Previous owner asking to buy back property!

babyblade41

I'm slightly different . I'd address it to both parties who were on the deeds before buying & set out the price you would consider.

For me it would be a percentage increase, all legal fees covered, all moving costs covered & only exchange when you have a new property lined up & exchanged 

You never know they might snap your hand off 

Abbafan1972

Flugelhorn said:

Watch out for the "we were just visiting my sister and wondered if we could look round to see what you have done...."

"we are planning to come to my sisters for Xmas but she hasn't got room for us to stay, it'll be OK if we stay with you, won't it? we'll be no trouble - we know our way around"

Now that would be creepy!

It would be a flat NO from me I'm afraid. 

Rumana03

JuanBallOfWimbledon said:

After pretty much 2 years of searching & multiple purchases falling through, we finally completed on our first house on 27/04/22. Since then things have been frustrating.

We’ve had a several odd things happen, which I won’t get into to save an essay, but now we’ve received a really weird request… They regret selling. Would we consider allowing them to buy back the house? His wife was born in the house & lived there all her life. They raised their kids here, her sister lives next door etc. They offered £5k less than we bought it for 9 days ago, because ‘it’s clear prices will fall given the economy and we have to consider our fees’. We actually got a ridiculously good deal on it, paying a fair bit under market value. We really don’t want to sell, but we have to live next door to this woman’s sister. 

Is it just me, or is this madness? How do we say no nicely, and avoid upset with our new neighbours? 

Where did the vendor move to once they left that house? Did they buy a new property or were they renting?

london21

At first did not think it could be real life.

Personally I would not. House buying is very stressful, they had all this time before exchange and now completed and regretting it.

They even offered less than you bought it, so you will go through the stress and be worse off.

SaintJudy

Sure someone else may have already mentioned this but you've lost your first time buyer status now as well, so you'd have to factor stamp duty into a move which would make the whole process even more expensive

liberty_lily

GrumpyDil said:

I do have a certain sympathy because we regret selling our old house but it is what it is and certainly we would not have gone back like that, offering less than we sold for! 

Me too, but definitely wouldn't consider doing what the OP's vendors have done! I do confess to having a smidgen of sympathy for them though....

Emmia

TheJP said:

Emmia said:

Given the sister lives next door, the previous owners will return to your location, and they may try re-making the offer in person. 

Could you change something about the outward appearance of the house, to show it is no longer their home, but yours e.g. different planting, replacing or repainting the front door / garage door?

It isn't their home! They sold it. OP i would just ignore them, they made their bed etc...

The new owners need to "assert" the home is theirs, and not that of the previous owners - making simple changes like the colour of the door, can emphasise the fact the house is now under new ownership. 

The previous owners presumably chose to sell, and it sold - but they still feel "attached" so they need to be "detached".  Ideally this should be in a non confrontational way that doesn't involve personal interaction.

JuanBallOfWimbledon

Thanks for all the replies, I’m glad it’s not just me and this is actually as crazy as it feels. Today I sent emails (with hard copies in the post too), one stating that we spent a very long time searching for a house, and explaining how stressful and costly it was. That we don’t want to sell, but should that ever change, we’ll let them know. One stating that we can’t store their property indefinitely, that if it's not been collected by next Friday evening, we’ll have to dispose of it all.

The truth is, as things stand we fully intend this to be the only home we ever buy, we’re getting on and bought this with a view to it being our ‘forever home’. Obviously things change and I know this may not always be the case, but for right now, we’ve no intention of going through that process ever again. 

We received a reply stating that they understand, but do we have a rough idea of how long we intend to stay? So I clearly should have been more explicit and made it clear that we have no intention of moving in the future. They did however say someone will be round sunday afternoon to collect their things. Apparently this is a family member who lives locally, so I’m a bit annoyed that this wasn’t done sooner, but hey ho, at least it’ll be gone (well, if they actually show).

To those asking about other odd things, it’s all small stuff that mightn’t seem all that odd to anyone else. But when it’s one thing after another, it starts to get a bit surreal. A few examples:

*When we had our first, second, and final pre-exchange viewing, they just had a basic metal house number number on the door. When we arrived after collecting the keys, they’d put up a new sign, drilled into the brick; ‘The Jones House - No7’ (obviously name and number changed here). 

*The keys had a photo keyring of them swimming with dolphins attached. 

*They appear to have removed and taken all doorknobs. My wife commented on our last viewing that she’d not seen a doorknob in years and everyone seems to have handles now, but that it was nice and nostalgic. They were nothing special - just painted wooden ones, but all are gone. We’d have changed to handles anyway as my wife has arthritis in her hands, but still. 

*They left a small biscuit-type tin filled with random things, with a note asking us to bury their time capsule under the horse chestnut tree at the bottom of the garden. 

*They also left directions of exactly how to feed the local wildlife - the likes and dislikes of the squirrels and birds, with the names they’ve been given and descriptions of each. Apparently the local pet shop owner is expecting us and has all we will need put to one side. 

Like I said, it probably sounds like I’m being a bit petty and picking up on silly things, but honestly, we keep finding new notes and requests etc. We even found one in the small, old wood burner in the conservatory yesterday. Just a piece of paper saying ‘I was installed in 2006’. I’m starting to genuinely wonder if they’re on a wind up, but they seem a sweet couple, I’d guess in their mid 60’s. I’m fairly sleep deprived too, maybe I’m losing my marbles. 

canaldumidi

Ah now it makes sense.

That's my gran and grandad!

JuanBallOfWimbledon

canaldumidi said:

Ah now it makes sense.

That's my gran and grandad!

Honestly, I’m not sure I can express quite how much I needed that laugh! I hope they leave you those doorknobs in their will.