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Contract clause to reduce purchase price by stamp duty if sellers delay completion?

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Comments

  • Suseka97
    Suseka97 Posts: 1,571 Forumite
    Tenth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    We're not in too a dissimilar position, in that currently we've been promised completion by 30th March (because of the current SDLT deadline) and inevitably if its extended our vendors will want to wait it out for a while longer (their onward purchase is unlikely to be ready for some time to come and I should add we had our offer accepted last October - sigh).   We are about to go into a rental so we keep the our sale chain intact, which means we'll be having to jump between Airbnbs due to the fact we cannot get a short term rental for love nor money and that coupled with having to put our cats in boarding is an added stress we could well do without!

    Your vendors may well delay the exchange date if an SDLT extension is announced, so it makes sense to still try and agree an exchange in March for completion no later than x date in April and be prepared to pull out if they won't  or can't agree.  In their defence, and I don't know the area, finding a suitable rental isn't as easy as one might think and being elderly they may have particular needs, making it even more difficult.   We've been looking into rentals in the South West since the new year and its only now that potential rentals are popping up, before that there were very slim pickings.

  • To give hope - we had a similar situation. Offer accepted in August, seller had no documents ready, their solicitor took ages to reply to emails, would receive an email asking for four documents and reply with only one. All the time we're paying rent and racking up legal bills. Our seller was moving into rented and we had originally agreed 4 weeks between E and C. Late Jan comes, all the docs are in order and they wanted 8 weeks instead! I sent an email to the agent detailing the additional costs we would incur and explaining if the seller wanted to renegotiate a longer period between E+C we'd be happy to discuss them paying our costs. We settled on 5 weeks, partly because the seller found a rented place that she could put a deposit on that week and of course because people care much more for their own money than other people's. For us, it was helpful to have the Stamp Duty Holiday as a genuine, external, hard deadline where we would look to pull-out or renegotiate if not completed by that date as I think otherwise the seller would have happily bumbled on for even longer. 

    Some people who have been in the same home for a long time get nervous about moving into rented property and they want to find the 'perfect' rented fit before moving on. Ours was very resistant to discussions along the lines of 'if you need to you can put your belongings in storage and go to a short-term rental for a few weeks'. If home has been your castle for a long time the thought of settling for a dingy short-term option can be unsettling. I was annoyed at discussions around her deposit being put at risk because we could pull out, when we had been losing similar sums in rent every month they failed to reply to enquiries.  

    You have way more experience than me and it sounds like you've done your homework on the legal bits. If I were in your situation I'd be looking to lock-in a pre-31st March completion before the extension to the SD holiday is formally announced, otherwise your sellers might keep dragging it out. I suppose the question is do you insert the clause about re-couping stamp duty just in case it's not formally announced, but then risk delaying exchange and thus increasing the likelihood of a delayed completion or assume that the extension will become policy and push to exchange asap without additional clauses, leaving yourself exposed if the policy changes but giving your sellers max time to sort their lives out. 
  • SpiderLegs
    SpiderLegs Posts: 1,914 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Second Anniversary Name Dropper
    Dogdog said:
    They would be mad to agree to your condition as part of the exchange. I don't understand why you even think that you could even impose that condition.
    They just need to procrastinate until you give up and pull out. You have probably more to lose than them. 
    The benefit in getting rid of a buyer who makes unreasonable, and quite frankly, ludicrous demands
    I don't understand what you don't understand.
    Have you read the thread?
    They are getting a price well above what a surveyor has valued the property at.  It additionally needs thousands spending on it - with multiple safety and building regs contraventions.  To get this work done (which the vast majority of buyers will be clear they need to do before moving in - rewire, plastering, structural work, etc)  means a buyer won't be moving in for weeks or more after completion.
    They've had a sale agreed for 6 months.  They've known from the start I was pushing for earliest possible completion and said this was fine.  They've known from the start that I stated I wouldn't be prepared to pay additional stamp duty if this dragged out beyond end March and this was fine.  There was/is no chain.  They simply needed to pack the house up, and find somewhere to rent - as was always their intention.

    Please clarify why my demands are "unreasonable, and quite frankly, ludicrous" especially in light of me having been paying rent and having my lift on hold since end of November whilst they dither around for 6 months - despite at the outset having no issue with everything I've said above???!


    You’re not quite getting it are you.

    Where is the incentive for them to agree to this demand?
    What are they getting in return?

    unless you’re prepared to walk away it’s a pointless threat. 
    Are you? If so then tell them it’s complete by X date or you walk. 
    If not then faffing around with some useless penalty clause that they likely won’t agree to just makes you look silly and draws it out even longer.


  • AnotherJoe
    AnotherJoe Posts: 19,622 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Fifth Anniversary Name Dropper Photogenic
    Looks like the OP is in the clear now, SD concession going to be extended for 3 months.
  • pbartlett
    pbartlett Posts: 1,397 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    The OP might also want to consider looking at other properties just in case this drags on.... 
  • Dogdog
    Dogdog Posts: 16 Forumite
    Seventh Anniversary 10 Posts Combo Breaker
    To give hope - we had a similar situation. Offer accepted in August, seller had no documents ready, their solicitor took ages to reply to emails, would receive an email asking for four documents and reply with only one. All the time we're paying rent and racking up legal bills. Our seller was moving into rented and we had originally agreed 4 weeks between E and C. Late Jan comes, all the docs are in order and they wanted 8 weeks instead! I sent an email to the agent detailing the additional costs we would incur and explaining if the seller wanted to renegotiate a longer period between E+C we'd be happy to discuss them paying our costs. We settled on 5 weeks, partly because the seller found a rented place that she could put a deposit on that week and of course because people care much more for their own money than other people's. For us, it was helpful to have the Stamp Duty Holiday as a genuine, external, hard deadline where we would look to pull-out or renegotiate if not completed by that date as I think otherwise the seller would have happily bumbled on for even longer. 

    Some people who have been in the same home for a long time get nervous about moving into rented property and they want to find the 'perfect' rented fit before moving on. Ours was very resistant to discussions along the lines of 'if you need to you can put your belongings in storage and go to a short-term rental for a few weeks'. If home has been your castle for a long time the thought of settling for a dingy short-term option can be unsettling. I was annoyed at discussions around her deposit being put at risk because we could pull out, when we had been losing similar sums in rent every month they failed to reply to enquiries.  

    You have way more experience than me and it sounds like you've done your homework on the legal bits. If I were in your situation I'd be looking to lock-in a pre-31st March completion before the extension to the SD holiday is formally announced, otherwise your sellers might keep dragging it out. I suppose the question is do you insert the clause about re-couping stamp duty just in case it's not formally announced, but then risk delaying exchange and thus increasing the likelihood of a delayed completion or assume that the extension will become policy and push to exchange asap without additional clauses, leaving yourself exposed if the policy changes but giving your sellers max time to sort their lives out. 
    Thank you.  Yes it doesn't seem similar.  The frustration is that the sellers seem to feel as though I should just adapt to what they want and are failing to appreciate that from the outset they agreed to end of March and no later - have had 6 months to sort themselves out - and that I've pushed through the sale of my last property very quickly, and moved in to rented - all to help smooth the process and ensure no delays on my side that I could control. 
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