Near exchange/completion and vendor put property back on market while sale to us progresses

misspenfold

Looking for thoughts on this situation please:

We had an offer accepted on a property in early March. The vendor has been consistent that they want to complete as soon as possible and as we have had a buyer for our property waiting since dec were happy with this.

We agreed in April to an end of May completion and things have been chugging along until we he results of our survey which identified badly constructed resin driveway which had breached the damp-proof course and made air bricks basically into drains. We’ve asked the seller for information on the installation (only a year ago) and they could only provide a business card. No invoice, receipt or warranty/guarantee.

we’ve said we want to arrange quotes to fix this and this means we will not meet the end of a aMay aim now.

The EA has been in to us today to say the seller has put the property back on the market while the sale with us progresses. Our initial reaction to this is they are trying to express some frustration, but we’re growing increasing, well, !!!!!! odd about it as we feel the vendor wants to have their cake and eat it.

we’re considering returning to the EA to say if it’s back on the market we will submit a new offer (that takes into consideration worse case costs to fix the driveway), so a reduction of approx £12.5k or 5%. We also offered £20k over asking

 Is it reasonable for the vendor to put back on the market while not rejecting us? We do have family we can move into if needed and feel that the vendor doesn’t want to have to have to start the process all over again. We also don’t want to respond to an emotional reaction of frustration by the vendor with an overly emotional reaction in turn.

AnotherJoe

 Is it reasonable for the vendor to put back on the market while not rejecting us?

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I'd say it is wholly unreasonable if they didnt tell you this was their intention before doing it so it came out of the blue.

I dont blame you for the "worst case situation" price drop, but i feel this means this whole thing will crumble. You wont get this house and the vendor certainly wont get their early completion (nor ongoing sale if they have one). Looks like they shot themselves in the foot with both barrels.

One comment, £12.5k to fix what sounds offhand like a couple of thousand at most costs to cut back the affected area and put a drain in seems extreme. Does the whole drive need redoing in your opinion? Did you get someone in to quote?

Gavin83

Is it a reasonable reaction? No, but they certainly can put it back on the market if they wish.

Honestly you just need to decide what you want to do. If the findings have led to you wanting to pay less then offer less and it's up to the vendor if they wish to accept or not. If they refuse then either negotiate or walk away. Personally if I'd offered £20k over asking and a major issue came up in the survey I'd want a reduction or I'd walk but only you can make that decision.

If all they can produce for the work is a business card I'd be extremely suspicious as to who actually did the work....

user1977

Gavin83 said:

If all they can produce for the work is a business card I'd be extremely suspicious as to who actually did the work....

Seems a bit of a red herring though - it's not as if a buyer would have any rights against the installer, unless there happened to be an assignable guarantee which covers the defect in question (and unless they had been told at the outset "yes there's a guarantee", you wouldn't assume such a thing existed). It's really just the same as any other existing defect with the property.

misspenfold

AnotherJoe said:

 Is it reasonable for the vendor to put back on the market while not rejecting us?

========

I'd say it is wholly unreasonable if they didnt tell you this was their intention before doing it so it came out of the blue.

I dont blame you for the "worst case situation" price drop, but i feel this means this whole thing will crumble. You wont get this house and the vendor certainly wont get their early completion (nor ongoing sale if they have one). Looks like they shot themselves in the foot with both barrels.

One comment, £12.5k to fix what sounds offhand like a couple of thousand at most costs to cut back the affected area and put a drain in seems extreme. Does the whole drive need redoing in your opinion? Did you get someone in to quote?

We rang around a couple of places and one said they wouldn’t trust any of the work if they messed up the DPC so would want to relay. I know there’s a bit of fishing for a bigger job there but that’s where the larger figure comes from. We’re waiting on 3 actual quotes to see what he consensus on cost is.

The whole thing crumbling is definable our worry too. 

GDB2222

Forgive me looking at this from the vendor's point of view for a moment. You agreed the purchase in March, but it sounds like you have only recently had the survey results. When was the survey done? 

If I were the seller, and this were sprung on me rather late in the day, just a few days before the intended completion, I'd also be thinking of looking for a new buyer. Particularly if you are in a part of the country where the market has gone a bit bananas. 

misspenfold

GDB2222 said:

Forgive me looking at this from the vendor's point of view for a moment. You agreed the purchase in March, but it sounds like you have only recently had the survey results. When was the survey done? 

If I were the seller, and this were sprung on me rather late in the day, just a few days before the intended completion, I'd also be thinking of looking for a new buyer. Particularly if you are in a part of the country where the market has gone a bit bananas. 

That’s an interesting challenge, ta. We waited until after we had our mortgage offer/searches in to arrange the survey which was done a couple of weeks ago now. We kept the seller updated along our process, but yes I can see it could come across as a last minute thing to spring on them.

newsgroupmonkey_

Out of interest, is this over £500k and are they trying to avoid SDLT on their future purchase?
Because sure as anything, this ain't getting fixed by a new buyer by the end of June.

Thrugelmir

misspenfold said:

we’ve said we want to arrange quotes to fix this and this means we will not meet the end of a aMay aim now.

Nearly three months later when the entire chain is heading towards exchange/completion you pull the handbrake on. Your own survey should have have been scheduled nearly 3 months ago. Not after everybody has incurred considerable costs and now faces the real possibility that the chain will collapse. If no agreement is reached between you and the vendor.  

GDB2222

misspenfold said:

GDB2222 said:

Forgive me looking at this from the vendor's point of view for a moment. You agreed the purchase in March, but it sounds like you have only recently had the survey results. When was the survey done? 

If I were the seller, and this were sprung on me rather late in the day, just a few days before the intended completion, I'd also be thinking of looking for a new buyer. Particularly if you are in a part of the country where the market has gone a bit bananas. 

That’s an interesting challenge, ta. We waited until after we had our mortgage offer/searches in to arrange the survey which was done a couple of weeks ago now. We kept the seller updated along our process, but yes I can see it could come across as a last minute thing to spring on them.

As @Thrugelmir has said, this is really bad timing.

Could I suggest a compromise? It's somewhat OTT to suggest that the driveway needs to be dug up and relayed. There's nothing in your survey to support that, I take it?

The sort of problem you outlined is easily rectified by digging out any excess driveway around the air bricks and DPC, then putting in a tiny bit of wall a few cms high. That will keep the water out of the air bricks. I don't know how much length you are talking about, but maybe that would cost a couple of thousand. At most.

Check with your surveyor that that will work and whether £2k should cover it, then have a word with your sellers. If you do reduce the price for the house, you'll need a new mortgage offer, but maybe you're paying for some chattels and the price for those can be reduced?

okigen

Between me and my friend we have seen a quite a few places in the same situation. In most cases the seller feels that buyer is too slow or may pull out, so they market the property to put pressure for the buyer to hurry up. I actually made an offer on one of those, and they promptly exchanged two weeks later.