Not taken off market until we do Valuation ?!?!

islandzoom

Hi All,

We have had a offer accepeted on a property.
However this is on 2 conditions.

1) We will not try to negotiate the price down post survey ( unless anything major comes up)

The condition we are a bit more worried about..

2) The House will not be taken off the Market until we get the valuation/survey done. Also, they would like to see the valuation to reassure themselves that they are selling at the right price.

The estate agent says: This is beacause the vendor wants to see if they get a higher offer in the mean time. However they will not be doing views unless we take longer than a couple of weeks...

We are concerned the Vendor is not 100 percent about selling at this price and could pull out at any stage.

How does this sound to you? is this common practice?

Any comments welcome.

Many thanks!

G_M

Condition 1 is meaningless. No one sensible would re-negotiate price anyway on minor survey issues, only major ones. And anyway, what will they do if you back after survey and ask fo £1000 off because the survey says the wallpaper is tatty? They'll say no. Don't need a condition to do that!

Keeping the property on the market till survey is a bit high pressure, but maybe they've been bitten before by time-wasters who didn't have th money/mortgage to follow through. Just get your survey done asap.

I would decline the last condition. They've agreed a price. You both stick to it unless the suvy shows a major issue. The valuation is in any case not yours to show - it belongs to your mortgage lender. Ask them if they are serious about selling at the price agreed or not.

islandzoom

Thanks.
We think its a fair price for a 2 up 2 down.

pinkteapot

When we bought, the property wasn't taken off the market until our mortgage application was approved. We didn't mind too much.

I would however refuse to show them the survey. What a bizarre idea! Tell them to pay for their own survey if they want to know what their house is worth.

I would only show the survey to a vendor if it highlighted problems I hadn't been aware of and caused me to make a revised offer. I might then show them the relevant sections of the survey as proof of what was found.

They sound like a bit of an idiot vendor. Valuations NEVER come in higher than the agreed sale price. Ever. Sounds like they're worried it will say their precious house is worth more than you're paying for it. I'm surprised the EA put the condition forward to you.

HappyMJ

Agreed.. Valuations are for the lenders benefit not yours. All they really are is a question...Is the house worth what the offer is? Yes/No. If no, then how much? The valuation will not come back anything higher than your offer.

As for question 1 if there is a problem with the survey you either buy it at the offered price or pull out. If you pull out they lose a sale. You can then put in a new offer if you wanted to.

Alikay

It sounds like they're not happy selling at the price you agreed. Did you drive a really hard bargain? If so, they may be having second thoughts, and you could be at risk of being gazumped. If you offered just a little under the asking price then maybe they aren't fully committed to selling at all. I'd want to know what their concern is before spending money on a valuation and legal work etc.

purple_rose

It sounds unusual to me?

movilogo

Just say you are not accepting their condition. If they genuinely want to see at your price, they will not put any condition. If they don't back out, then be careful, they might pull out later when you already spent some money!