First time seller needs help please!!

Flummaxed

Hi dear MSE'ers. Please can someone help, as I've never sold a house before.

Due to a change in circumstances, I need to lower my outgoings, so I have put my 3 bed detached house on the market, priced at £260,000 - £275,000. I need to find a smaller and cheaper terraced house and am looking within the same area, as this is the only area where i could buy a house for around the £200,000. My house has been on market for several months, and I hadn't had any offers. (My impression is that the £250,000 stamp duty is really hindering sales in this price bracket, and that buyers are trying to get houses, that might be worth a bit more, but prices are being forced down to under the threshold. Sadly I am stuck in this price range bracket).

Finally, at the beginning of this week, I received an offer (hooray!!) BUT the offer was for £240,000 - eek! That's £20,000 grand UNDER the starting price I was looking for - aghhh!! I refused the offer, and today I had another call from agent, saying interested party is prepared to go to £250,000 (without even a second viewing - is that strange?). I'm really not sure what to do now.

Apparently the buyer, quite understandably, doesn't want to get hit by the triple stamp duty, but this doesn't leave me in a very good position. I'm concerned that if I do decide to accept the £250,000, what if something comes up in the survey and they try to negotiate the price even further. I could just about afford to move if I got £250,000, but anything less than that, and I might as well just stay put.

I wondered whether any of you more experienced and knowledgeable house sellers could suggest a way that I could maximise the price on the house, and negotiate with the interested party. For instance, could I tell them at the outset, that £250,000 is my lowest price, and that there will be no way I could drop any further, even if something came up on the survey, Can I ask for a higher price, but offer to go halves on the stamp duty (ie ask for £260,000 but meet them halfway with stamp duty). Can I say that I accept £250,000 but ask them to pay my legal fees? Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can obtain a bit more cash.

Many thanks for your help. Any suggestions will be gratefully received.

Happy house buying and selling to you all.

Yorkie1

To be honest, I'd accept their offer. You can't squeeze more out of this in the ways you suggest.

Nobody is going to offer more because of the stamp duty threshold, as you say.

You can't do a deal with them about fees or stamp duty, because that makes it a vendor gifted deposit - which means that they won't get a mortgage because lenders don't offer these.

Also, the overall value would still have to be declared to HMRC I think, and so you wouldn't get away from the stamp duty issue anyway.

If the survey throws up a problem, it will do so irrespective of who the buyer is.

Flummaxed

Thanks Yorkie, for your suggestion. I wasn't trying to get away with stamp duty, but was suggesting that I take half the hit for it, so the HMRC still gets their wadge, but the buyer doesn't have to pay it all. I have seen a couple of properties on Rightmove where is says something like 'Vendor pays half stamp duty', so I wondered whether anyone else has done something like this in order to not have to put their price down by several thousand just in order to secure a buyer who doesn't want to take the hit of stamp duty tripling (or should that read trebling?!).

I think I've also seen properties where legal fees have been met by the other party, so I was wondering whether I might be able to apply one of these situations.

Think I might just have to make up my mind whether to stay put, or sell for what I believe is a loss, due to stamp annoying stamp duty threshold.

Cheers for your help though.

Yorkie1

You do see these offers but, unfortunately, they can't actually be done in the way you hope. Good luck!

Riggster

£250k is the most you'll get because of the stamp duty threshold.

However, assuming you have carpets, a shed, light fittings, curtain poles etc you could potentially charge an additional fee for these fixtures and fittings separately to the purchase of the house. Discuss it with your solicitor, but I believe that £1500-£2000 wouldn't trouble the taxman as long as the fixtures and fittings are reasonably worth that value.

Flummaxed

Thanks Riggster, I'll have a think about that. I can throw in white goods. Carpet upstairs and on staircase is quite newish and in good condition. Would this 1500-2000 get paid separately then?

I don't even have a solicitor yet. I suppose that's the next thing I need to arrange if I decide to accept their offer.

