Vendors demands - considering pulling out

brewthebear

My opinion is "its not meant to be everything for a reason". Walk away you,ll be glad in the long run.Good Luck.

elsien

Just bear in mind that if you end up not going with this house, because buying and selling properties addles people's brains, there's nothing to stop you getting a silly vendor another time as well. Are you going to pull out so early each time?
It's best to try to take emotion out of it as far as possible. I don't think what's happened so far should be enough to make you change your minds unless there's something else concerning you anyway.
The previous poster's suggestion about flipping it is a good one.

Bacon_Sandwich

The daft thing is, is that if the solicitors are still at the pre-contract enquiries stage, then your vendor has very little hope of meeting their own deadline anyway. I think other posters are right in suggesting you consider look elsewhere

KatieDee

iammumtoone wrote: »

If the above guesses are right then what a strange way of going about things.


With that amount of money involved they should have approached OP asking if they could move forward the date and suggest that they would compensate any extra rental they would need to pay to help with this. Surely a payment of 1-2K at the most which could be taken off the house would be much cheaper than the amount speculated above.

And I would have made sure we did our absolute best to try and meet their request. I think we loved the property so much that if push came to shove and they were genuinely concerned, we would have maybe considered unpaid leave or something similar to help them. It was just that it went from "Well, we might find it tough to do complete before April" to them demanding it happened, pulling offers to fix issues and making these vague threats about what would happen if we couldn't meet their request.

iammumtoone wrote: »

OP don't be afraid to ask to have another viewing of this house to re-look at it to see how you feel now along side the new potential property.



If the house is empty this should be easy enough for the EA to arrange.

We're going to pop round when we view the other two houses, as it's literally next door. The problem with viewing it is that the vendors family does all the viewings, so it might be slightly awkward :rotfl:

brewthebear wrote: »

My opinion is "its not meant to be everything for a reason". Walk away you,ll be glad in the long run.Good Luck.

Thank you so much for this. It's so strange - if you'd have told me the sale might have fallen through a week ago, I would have cried. My partner and I were even discussing how disappointed and sad we would have been, which shows how much we cared about the house. It's funny how pressure can change your entire outlook, but it's really helpful to be reminded that this isn't the only house out there or the end of the world

KatieDee

elsien wrote: »

Just bear in mind that if you end up not going with this house, because buying and selling properties addles people's brains, there's nothing to stop you getting a silly vendor another time as well. Are you going to pull out so early each time?
It's best to try to take emotion out of it as far as possible. I don't think what's happened so far should be enough to make you change your minds unless there's something else concerning you anyway.
The previous poster's suggestion about flipping it is a good one.

Not at all. We appreciate that things come up, vendors can be difficult, delays can happen. It was the manner of which the vendors family member demanded something which is quite frankly not likely to happen anyway. I think if the house was perfect or a total bargain, we'd grit our teeth and get on with it. However, we paid a good amount for a house we thought we wanted to make our forever home, due to the conveniences this brought us (no chain, no pressure, etc). They've kind of changed the rules and the atmosphere, making these silly demands and making us feel uncomfortable.

I see where you're coming from though - you cannot take things personally when buying or selling a house.

Bacon_Sandwich wrote: »

The daft thing is, is that if the solicitors are still at the pre-contract enquiries stage, then your vendor has very little hope of meeting their own deadline anyway. I think other posters are right in suggesting you consider look elsewhere

This is the annoying thing. If they'd rushed back their paperwork, advised their solicitor they were in a hurry and we were close to exchange, I might understand their demands a bit more. As it stands, their solicitor isn't back until the middle of next week, they haven't responded to pre-contract inquiries and I don't even know if they've returned the fixtures and fittings form. Nothing they have done so far has implied they're in a rush, and we're not going to drop everything on our side to pick up on their slack.

It's leasehold as well, so the process tends to be longer than your standard freehold purchase. I just can't understand why they feel it's reasonable to pressure us so much when they haven't even done anything on their end.

AnotherJoe

KatieDee wrote: »

It's leasehold as well, so the process tends to be longer than your standard freehold purchase. I just can't understand why they feel it's reasonable to pressure us so much when they haven't even done anything on their end.

Most likely, they are simply clueless about the whole process.

They might even be clueless the delay is at their end.

KatieDee

AnotherJoe wrote: »

Most likely, they are simply clueless about the whole process.

They might even be clueless the delay is at their end.

From what I understand, the family are quite experienced in renovations and having just purchased a new property for the vendor, you'd assume they would know the basics.

You never know though - I learnt most of what I know through this website and Google, and I'm still discovering things I didn't know, so perhaps they don't completely understand it.

Bollo2019

They have been incredibly stupid to try and force your hand like that, especially with their reasons given. You shouldn't worry about their silly games and take the emotions out of it, think of the house in isolation and whether you feel the same as how you initially saw it and were interested in it - are other properties giving you a similar feeling?

There is no chance that they're going to get another buyer to complete as quickly as you will by this point, so you are under no pressure to save them £500 on "council tax and insurance". You have been upfront and clearly defined a time frame for you to complete, which they have agreed from the onset.

I wish you well in getting it sorted, I know that house buying is emotionally draining at times. I'm about to complete on a house which I was chuffed to agree on, then had a survey and thought we'd have to walk away deflated, now have put things into perspective and am happily awaiting exchange.

KatieDee

Bollo2019 wrote: »

They have been incredibly stupid to try and force your hand like that, especially with their reasons given. You shouldn't worry about their silly games and take the emotions out of it, think of the house in isolation and whether you feel the same as how you initially saw it and were interested in it - are other properties giving you a similar feeling?

There is no chance that they're going to get another buyer to complete as quickly as you will by this point, so you are under no pressure to save them £500 on "council tax and insurance". You have been upfront and clearly defined a time frame for you to complete, which they have agreed from the onset.

I wish you well in getting it sorted, I know that house buying is emotionally draining at times. I'm about to complete on a house which I was chuffed to agree on, then had a survey and thought we'd have to walk away deflated, now have put things into perspective and am happily awaiting exchange.

Thank you for your input - I am really pleased you're so close to exchange and still in one piece!

It was all going so well for us. I understand what you're saying about the house - it's still the same house we fell in love with, it's just that the shine has been taken off it. It's difficult to explain really. As I keep saying, I wanted to be 100% certain about the house, that we were paying the right amount, buying from the right people, really aiming to make this our forever family home. When it has been tainted by the attitude of someone involved, it's hard to force that same enthusiasm and suddenly all the work it needs seems impossible, rather than just challenging.

To be honest, it's just nice to have a vent and be reassured that it isn't us being unreasonable.

I wish you the best of luck with your move :beer:

Yellow_mango

FWIW - I saw you mention that your reason for not being able to complete until April is being unable to book leave and not able to complete at the weekend?

Just a thought, but from my understanding, there is no need to be physically present for completion - it's just a phonecall from the solicitors and verbal confirmation. You can then pick the keys up from the estate agents at your convenience (who are generally open at the weekend). We are due to be completing tomorrow and this is what we are doing.

Depends of course on your current living arrangements / downwards chain and if you will need to actually move out of your current accommodation on completion, but I haven't seen anything about that in your posts.

From what you say it seems extremely unlikely that they will be ready to exchange / complete in March anyway. But if you were able to offer this as an option it might ease tensions a little - and make it crystal clear that any delays were entirely on them.