Vendors demands - considering pulling out

KatieDee

Who ever said this house buying malarkey was easy?? :rotfl:

We're over half way through a house purchase. Searches are back and we're just awaiting information from the vendors solicitor in regards to pre-contract enquiries (which were requested almost three weeks ago). We assumed everything was going swimmingly, until this morning....

A family member, who lent the vendor the money to purchase a new house, has suddenly demanded that we complete by the end of March. We made it clear, both directly to the vendor and to the estate agent, that we were unable to move before April, so this was quite surprising. Add to this the fact that their solicitor has been dragging their feet and is currently on holiday until next week.

We politely explained that we were unable complete before April but would try our best to complete ASAP. We also reminded them that we were hoping to exchange shortly and were just waiting for the outstanding information on their side to be provided.

EA then comes back saying that they reluctantly agree to the earliest possible date in April, but due to the additional cost of "council tax and insurance" on the property, they would no longer be fixing something that they promised to fix prior to completion. This is to the value of around £500.

So we're a little bit flummoxed really...on one hand, we loved the house, but this is a huge amount of money to spend and we don't appreciate bullying tactics when we've been nothing but transparent. For the sake of a week, the vendors family member has made us feel very pressured and doesn't seem to want to compromise. We're really starting to look at the house and the work required as a negative, rather than the positive we saw it as....literally this morning!

Emotions are running a bit high, even the estate agent said he thinks the family member is being unreasonable, so we've taken the evening to remove ourselves from the situation and have a think without our judgment being clouded. It isn't personal, it's business. That said, I feel completely and utterly overwhelmed.

Are these just standard tactics to try and force a quicker sale? Are we the ones in the wrong by sticking to our original proposed completion date? Are we being unreasonable by considering our other options?!

It's so hard to know what the right thing to do is.

G_M

People become irrational during house sales.

Personally, I'd ignore. ie

* just promise to progress asap (timescales are always unpredictable so it's a meaningless promise!)
* refuse to re-negotiate on price - it just annoys me when buyers/sellers try to gazump
* insist on the agreed fixtures/fitings you want.
* but as for them 'fixing something prior to completion' I'd never have agreed to that in the first place. A seller has no incentive to fix properly and will do the cheapest bodge-job they can get away with.

Their council tax /insurance issues are not your concern!

iammumtoone

so what are they going to do if you say no and pull out?


They will not find a new buyer to complete before end of March or very unlikely to complete end of April unless they considerably drop the price for a quick cash sale. Their EA sounds a bit useless they should be pointing this out to them, or maybe they have but vendor is determined to go ahead with bully tactics.


I would say you can't complete when they want and they either agree to your time frame or you will pull out. State you now want £500 off the price to get this work done yourselves (I would now not trust them to do it).


The above of course relies on the fact you are not in a hurry to move, if you have a buyer lined up and would need to re-market yourselves this changes the situation (which unfortunately is why people get away with demands like this )

hb2

As you said, house buying is seldom easy or stress free!

I think you really need to decide how much you love this house and consider whether it is worth the price being asked ('worth' in fact and emotionally). Leaving your understandable anger out of the picture, do you really want to walk away over a matter of £500 for the repairs? Or are there other things worrying you?

The vendor can stamp and shout all they like but the likelihood of them getting another buyer who could complete before April are rather small. This should put you in a strong position, unless your vendor is prepared to cut off their nose to spite their face . . .

KatieDee

G_M wrote: »

People become irrational during house sales.

Personally, I'd ignore. ie

* just promise to progress asap (timescales are always unpredictable so it's a meaningless promise!)
* refuse to re-negotiate on price - it just annoys me when buyers/sellers try to gazump
* insist on the agreed fixtures/fitings you want.
* but as for them 'fixing something prior to completion' I'd never have agreed to that in the first place. A seller has noincentive to fix properly and will do the cheapest bodge-job they can get away with.



Their council tax /insurance issues are not your concern!

Thank you G_M, always the voice of reason

We had absolutely no plans to negotiate on price. Even when we originally put our offer in, we were extremely honest (probably to our demise) because we wanted to set off on the right foot.

I agree about the time frame bit as well. We've always been really forward about our limitations in regards to moving (it isn't that we don't want to move faster, it's that we both work in sectors that need a lot of notice for leave and we cannot complete on a weekend!) but they haven't even returned the initial queries, so we're nowhere near exchanging. There's every chance something could come back that needs questioning and entirely reasonable that we won't be in a position to exchange until April anyway.

More than anything, I feel as though my confidence has been shaken. I (perhaps naively) felt like this was a mutually beneficial situation in which we would all try and make it as easy as possible. These tactics seem underhanded and the way they refused to entertain an April completion was almost a thinly veiled threat.

