Big delay from seller - negotiating a reduced price

JaneOSullivan

Dear Experts,

My husband and I put in an offer of £249,950 on a 2 bedroom flat on 19th April. It is tenanted, but was to be sold with vacant possession. Today (2nd June) the estate agent phoned me and said that the tenants have been advised that they need to be evicted in order to be rehoused by the local authority (I do not know the details of this, it seems to me that having had notice served should be the same, when it comes to housing need, as being evicted). This means that the sale will be delayed by an unspecified amount of time, the estate agent estimated 4 months.

We have arranged and paid for the survey in good time, the mortgage is ready to go, and I was expecting the sale to go through in the next six weeks.

I have two questions:

First, do we have any rights in this situation (ie. to claim back our legal & survey expenses from the vendor), if we decide not to go through with the sale.

Second, if we go through with the sale, should we negotiate a drop in price, and how is the best way to go about this? We rent a flat which costs £1285 per month; and we might lose our mortgage offer (I need to check when it expires).

Any advice appreciated, as you can probably tell, I am very green in this situation.

Thanks,

Jane

Procrastinator333

JaneOSullivan wrote: »

First, do we have any rights in this situation (ie. to claim back our legal & survey expenses from the vendor), if we decide not to go through with the sale.

Not if the place you are buying is in England.

JaneOSullivan wrote: »

Second, if we go through with the sale, should we negotiate a drop in price, and how is the best way to go about this? We rent a flat which costs £1285 per month; and we might lose our mortgage offer (I need to check when it expires).

Depends really. Is the place you are buying must have, the best thing you have ever seen and could you not think of living anywhere else? If so, then take it on the chin. If it is not the be all and end all, just start looking round, see if there are others, then weigh up the risk of losing that one versus others you might get. Maybe tell them you want £1k off per month to compensate you for the cost of your current rental.

Keep in mind, this might be a game on the part of the current owner. If they get another 4 months rent out of it, that is all extra profit that they would not otherwise have got.

Counting_Pennies_2

Ask yourself how much mortgage you would be paying on the property, then look at how different that will be in terms of your rental you pay.

If it is significant then I suggest you put that difference in as a negotiation off the asking price. If not then you will need to put it down to experience or look around and take the loss on the chin I'm afraid.

shimano

I'd probably make it clear that your offer was based on the condition today/as at survey. I would inspect the flat again on eviction personally, I wouldn't make any decision until you have done so. For all you know, the tenants may be spiteful and cause damage if they have no intenion of leaving. We done that and got a few bob off as when they vacated they left it in a mess (though they werent forcfily evicted, just people with no respect for others property)

Not sure if they would be happy about taking a reduced offer purely on the basis you cannot exchange quicker as you should have had some understanding of the risk that the tenant will not move out, or made it clearer your offer was subject to exchange within a time period.

angelsmomma

I had this exact situation 5 years ago. I was upset that they kept saying it would be a couple of weeks then another couple and so on. In the end I said I wanted them to cover my rent for the delay so far and each month more that they delayed by.

I got £1000 off the asking price, I wish I had walked away in the end because when I moved in the neighbours had been told all about how unreasonable I had been and that I had forced her to evict her tenant. Unfortunately the tenant then rented a house 5 doors away. It was hell, my house was egged and all sorts of stuff went on.

I only lived there 6 months and moved back into rented myself while it sold.