It's also made me think about looking at houses which are a lot further out of my budget, and put in a much lower offer. I have been restricting my choices, because I have only been looking at properties that I thought I could afford. However, I suppose I can also try my hand at offering way below asking price, as these prospective buyers have done with my house. It might work out in my favour too, and hopefully, I could find myself in a position of being able to secure a house that I like, but hadn't previously considered, because I thought I couldn't afford it (if that makes sense). I guess you never know until you try!

Thanks for your suggestion.

Riggster

I can't bang on enough about getting a good conveyancing solicitor, I'm using mine for the third time. He's far too cautious, but this is a good thing.

If you agree to use one, if they're worth their salt, they'll give you some preliminary, informal, free advice.

Have a think about what you're leaving that technically you could take with you. Toilet roll holders, towel rails, chrome light switches, nice light fittings as well as the obvious carpets, white goods etc. It doesn't take much to add up to £1500-£2000. If you have a huge great summer house then you could reasonably charge loads more for fixtures and fittings. The key thing is that as long as the fixtures and fittings are actually/genuinely/probably worth the value agreed, they aren't liable to stamp duty.

And of course, as the vendor, what the stamp duty should actually be, and what the taxman thinks, is not your problem...

Riggster

And if someone tries to negotiate the price down after their survey, just tell them to !!!! off. Only a fool would offer on a house without a contingency up their sleeve. Every house will have some degree of "issues".

Good luck!

Flummaxed

Thanks again Riggster. There is a little summer house type thing in the garden that I'll be leaving behind. I didn't think about charging extra for this. Blimey, this house selling business, is quite a complicated thing to the uninitiated! So much to think about. I'm so grateful for this site and all the helpful, knowledgeable people who take their time to help others out. I'm not sure even how to go about finding a 'good' conveyancing solicitor.

I know this is going off topic a tad, but I'm not even 100% sure there is a 'real' offer on my house with this EA. How would I find out if this is a genuine offer? Reason for this is that the EA had been completely useless, without arranging a single viewing in all the weeks I was tied in with them. Then, on the very last day of my contract period, they finally managed to get a viewing. EA showed them around so I didn't meet them, but my neighbour told me someone did come to view the house. I got a call a few days later, once my EA knew I was going to be looking elsewhere for a new EA to market property, saying they'd offered the £240,000 which I declined. Then 2 days later he came back to me saying they were prepared to go to £250,000. Now, call me cynical, but apparently, they were only in the property for 20 minutes, had not asked to come back for a 2nd viewing, but immediately put in an offer (albeit very low initially), but then offered another £10,000. Does this sound a bit odd? Wouldn't the viewers want to come back for a 2nd look round if they wanted to make an offer, especially after having only been here for 20 mins. Sorry to ramble on, but I'm really not sure I trust the EA and wonder whether this is just some kind of ploy to just keep me from sigining up with someone else for a week or two. Hence my question.... how, at this point of the game, would I be able to find out whether the offer really actually exists, without going to the stage of instructing a solicitor.

Many thanks

hazyjo

I wouldn't be including carpets as 'extras'.

Personally, if I was your buyer, I would put down £250k - full stop. I don't really agree with paying an extra couple of grand or so for things (unless there's massive interest in the property), but I might offer you around £50 for a washing machine or £100 for a fridge freezer, etc...

Jx

kwmlondon

hazyjo wrote: »

I wouldn't be including carpets as 'extras'.

Personally, if I was your buyer, I would put down £250k - full stop. I don't really agree with paying an extra couple of grand or so for things (unless there's massive interest in the property), but I might offer you around £50 for a washing machine or £100 for a fridge freezer, etc...

Jx

Carpets are removable and so perfectly acceptable to put down as chattel. Just don't get carried away, about 5-10% get audited by the tax office. You may be able to get an extra £1-2k but don't try and push any further.

I've posted some guidance from my conveyancers here:

http://checkthis.com/i831