Vendor won't let us view the property again until we sign the contract

DVardysShadow

funkyd wrote: »

What about if we ask them to exchange now and pay our stamp duty to secure the purchase? That should be risk free for us?

It is not risk free. You may lose your job or the lender may go bust and you may find that your mortgage is pulled. The risk may be small, but the consequences will be bad.

If you want to go down that path, you should do a conditional exchange, subject to mortgage remaining available - and you will need to let your vendor know what is happening.

This still leaves you possibly in 18 months time with the vendor no further forward with their purchase, but you frustrated and bound in to a purchase, and wanting to buy another place. So you will need to put in another clause on the exchanged contract that you can quit the contract with 3 months notice.

And then your sellers will want an equivalent clause, so that if they decide not to sell for the time being, you can't buy the property in 10 years time for today's price. And so on.

To the point that the exchanged contract is not worth exchanging. The below is a better approach.

fallenwiccan wrote: »

Tell them if they want you to buy their property they can move into rented and complete right now. That way they can look for what THEY want in their own time and you get what you want.

Brallaqueen

Oh funkyd, I'm so sorry. It sounds like a total nightmare for you and you seem really keen to buy and the vendors are just not playing ball with you or accepting that there needs to be some compromise. I'll leave it up to others to give advice butI do have fingers crossed that this gets sorted happily for you

Ulfar

If you really want this place then I would lower your offer to reflect the stamp duty cost. I would also lower the offer by an amount to cover yourself for extra costs be they rent whatever.

Then I would give them a deadline for exchange and completion, they can move into rented and look for a property.

You didn't say or I have missed it what the lease terms where, how long is the lease etc.

From what has been posted this is a nightmare of a vendor with a flat that isn't in tip top condition.

I would also start looking online and if something else comes on that is better go and view it, you never know what might come along.

Yorkie1

I agree ^^^

pawlala

get the old girls in rented. tell them you're ready to exchange now. Give them a deadline and stick to it. After that passes, walk away.

funkyd_2

We've given them 24 hours to exchange and complete this week and we will pay half the stamp duty, after that we're reducing our offer by 2k and they can take it or leave it.

Without us they can't buy anywhere else. They say they have somewhere and are starting the paperwork so if we pull out it leaves them having to find a new buyer.

If they reject our proposal then we're going to back down and say we'll wait for them to be ready. At exchange we'll demand the 2k and they can take it or leave it. It won't cost us anything and we can look for other places in the meantime.

Bossworld

funkyd wrote: »

We've given them 24 hours to exchange and complete this week and we will pay half the stamp duty, after that we're reducing our offer by 2k and they can take it or leave it.

Without us they can't buy anywhere else. They say they have somewhere and are starting the paperwork so if we pull out it leaves them having to find a new buyer.

If they reject our proposal then we're going to back down and say we'll wait for them to be ready. At exchange we'll demand the 2k and they can take it or leave it. It won't cost us anything and we can look for other places in the meantime.

Was this resolved in the end?:T

funkyd_2

To cut a long story short, the exchange didn't happen because they didn't realise on the property they were buying (shared ownership) that they would have to pay rent on the other half!

They came back to us this week and said that they have found another property and signed the contract and would we be ok to exchange. This took us by surprise as we thought the whole thing was off as we hadn't heard anything since they said they found another place.

We then said that because they didn't meet the SDLT cut off date we wanted money for the SDLT now due to which they said they would offer £500. I told them to take a hike.

Now *they* are annoyed becuase they went to the expense of finding another place thinking we were still up for buying their place.

The estate agent says they are worried that we won't find anywhere else and not to forget the extra costs of starting again. I pointed out that they are not worried about us at all, they are worried about the fact that after all the work they have done they won't get a sale and their fees from the vendor.
They said that finding a new place could take months and that we've already wasted a month waiting for the vendor to find a new place to buy. Who says we've been waiting I said to the agent - we wrote the whole thing off weeks ago!

I told them that this isn't our problem and to resolve it with the vendor and their solicitor and only to contact us if they have the full amount fo stamp duty to hand over. Anything less and we're not interested.

Yes, we will have to pay SDLT anyway and any fees for another place but given that it looks like we will have to pay SDLT on this place it's really only £500 for legal work, if that.

I can't believe the vendor thought we would exchange on the same terms having incurred an extra £2k in fees and only offer £500. If they wanted the certainty of a sale then they should have found a new buyer which they might have been able to do in the last 4 weeks or so.

ognum

Thank you for the update, it really sounds like this house is not going to be the one.

If you really wanted it you would have jumped at the £500 offer and I dont blame you for not doing that.

Good luck with your future search and keep us updated!

Ulfar

Look for somewhere else.

If they come back to your offer should be 2k less not they pay you the fees as this adds further complications in the process.