Seller pulled out leaving us with costs - not once but TWICE now.

shortchanged_2

princesstippytoes wrote: »

How can they be a thief? If you don't like the offer just say no. It's how house selling works. :rotfl:

I suppose it's just the same as the robbing barstewards who made thousands on their properties doing diddly in the previous decade.

But of course not. Rampant House price inflation is seen as a good thing.

tizerbelle

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

You know you're getting older - and Society's "moral compass" has shifted when immoral behaviour is treated with a "just reject it then and you won't get stung by it" reply:rotfl:

Shades of Margaret Thatcher and her "There is no such thing as society" reverberating through my head.....that woman has a lot to answer for...

Oh the irony! You are on a money saving website. Haggling / making a low offer falls under money saving. Buying a house is probably the biggest purchase someone will make - exactly what is immoral with taking a chance on making a low offer?

princesstippytoes

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

You know you're getting older - and Society's "moral compass" has shifted when immoral behaviour is treated with a "just reject it then and you won't get stung by it" reply:rotfl:

Shades of Margaret Thatcher and her "There is no such thing as society" reverberating through my head.....that woman has a lot to answer for...

:wall::wall::wall::wall:

Oh Money you do have some funny ideas.

Cissi

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

You know you're getting older - and Society's "moral compass" has shifted when immoral behaviour is treated with a "just reject it then and you won't get stung by it" reply:rotfl:

shortchanged wrote: »

I suppose it's just the same as the robbing barstewards who made thousands on their properties doing diddly in the previous decade.

"Immoral behaviour"? "Robbing barstewards"? Newsflash: it's called market forces, or supply or demand. It's simple: a house is worth what someone will pay for it, no more no less. Equally, you can buy a house for the minimum amount that the seller will accept (more or less voluntarily depending on circumstances - and divorce has to be one of the sadder reasons for a forced sale). Morality doesn't come into it. Are you seriously suggesting that potential buyers should offer more than they feel a house is worth (or than they can afford) - or that buyers should accept a low offer when they believe they can get more, just out of the goodness of their hearts :huh:

OP, I'm really sorry to hear your story and I can only wish you better luck next time. The buying/selling process in this country is indeed incredibly stressful (and I've lived in a number of other countries, including Sweden as mentioned by a previous poster). At least you've taken a big part of the stress out of the equation by selling up and renting. This may be inconvenient in the short term, but hopefully it will be well worth it in the end!

Edited to add: we ended up renting for 4 years after selling our previous house and before we found our forever home. It wasn't ideal, but we were in a nice house (with some maintenance issues, but at least these were the LL's problem in the long term) and we knew the LL wanted long-term tenants. It all paid off in the end - 4 years ago now we bought our dream home, and managed to get almost 25% off the asking price because of our very strong position (no chain, and in our case we were also cash buyers). Moneyistooshorttomention may think this makes us immoral (even though nobody forced the seller to accept our offer) but frankly I don't care :rotfl:

lessonlearned

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

You know you're getting older - and Society's "moral compass" has shifted when immoral behaviour is treated with a "just reject it then and you won't get stung by it" reply:rotfl:

Shades of Margaret Thatcher and her "There is no such thing as society" reverberating through my head.....that woman has a lot to answer for...

What is all this about "house price thieves" and "moral compasses".

There is absolutely nothing immoral about offering below the asking price - yes even 25%. If the vendor cannot or doesn't want to accept a low offer then they won't.

There are times when a Vendor will be delighted to accept a low offer, it will depend on their circumstances.

I once worked for a developer who built some beautiful properties on a very exclusive high class development - unfortunately the prices were way out of my league :rotfl:

This was 2005-2006. One of them sold for £375K. The owners hit hard times in the crash of 2007. They sold it for £175K. It is now back on the market at £350K.

Obviously that £175K was a forced sale. I happen to know that the Vendors were just relieved to offload the property. so that they could cut their losses and start again. Luckily they have since managed to rebuild their business and their finances. They have no regrets at selling an asset at firesale prices.

When my husband became ill I had to do the same. I had to sell a property at bargain basement prices in order to stay afloat.

I walked away and heaved a sigh of relief. I have absolutely no regrets.

In both cases quoted above the purchasers snaffled up absolute bargains. The vendors were happy and relieved, the purchasers were happy. Win-win and smiles all around.

How does this make the purchasers immoral.

Grumpygit

Oh i just so love the system over here because of that sort of situation.

When you make an offer and it's agreed, you have approx 10 days to get the survey, finance all in place then you sign a contract (conditions of sale) and hand over your deposit (10% of the asking price which could be a very high sum).

If after conditions of sale have been signed either party backs out, the buyer forfeits their deposit (it goes to the seller) and if the seller backs out, they have to pay you the equivalent deposit to you (and you get your deposit back)

It certainly makes you think twice about trying to mess people around.

And yes, it does get enforced!

Ivana_Tinkle

An offer under the asking price isn't immoral, any more than it's immoral for a vendor to try their luck with a high asking price.

Don't you think it's rather insulting to the poor OP, who's been seriously messed about and lost a substantial amount of money, to suggest that receiving an offer 6% below your asking price is somehow on a par with what they've been through?

gazter

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

You know you're getting older - and Society's "moral compass" has shifted when immoral behaviour is treated with a "just reject it then and you won't get stung by it" reply:rotfl:

Shades of Margaret Thatcher and her "There is no such thing as society" reverberating through my head.....that woman has a lot to answer for...

Almost as much as people who ignorantly misquote?

curedham

warwicktiger wrote: »

Whatever happened to the idea of putting down non-refundable deposits to stop buyers pulling out?

This is the difference with buying a property in Australia (well in New South Wales at least, not sure other state but I'm sure it's similar) you need to put 0.25% deposit to make an offer, this is to stop non-serious buyers.

If only we have the similar concept in this country.

lessonlearned

curedham wrote: »

This is the difference with buying a property in Australia (well in New South Wales at least, not sure other state but I'm sure it's similar) you need to put 0.25% deposit to make an offer, this is to stop non-serious buyers.

If only we have the similar concept in this country.

Some sort of reservation fee or pre-contract deposit would be a good step forward. This would to some degree protect the Vendor.

However, I would also like to see some similar form of financial committment from the Vendor in order to protect the purchaser.

Perhaps a "Bond" of some sort.

Whether we call it a Bond or a pre-contract deposit it would be non-refundable although there would also need to be an extenuating circumstances clause - death of a close family member, redundancy, diagnosis of serious illness - that kind of thing.

However, this would still leave the issues of a disastrous survey, or something nasty that is uncovered during searches.

So - back to the HIP (Home Buyer's Information Pack).

I actually thought they were a good idea in principle. Unfortunately they were flawed partly because Lenders would not accept a Vendor's survey and also due to the searches being time sensitive.

It certainly needs sorting out. Gen has been dreadfully unlucky, has lost a considerable sum of money, and has undoubtedly suffered some not inconsiderable stress.

Unfortunately Gen's tale is not an isolated one.