Buying a house is a massive commitment that I wanted to feel 100% certain of. Now I am not sure how I feel.

Sorry for the blog post guys, it just helps to vent a little! :rotfl:

kazwookie

Depends on how much you want the house.

I personally would be inclined to tell them to 'go take a walk' 'get stuffed' and I would walk away................

They have more to loose than you do.

KatieDee

iammumtoone wrote: »

so what are they going to do if you say no and pull out?


They will not find a new buyer to complete before end of March or very unlikely to complete end of April unless they considerably drop the price for a quick cash sale. Their EA sounds a bit useless they should be pointing this out to them, or maybe they have but vendor is determined to go ahead with bully tactics.


I would say you can't complete when they want and they either agree to your time frame or you will pull out. State you now want £500 off the price to get this work done yourselves (I would now not trust them to do it).


The above of course relies on the fact you are not in a hurry to move, if you have a buyer lined up and would need to re-market yourselves this changes the situation (which unfortunately is why people get away with demands like this )

We are incredibly lucky - chain free, nothing to sell, in long term rented accommodation. Absolutely no rush whatsoever, which I am sure we should be incredibly grateful for

They never gave a "or else..." scenario, just that we HAD to complete by the end of March. I don't think it would have bothered us as much if we'd not repeatedly said, on making the offer, attending the second viewing, via email several times to the EA, that we couldn't complete before April.

I agree about the chance of them finding a buyer to complete before April. The area isn't really a hot spot for landlords who are more likely to be cash buyers and I would say the price is on the higher side for what it is. We weren't worried about this as we're paying for the area and were planning to make it our forever home. There was very little interest prior to us viewing and offering which was confirmed by the EA themselves.

hb2 wrote: »

As you said, house buying is seldom easy or stress free!

I think you really need to decide how much you love this house and consider whether it is worth the price being asked ('worth' in fact and emotionally). Leaving your understandable anger out of the picture, do you really want to walk away over a matter of £500 for the repairs? Or are there other things worrying you?

The vendor can stamp and shout all they like but the likelihood of them getting another buyer who could complete before April are rather small. This should put you in a strong position, unless your vendor is prepared to cut off their nose to spite their face . . .

Thank you for your input I don't think it's a matter of the money, it's more the uncertainty this has put on the purchase. I suppose I wanted a level of mutual respect and I hate the idea that they're stomping their feet over something we made clear in the beginning. I think they're assuming that we're some naive FTB who don't understand the process, and by making these threats we will cave and somehow fix the limitations we have in place.

Honestly, if we could have moved earlier, we would have done! It would also have helped if they'd returned the information back to their solicitor on time....:rotfl:

In regards to the other worries - we love the house but it needs a lot of work. We factored this into our offer, have literally gotten quotes for the work that needs doing and already made a rough plan of how we would tackle it. Before this whole thing kicked off we were more than happy to do this and actually really excited, but now we're being forced to look at it in a much colder and less emotional way, we're recognising the time and cost involved. There are houses, on the next road, that are well within our budget but in a lot better condition. They were never a consideration before as we were so committed to our lovely little house, but now they've made things harder, we're losing our love for it.

KatieDee

Slight bump...

If we were to pull out of the purchase, we understand we will have solicitors fees for the work done up to this point. Our solicitor has been great so far and we would definitely want him to work for us on the next purchase. Is this okay?

And also, if we find another property, do we approach our lender and let them know so they're able to change the details and survey the new property or is a new application from scratch? Will the fact we have a mortgage offer go against us in regards to multiple searches?

ACG

£500 for council tax and insurance?
Where do they live?
Your not buying Buckingham Palace are you?

bertiewhite

KatieDee wrote: »

Slight bump...

If we were to pull out of the purchase, we understand we will have solicitors fees for the work done up to this point. Our solicitor has been great so far and we would definitely want him to work for us on the next purchase. Is this okay?

And also, if we find another property, do we approach our lender and let them know so they're able to change the details and survey the new property or is a new application from scratch? Will the fact we have a mortgage offer go against us in regards to multiple searches?

I had a similar situation in my last purchase - we decided the first house we offered on wasn't suitable and the solicitors were happy for me to "put them on hold". I think they had only done a tiny bit of work (preparation of paperwork, calculation of stamp duty, but not as far as searches) so only the one fee was charged. As for the lender, my original application still held and I wasn't charged for another valuation.

Elinore

We went through three houses that fell through, one we pulled out the rest were beyond our control - the sols just billed us the once for the house we bought. so I would check if yours do the same.