happily let them waste their money on a fruitless survey.

This isn't about first time buyers taking the mickey as your post suggests but about seasoned middle aged sellers turning the tables on the first time buyers.

If that isn't morally wrong then you either don't understand what 'morals' are or if you do, you live your life to a very different moral code to the large majority of us on MSE.

Chinkle

You reap what you sow OP.

Will buyer 2 follow up with legal action, who knows? In the meantime, the worry of this will linger over you. Perhaps that's what you deserve for your dishonesty.

Whatever your life circumstances, it doesn't justify what you did. If you were honest maybe buyer 2 would have upped his offer and you could have gone forward with a straight contract race. It could even have ended up in a bidding war and you achieving much more.

I think you are lying to us here when you say you didn't accept buyer 2's offer - nobody pays for a survey if they haven't had their offer accepted and how did they come to have your solicitors details?

IMO, if buyer 2 follows through their threats the courts may award them something, £5k does sound over the top, but then it will be up to them to justify this amount.

toffe

I've never heard as much rubbish in my life, the losing buyer needs to grow up, plus he's a chancer asking for £5,000 at most he would have spent £500 on a survey if he had a middle (homebuyers) survey less (£100 - £200) if it was just valuation survey so obviously he thinks the world owes him something.

I bought my first house 4 years ago, during the process i had 3 sales fall through after i had paid £500 for a survey including one instance where the seller knew there was major structual problems with the rear of the property and the roof (i later found out a previous sale had fallen through because of this and the seller had been given a copy of the survey by that buyer when they pulled out) yet the seller still allowed me to go ahead and pay that money out for the survey.

We were outbid (gazumped if you like) on the other two despite above asking price offers, again after the survey had been done and in one case where our offer was subject to the house being taken off the market, which the seller agreed to do but clearly did not.

In total therefore i spent £2,000 on surveys before actually completing on a house, thats the property buying game, if you don't like it don't play.

the o.p. was fair in what they did, the offer was a low one and therefore accepted on the understanding the house would remain on the market untill contracts were exchanged so the buyer knew the risk, took a gamble on getting the property for £10,000 less than the asking, that gamble did not pay off, boo hoo.


You owe him nothing o.p.

Emmamumof2

At your age I would be ashamed, we were in a similar situation last year - we were late 20's, one young child and one on the way (within 5 months of accepting the first offer) and we would never have done such a thing - and my husband was made redundant just before our baby was born. Im grateful we have clear consciences morally - I couldnt live with myself!

Emmamumof2

Quote of above post "the o.p. was fair in what they did, the offer was a low one and therefore accepted on the understanding the house would remain on the market untill contracts were exchanged so the buyer knew the risk, took a gamble on getting the property for £10,000 less than the asking, that gamble did not pay off, boo hoo."



I dont think they were clear about the fact the house would stay on the market - they asked the EA not to tell the second buyers they were proceeding with the first buyer, that was dishonest.

Milliewilly

wrangler5 wrote: »

How exactly can a 60 year old with no mortgage expect to have a lifetime in work ahead of them? I think that is a gross exaggeration myself.

They can't but they could live another 30 years so have to make provisions and working until they have to retire is one of them which at the moment they have been unable to do.

Soubrette

Emmamumof2 wrote: »

I dont think they were clear about the fact the house would stay on the market - they asked the EA not to tell the second buyers they were proceeding with the first buyer, that was dishonest.

My understanding was that they made it clear the house would stay on the market but concealed the fact they had accepted another offer.

I agree that was dishonest.

Sou