New Builds reduced

Breaking_Dad

Hello Money savers,
I'm fishing for a bit of advice. I'm in the middle of buying my first home and using the governments help to buy scheme, I've paid the reservation fee (£250) but not the deposit. The solicitors are doing there bit currently and we're not expecting to complete for another month. Here's the thing though I've just been on the developers website and they've reduced all the same house styles by about £8000! Here's my question. Were do we stand on getting that reduction. I apologise if this question has been asked before, or if the answer is common knowledge. As I say I'm a FTB and this is all pretty new to me.
Many thanks for any help.
Breaking Dad

ACG

If you have not exchanged then you are free to negotiate.

ging84

you are paying list price for the property and now the list price has gone down by 8k?
if that was the case i would absolutely insist on the sale price being discounted

but if you are already paying say 10k under list price and you want an extra 8k off that's a different story

Breaking_Dad

Yes we're paying list price, we were told we couldn't submit a lower offer because we were using the HTB scheme.

ging84

for a start that is incorrect there is no requirement for help to buy purchases to be at list price, there is no restrictions on the amount you can negotiate the price down, only a limit on what can be included as an extra within the sale price, as that applies very similarly across all mortgage purchased new builds.
If they told you that it had to be as list price because it was help to buy that could almost certainly be considered misinterpretation.

Might be worth contacting their head office

ging84

if you were to go ahead with the purchase you would find that the mortgage valuation would have to come in lower, at best at the new lower list price, so unless you had a spare 8k to pay you would be unable to continue with the purchase and you would not only be out your reservation fee but also your valuation fee and possibly other expenses

kingstreet

Breaking_Dad wrote: »

we were told we couldn't submit a lower offer because we were using the HTB scheme.

Not the case. The builder doesn't want to sell to you at a lower price.

A revised PIF & Reservation will be required if you reduce the price, as a new ATP is produced by the HomeBuy Agent.

wymondham

If prices have reduced by £8k in such a short time I'm hoping you're looking to stay in your new place for quite a while as there is a reason the price has reduced...

ethank

Tell them you will pull out unless you get a reduction and see what they say.

Ask a friend to call up and get some information on the prices first, and then to ask if they can get it on Help to Buy. If they say yes, then you know you are being told flannel!

jamesml

The developer may hesitate to give you the reduction at first, but if you have problems I'd talk it through with them and be frank about the fact that come survey time the valuation is pretty much guaranteed to come in £8k under the price you offered. Tell them you can't make up the shortfall and therefore they will either need to reduce the price or have you pull out.

Also, I'd check your reservation T&C's - they'll probably try and tell you you'll lose it if you threaten to pull out, but it wouldn't surprise me if there was something in the T&C's about price changes.

Either way, fight your ground and you'll get what you want.

Breaking_Dad

wymondham wrote: »

If prices have reduced by £8k in such a short time I'm hoping you're looking to stay in your new place for quite a while as there is a reason the price has reduced...

Apart from a dip in the market in the area we're moving to, can you think of any other reason they might of been reduced for? As I say I'm new to this.