Should we try renegotiate or stay quiet?

livdawsonn

 Hi all - looking for some advice if possible. We are 4 months into our house-buying journey. House came on the market when I was out of the country - because of how the market is I asked my partner to go view the house whilst I was away. We offered and got accepted. I thought if I didn’t like it, the offer isn’t binding so wasn’t the end of the world if it was a disaster.

I’ve since seen the house three times since. The first time to view for the first time once I was back, the second time to measure up for kitchen quotes and most recently to measure the floor for carpet. The house is rather full of furniture so I never thought the house was smaller than it was advertised, just a simple bad choice of furniture and too cluttered.


it came to my attention about 12 weeks in that I found an older listing of the house, which showed the house 20 sqm smaller than the current listing. I queried this with the EA and he apologised and changed the plan as per his updated measurements. The second-floor plan was still larger than the old posting from years ago so I assumed the older one was incorrect.


Fast forward to now we viewed the house the 3rd time this week and measured it as this was the first opportunity we had to cross-reference their new floor plans. To our disappointment, the ‘corrected’ plan was still wrong and our measurements have lost just short of another 10 sqm on top of the original. I am aware EA use the widest part of the room to measure so we did the same when measuring to keep it fair. 


Our solicitors told us today we should be able to exchange end of next week… we cannot complete it till the 1st of august though due to the sellers. Should we stay hush about this since we are so far into the process or should we ask to renegotiate since the property was falsely advertised twice?

I just feel so disappointed they weren’t more transparent as we went in over asking because of the good floor space - which has turned out to not exist. However, I do think the likelihood is it’s too late to do anything now. 

Any advice would be great as we are FTB and completely at a loss at what to do.

**** Apologies I wrote sqft I meant square metres, amended post with correction****

user1977

Can you give us some context - what's the size of the house?

It's not (in the UK at least) particularly common to be quite that mathematical about using the square footage as a basis for the price (and relying on the EA's measurements), especially when you've the opportunity to see the place for yourself (and even take your own measurements if any are particularly important to you).

Rebeccas90

We had a similar issue when we moved house earlier this year. 

We were told dimensions for the house we wanted to buy are given for reference only, their EA and our solicitors recommend viewing the property and taking our own measurements if needed. 

We also checked the room measurements that our EA put up on our house sale adverts, some were way off. The box room was 3.5 x 2.9m, room was a rectangle (no widest/narrowest point), on the ad the EA put up 4.1 x 3.5m. When we asked them to change it, they said we would need to pay for them to come back out to remeasure the room.

tightauldgit

Until you exchange you aren't committed so the only question that really matters is whether you are happy to go ahead at the price agreed or not. 

You can try to negotiate but the seller is well within their rights to say no. And equally you are within your rights to pull out of the deal if you don't feel comfortable going forward. 

I don't really understand why you feel a need to 'stay hush' - you're doing your due diligence on the property and you have found a discrepancy so why not at least ask the question? Are you afraid they will pull out of the deal just because you ask? 

It's really up to you what you want to do. Do you think the property is worth what you have offered? If you lost out on it how bad would you feel? Could you find something you prefer within your budget? There's no hard and fast rule. 

diystarter7

If I was the seller I would be hacked off and inclined not to sell you. On the other hand that may still happen

As stated by others, you can back out or they can.

Sistergold

You offer after you view the house, irrespective of whether the measurements match or not. Is the house worth what you offered? If not why have you kept quiet till now? If they advertised that a garage was yours and you looked at the garage but then it had turned out that infact it belongs to someone else’s then that would be good grounds to renegotiate not just differences in sizes of rooms you inspected. 

If I were you I would only focus on whether price is fair within current market values and if the rooms in reality will be big enough for what I need? You are free to withdraw at any point before exchange. 

Are you by any chance developing cold feet due to the huge commitment? 

nicknameless

You've viewed 4 times and now having cold feet over a 'missing' 10 sq ft?

Who really believes EA measurements other than for ballpark?

As above - if you like it proceed.  If you were my buyer and tried to haggle over a mysterious 10ft at this stage I would see you as gazundering and likely take the serious huff.  Yours may be more accommodating perhaps.

woodpeckerx

nicknameless said:

You've viewed 4 times and now having cold feet over a 'missing' 10 sq ft?

Who really believes EA measurements other than for ballpark?

As above - if you like it proceed.  If you were my buyer and tried to haggle over a mysterious 10ft at this stage I would see you as gazundering and likely take the serious huff.  Yours may be more accommodating perhaps.

I thought it was 40 sqft? 30 then another 10, still only about box room size, depends how big the whole property is?

jimbog

To be fair, the property  hasn’t changed in size since you first viewed it

Woolsery

We've never bought a house by considering the floor area. The first one was 'small,' the second 'medium' and this one 'fairly large,' all based on our admittedly personal concept of the average house. It might be non-mathematical, but it's not caused us to think we might have been misled.

Sometimes a measurement is crucial; like the property where our Transit van wouldn't fit between the house and the neighbour's dwelling at one point, preventing off-road parking, but problems like that tend to be apparent even on a first viewing.

movilogo

Like OP, I also compare room sizes when comparing among multiple shortlisted properties. 
There is another independent way to verify room sizes - via EPC. You can check it here. Be aware that EPC area may or may not include conservatories and loft conversion. 
https://find-energy-certificate.service.gov.uk/find-a-certificate/type-of-property 

Sometimes layout of the room is more important that actual floor space. Some houses may seem large on paper but smaller in reality and vice versa. 

Before contract exchange any party can pull out. So really it is up to you what to do.