GAZUNDERED! Bullied by buyer

avacapri

They seem to be the ones shouting, but you are in a good position - get the EA doing their job - the buyer will not want to lose their sale the 130K and your house, the estate agent will not want to lose their commission, throw it all back to the agent, tell them you will reduce by 1k take it or leave it and instruct your agent to start marketing the property again or even go multi agent.
my gut feel is that your buyer is not in a position to go forward anyway, just a hunch as they would not jepodise their sale over this.

warby68

Forget the roof. They want a discount not the roof. Its just a fancy dance to appear justified rather than lacking integrity. If the roof affected the value they'd be shoving the valuation under your nose. That's what my money is on.

Try and be businesslike now. You have negotiated weakly so far and that's why they are pushing. If it were me and they were playing games like this it would be back on the market already. However I sense you really want to try and progress this deal. So... decide how much if anything you are willing to drop the price. Make it clear it is no longer to do with the roof but simply to secure a quick closure. Make the offer conditional on a rapid exchange with a deadline after which the property goes back on the market and remove whatever items you now wish to from the sale. Also ask them to confirm in writing their agreement to the offer within say 48 hours, or again its back on the market. Make it a final offer, no more negotiation. And stick to it.

House buying and selling can be a game of who blinks first. You've been blinking like you have hay fever!! Practice your cold stare now

getmore4less

We had fully renovated our property to an immaculate/high standard so it didnt surprise us that it only took a week to sell at asking price and we in fact had two (exact) offers well over the asking price!

Get the agent to check with the other offers and anyone that showed an interest but was put off by the higher offers.

Get some photos of the spruced up garden done today

Tell the agent to relist at the higher price with the garden photos today.

Catch the weekend searchers.

Let the current buyers go to exchange if they still want it, it must be so close if it is just this price/roof issue.

if any new offers come in you can stall them for a week, to give the current buyers a chance.


You are over emotionally attached to this place if you are doing extra work now, you need to let go and get the most you can for it.

Beenie

House buying is a well-known time of stress and anxiety. So much depends on trust and goodwill. Do you trust this buyer now?

As others say, do not negociate about the roof (it is a red herring anyway, they just want to reduce the price and would find something else to witter about), instruct the agent to relist. Good luck.

bertiewhite

FactualGnome wrote: »

we are truly struggling to find the funds to pay our legal fees at the end of all of this.
We are going to have to borrow the money or sell our belongings.

Why can't you cover your legal fees? Are you in negative equity?

FactualGnome

Thanks for some good points - I like a lot of the suggestions, esp about getting things in writing for a quick exchange if things come to that head today.
...its just very frustrating theres no legal protection to force a buyer to actually 'make' any sense of a reduced offer.
But none of it does.

As the EA says theres no talking to this woman - and like a few are confirming - it thus feels very much like a red herring, they want that drop in price...despite her lucrative position.

The house is still online - it states as under offer so the EA stopped viewings, but EA has been taking detail of interest, which I will check up on today.

Re our roofers quote, he is a family friend so he probably gave us a good price but also we're talking about a roof thats at most about half the size of a garage roof.

We were advised moving costs would be around £5/6k - so we put a huge chunk of our equity on our new house and kept back £5k for legal fees, but adding it all up its gone up to £7k (stamp duty was over the threshold that we thought) and this £2k barter will mean we need to be paying £4k out of our own money, obviously its pointless explaining personal circs as to why thats difficult at the moment, but it just is. We cant afford to put more of the equity to cover it as we've basically pushed ourselves to get a dream house after we got that higher priced offer.

And thats what it all comes down to - loosing our house, the new build developers want exchange and deposit in 2 weeks time.

My plan for today is to try determine (as I have no clue about this process) about how much is this buyer set to loose £ wise so far into this (& also us).
I could contact the other higher offer and see where hes at.
Maybe Id have extra time with the new build contract to swap buyers.
Regarding the EA/this buyer, I am thinking of trying to call her bluff - to see what she does.
My other thought was to quote her by stating if she wants to be 'reasonable' by going halfs on the Fibreglass roof quote (which I know is still stupid of me) - why isnt she going off the first roofer she appointed - thus the deal would be £1k not £2k.

BUT I am having arguments with my husband about it he doesnt want to loose our dream house over the principle of £2k, he thinks im being stupid for even thinking of jeopardising it, especially when the offer was so high over asking price which means were the ones being greedy. I see his point too. And this is why our negotiations have been so quick.

I am indeed angry/frustrated but despite not allowing myself to get excited about our new house until the keys are in my hand etc, I still 'want' that house and no matter how much I tried to prepare myself for how crazy the process could be, I still didnt think it would happen for no real reason, especially from an old couple as silly as that sounds. She even wanted to put cash in hand to secure the property sale but was advised that was illegal Ha.

TamsinC

There is always another house.

(Much as this is your dream house, another dream house may/will be round the corner - personally I'd never buy a new build but that's my problem not yours)

hazyjo

Am sure your solicitor wouldn't let you, but FGS don't exchange on your purchase until you are ready to exchange on your sale too! Really don't know how you'll be ready to exchange contracts in a few weeks if you start again! Actually, I'll be surprised if you even manage it with this buyer! And if they know that, which they prob do, they basically have you over a barrel unless you're willing to risk losing the new build.


I always cut my nose off to spite my face, but in this case, with over-asking price offers, I would just take the £2k hit - but forget the 'helpful pack' and anything else you were going to do for them. No, don't try to change what you've said you're leaving. Don't be surprised if they want a final viewing before exchanging - they'll now be worried about what you'll do to the property!

getmore4less

dream house and new build can they be in the same sentence, new builds are usual not unique.

especially when the offer was so high over asking price which means were the ones being greedy.

Sound like is was priced for a quick sale not a mess us about sale.

Chances are there was room for a bit more anyway, I would call the bluff get the SSTC removed and get people looking at it as available.

The message to the buyer is you are messing us about if you want it you will pay the offered price or go look for another one(let the EA deal with that).

Do you think the new build has people waiting in the wings?
when is that build due to complete?

Remember new builds often over shoot their guess ed completion dates sometimes a lot(months not weeks).

loveka

I feel your pain. I had a buyer pull out because her survey said the (handmade in frame) kitchen would have to be ripped out to check if there was damp behind the units. Also said the conservatory was not a usable room and needed to be removed!

We had also rejected offers over our asking price. It is so annoying.

If I were you I would get the roof done yourself asap for £750. Then put it back on the market.