Crafty FTB!

Perelandra

powerful_Rogue wrote: »

My only concern which has lead me to this reaction is that they didnt come forward after receiving the home buyers report to re-negotiate. Instead they were willing to wait until we had found a property, put in an offer, instructed a solictiator and then tried to negotiate - IE, if you dont drop the price then your purchase will fall through.

I also dont understand why they cant show us this huge list of works that apparently needs to be done, but instead has to be approved via their solicitor?!

Indeed, you need to see the list before any negotiation happens.

My surveyor advised me not to show the survey to anyone else (to avoid liability to a third party), and some friends also advised me not to show it to the vendor ("you paid for it, why should the vender get a free survey on their house?" was their advice). I ignored it, and gave the vendor a copy, but it's quite possible that the buyer has received similar advice and wants to check before showing it to you.

Buying, and selling, is stressful- it may be worth meeting up with the buyers in person to have a chat through the list? This might help the discussion, and might help to either confirm your doubts or squash them?

Hillbilly1

If I were that FTB I wouldn't have spent a penny until you had found a property and had an offer accepted.

Regardless of price/work needed, for a buyer the real issue is you are sending out signals that you aren't actually going to sell.

Why spend money on surveys when you haven't even instructed a solicitor...

moneyistooshorttomention

powerful_Rogue wrote: »

The seller offered below asking price to start with because they wanted to dig up the garden and concrete it over.

The cheeky wotname:eek:. That was their personal choice and therefore not relevant to what price the house is worth.

Mind you - I've heard of a viewer of another house local to me that made a very cheeky offer on a house on the excuse that they needed to do so because the house had to have a new bathroom and kitchen. Errrrr...hello!!!! - the house had only recently HAD a new bathroom and kitchen.

That word "betterment" I guess coming in here...:cool:

moneyistooshorttomention

powerful_Rogue wrote: »

My only concern which has lead me to this reaction is that they didnt come forward after receiving the home buyers report to re-negotiate. Instead they were willing to wait until we had found a property, put in an offer, instructed a solictiator and then tried to negotiate - IE, if you dont drop the price then your purchase will fall through.

I also dont understand why they cant show us this huge list of works that apparently needs to be done, but instead has to be approved via their solicitor?!

Put like that - it does sound like a try-on by them.

You're probably best off junking them as a buyer and re-marketing the house in accordance with the price you would set now.

I wouldn't mind betting there are buyers out there who could see a house marketed at half its "value" (eg a £200k house put up for sale at £100k) and they would still try and find excuses to knock a bit of the price off. Some people are just like that....

pimento

Hillbilly1 wrote: »

If I were that FTB I wouldn't have spent a penny until you had found a property and had an offer accepted.

Regardless of price/work needed, for a buyer the real issue is you are sending out signals that you aren't actually going to sell.

Why spend money on surveys when you haven't even instructed a solicitor...

Yes, they have shown good faith and you aren't even in a position to sell. I wouldn't have even instructed a solicitor until you'd found somewhere to move to.

powerful_Rogue

pimento wrote: »

Yes, they have shown good faith and you aren't even in a position to sell. I wouldn't have even instructed a solicitor until you'd found somewhere to move to.

Its catch 22 isnt it. You put an offer in on a house when you havent got a buyer and your not taken seriously. You sell your house without a property lined up to buy and still people complain!

We made it very clear from the outset that we would not be instructing a solicitor until we had found somewhere and had an offer accepted. Its not my fault they ignored that, instructed a solicitor and paid for a homebuyers report.

lessonlearned

powerful_Rogue wrote: »

Its catch 22 isnt it. You put an offer in on a house when you havent got a buyer and your not taken seriously. You sell your house without a property lined up to buy and still people complain!

We made it very clear from the outset that we would not be instructing a solicitor until we had found somewhere and had an offer accepted. Its not my fault they ignored that, instructed a solicitor and paid for a homebuyers report.

Yes you have made your position very clear and your buyer should not have spent good money on a survey before you had instructed your solicitor and got the ball rolling.

However - she did. She has not been advised well.

Her speedy survey demonstrates that she is committed to this purchase. Your tardiness could be construed that you are not committed to selling.

Now she has had a survey which has highlighted some issues of concern. Whether or not they are "serious" remains to be seen.

However, you do seem to be over judgemental.

She did not receive best advice to wait until instructing a survey. She probably realises that she was foolish and over-hasty and is now listening to advice and deciding to play it safe and discuss matters with her solicitor.

She has probably been advised not to discuss the survey with you and not to allow you to see a copy at this stage.

Give her time to meet with her solicitor who will explain her options. Then you can take it from there.

Try seeing it from her point of view.

You have not found a property yet, you have not instructed your solicitor. She is probably concerned about her AIP being time sensitive.

Many AIPs are only valid for 3 months.

Your delay in finding a property and getting things going are likely to have made her nervous and wary of you.

pimento

powerful_Rogue wrote: »

Its not my fault they ignored that, instructed a solicitor and paid for a homebuyers report.

Quite.

What if you don't find anywhere suitable for a month? Six months? A year?

HarryBarry

There doesn't seem anything unusual here... apart from insisting the house is a bargain price when there was no need to do this as you didn't even have anywhere to go. If it is such a bargain I'm surprised there weren't more offers ending up with more than the asking price.

But anyway, they have offered asking price and have not asked for a reduction yet. They have paid out money so far, so I wouldn't think they are interested in the sale collapsing. But if the report shows up repair work needed, then its obvious they are going to look into the cost of this and making sure it's affordable for them. The fact they were going to pay out more money for someone to look into it suggests it might be quite important. If the survey shows up something that was not obvious from the viewing, then they have every right to change their offer, as their previous offer was based without knowing about this problem (and your asking price was set potentially without this taken into consideration). Even if it is a bargain price, maybe they only chose your house because of this price. I looked at one recently that was what I considered the best in its price range, but it became obvious work was needed effectively moving it up in price and therefore should be compared with houses 10k higher, in which case I prefer a different property in this range.

Until you know exactly what the report says I cant see a reason to think they are being crafty. It could be genuine problems in which case most people would look at negotiating on this. You may well be right, but I wouldnt think they would be willing to pay out more money for investigation if there wasn't even anything to investigate. And if I was them and it was a good price with nothing required, I wouldnt be messing you around.

franklee

powerful_Rogue wrote: »

My only concern which has lead me to this reaction is that they didn't come forward after receiving the home buyers report to re-negotiate. Instead they were willing to wait until we had found a property, put in an offer, instructed a solicitor and then tried to negotiate - IE, if you dont drop the price then your purchase will fall through.

But they have come forward and mentioned there are issues and you've not yet found a property or instructed a solicitor. So it doesn't sound like a late gazunder to me. As for being unwilling to negotiate yet - why would they incur more costs getting the faults looked at and priced at the point where there isn't a complete chain and where you may stay put.

powerful_Rogue wrote: »

I also dont understand why they cant show us this huge list of works that apparently needs to be done, but instead has to be approved via their solicitor?!

Your "We advised the EA to tell the FTB that we wouldn't be willing to negotiate on the price regardless of what either survey had shown up" may not seem very inviting to disclosing their survey information. Why would anyone do that in the face of total intransigence. Personally I'd be advising them not to spend another penny on buying your property until there is a complete chain and until you have said you will give their information a fair look and negotiate accordingly.

Still why worry if your property really is worth more pull the plug on this buyer and market again.