Upping the offer

gooner85

Hi,

I am in the process of selling a flat and purchasing a house. Unfortunately I seemed to pick the worst conveyancer in the industry and the process is at 5+ months. 

The seller is a property developer, he accepted our offer 300k in December on property (A) and in January he planned to purchase another property (B). He was not reliant on the sale of A to fund B and wasn't expecting them to overlap. 

Last week we were told that he is due to exchange on property B on Thursday, and unless we are in position to exchange on property A on Tuesday or Wednesday then he will be liable for just over 10k stamp duty costs because property B will be classed as a second home.

He has told us, he is exchanging on Thursday regardless to our situation and is re-listing property A on Tuesday, if we are able to exchange on Tuesday/Wednesday he will accept that otherwise he will be holding out for an extra 10k to recover his stamp duty costs.

My conveyancer is useless and I'm not confident about exchanging next week, she understands the situation but doesn't seem to care. 

I would expect the property will get a lot of attention on Tuesday and I believe 310k is easily achievable, and we don't really want to lose out. 

My mortgage broker has stated that if we want to expand the loan amount, it will be a brand new application and we need to hope they agree to that valuation, the delays on that could cost us our buyers. 

So, the other option would be to pay the 10k cash. My mortgage broker would not give advice on this.

My question being, if we offered to pay an extra 10k cash now, would we need inform our mortgage provider and would that cause problems or delays in amending paperwork etc? 

 

Indigo_and_Violet

Have you spoken to the seller about stamp duty refunds? Assuming the extra 10k comes from the second home surcharge then they can reclaim it if they sell their 'other' main property within 3 years (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/stamp-duty-land-tax-buying-an-additional-residential-property#refund). So they'll be out 10k for a short time, but given that that'll happen anyway I'd aim to keep my 'nearly ready' buyer (perhaps looking for a small sum compensation for lost interest?) rather than go for a whole new buyer. 

Angela_D_3

Given hes a developer i doubt any of them are his homes and hes just taking full advantage of the stamp duty holiday which unless hes built the house since last June when the holiday was announced the £10,000 is a bonus not part of the original business plan.
Can you appeal to his better nature ?  

strawberries1

What's holding the conveyancer? Threaten to write to the SRA if they're a qualified sol as they're not acting in your best interest nor to reasonable standard.

gooner85

We started the selling process just after the first lockdown last year, once we got to appointing a conveyancer they were swamped and I was quoted by a couple local conveyancing firms in excess of 4k for a sale and purchase. 

I guess they were that busy, they could quote as high as they liked. I ended up going through a comparison site and found a firm that was about 2.4K for both. 

Initially they were great and the house purchase has been ready to exchange for weeks but the sale side has been applying, 24 weeks into the process and my conveyancer is taking 3 weeks a time to answer what I consider to be simple
enquires. 

They have told me twice we were ready to exchange and then the buyers conveyancer points out we still have 22 outstanding enquires. 

teachfast

gooner85 said:

Hi,

I am in the process of selling a flat and purchasing a house. Unfortunately I seemed to pick the worst conveyancer in the industry

That is a seriously difficult task. The competition is extremely stiff.  Congratulations.