Vendor wants £30k more

googler

ognum wrote: »

thank you, interesting.

Many years ago, buyers would have a survey done prior to making an offer, but this changed to a typical offer being made 'subject to survey', so that only the winning bidder (if there was competitive interest) had to fork out for the survey. If they didn't want to proceed, the house would be offered to the second-in-line bidder, and so on, until a firm buyer was found.

If only one buyer was in the frame, they would offer subject to survey, and if the survey wasn't satisfactory, they would withdraw and the house would go back on the market.

Going back to the OP's situation, if a Scottish agent or solicitor acting for a seller had received an offer, accepted it, and the seller then wanted to accept an offer from another buyer, the solicitor would be obliged to disinstruct the seller (i.e. drop the seller like a hot potato). It's just not right.

Mortgage_Mark_2

Really hope that you can sort this out without paying the extra money.

A friend of mine recently had TWO purchases that fell through consecutively because the vendors decided after all the legalities that they didn't want to sell! Absolute nightmare and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

Fingers crossed for you.

stanmoor

Thanks for the help. Called our landlord and he says it shouldn't be a problem that we can carry on living here.

Going to hold our nerve and stay at asking. I can't see him getting an extra 30k, but you never know, this is London. Mad that something can go up that high in 2 months, surely there will be a crash.

tom9980

Agree to new price but tell solicitor to not do any more work because you need to delay a bit to get at long term savings cash. Then sit back and do nothing but stall the agent and all enquiries.

googler

So, what has the seller actually accepted when they accepted the OP's offer?

The price? No.
Anything else, such as extras included in or excluded from the sale? No.
A completion date? No.

So what has been agreed to? Anything?

It sounds to me that the seller is effectively saying "I agree to sell you my house, but I reserve the right to arbitrarily change the selling price, and agree that we'll finalise everything else later"

Honestly, you folks in E&W really need to lobby for change on this..... write to your MP, double-quick.

silvercar

Either withdraw your offer and be prepared to walk away - then hope the seller comes grovelling back to you or play the seller at their own game. Agree to the £30k extra until the day of exchange and then drop your price.

DRP

tom9980 wrote: »

Agree to new price but tell solicitor to not do any more work because you need to delay a bit to get at long term savings cash. Then sit back and do nothing but stall the agent and all enquiries.

Slightly evil but the vendor deserves this.

I like it.

bouicca21

Exactly the same has happened to me and my ex.

I conclude that they cannot be trusted. Even if the additional money were to be offered there is no guarantee they would not try it on again. Having delayed and delayed, there was equally no guarantee of a speedy exchange. Fortunately the ex has found another property with what seem to be committed sellers.

ConfusedofYorkshire

Just thinking aloud, and I'm sure someone will give a million reasons way this shouldn't be done. But wouldn't it make some sense for the vendor to pay for a survey and for searches to be done? That way they can be used even if a buyer falls through with only one payment to the greedy money making people that make money out of house transactions.

The seller doesn't have to be out of pocket- the fees could be paid back by the buyer on exchange or completion or could be factored in to the price of the house.

getmore4less

googler wrote: »

The offer is either a 'clean' offer

(I offer you £X, with an entry date of dd/mm/yy, subject to the following standard contract clauses),

or a conditional one

(I offer you £X, with an entry date of dd/mm/yy, subject to the following standard contract clauses, and subject to me getting a satisfactory survey on the property - if I don't get a good survey, I reserve the right to withdraw without penalty)

That's an abbreviated and paraphrased version of how it works in Scotland. The survey may be the seller's commissioned survey, or the Home Report survey provided by the seller, but the same principle holds.

What constitutes a good "survey" it is possible to find something wrong with any property.

What can happen when the market is rising if you have commitment up front is you go round "buying" up houses and then take your time before you have to commit any money and flip making instant profit.


The issue in this case is that someone has been delaying, 8 weeks in and no exchange of contracts if people have there act together should be done in <4weeks.