Negotiating price after survey

Boerkrone

Hello,

New to the forum and would appreciate feedback on this. My wife and I are in a completed chain and agreed a price of 375000 for a house with off road parking in a very busy area close to the city centre. The estate agents and vendor said, and I have in wrting, that the whole driveway belonged to the house.
After solictors searches, turns out this is untrue and is a 50/50 split with the neighbour with guranteed rights of access. Basically as far as I see it, no parking.
I've asked to renegotiate price based on this but the estate agent and vendor are refusing to budge any more than 1% of agreed offer. Is this fair? Should I just walk away?

Thanks.

BarelySentientAI

What do you mean, fair?  They don't have to reduce the price just like you don't have to pay it.

If you think the price is now too high, don't buy it.

Boerkrone

By fair I mean what's a fair rate of reduction on a house that was sold with off road parking and owning a driveway, to a house that has a 50/50 split and therefore no parking due to rights of access. We've been mislead essentially.

newatc

Would you have bought it if you knew beforehand that there was no parking. Whatever the answer to that question determines what you should do now.

Boerkrone

newatc said:

Would you have bought it if you knew beforehand that there was no parking. Whatever the answer to that question determines what you should do now.

We love the house and how it's presented. We wouldn't have gone to view it if it didn't have off road parking and wouldn't gone all the way to the asking price when putting in the offer. But we were mislead on the parking situation and the estate agents don't seem to think this is a problem worthy of a serious reduction.

Albermarle

We had a shared driveway in our first house, and both us and the neighbours used it for parking, by cooperating and communicating. Was never an issue with a new neighbour either, or when we came to sell. So shared access does not necessarily mean no parking, although it may well do if you or the neighbour are not able to agree on the usage.

Although you have clearly been misled, there is no fair rate of reduction, only a reduction that you can live with and they will agree to. Depends a lot on how much you want the house.

Maybe try for £10K off?

Boerkrone

Albermarle said:

We had a shared driveway in our first house, and both us and the neighbours used it for parking, by cooperating and communicating. Was never an issue with a new neighbour either, or when we came to sell. So shared access does not necessarily mean no parking, although it may well do if you or the neighbour are not able to agree on the usage.

Although you have clearly been misled, there is no fair rate of reduction, only a reduction that you can live with and they will agree to. Depends a lot on how much you want the house.

Maybe try for £10K off?

We do love it. But I feel it's maybe best to let it go back on the market now that new information has come to light.
We also asked for money off based on the EPC rating being two levels lower than advertised post survey.
The house is a converted workshop and a lot of the ground level is block/brick with no cavity wall.

Difficult. We're happy to negotiate the price and the vendor does want to sell to us due to our buying postion and their lack of other options. But I feel like they want us to pay for their own mistakes in not properly understanding the property that they bought originally.

BarelySentientAI

Boerkrone said:

By fair I mean what's a fair rate of reduction on a house that was sold with off road parking and owning a driveway, to a house that has a 50/50 split and therefore no parking due to rights of access. We've been mislead essentially.

Again, no such thing as a "fair rate of reduction".

What are you willing to pay for the house given what you know now?  That is the highest you think is a "fair price".

What are the vendors willing to accept?  Seems like it's 1% less than now.  That is the lowest they think is a "fair price".

If there is an overlap between those two, great.  Then there's a price that both agree is fair and you can go ahead.  If there isn't, then you're not going to get anywhere.  You're not going to buy for higher than your "fair price", so why should they sell for lower than theirs?

It doesn't matter if you think that their price is wrong, for whatever reason that is.

Seasalt3

If having a shared driveway is going to be a problem for you and  isn't what you want  then no reduction in price is going to change that.  
If it was me I would walk away.

Hoenir

Boerkrone said:

the estate agents don't seem to think this is a problem worthy of a serious reduction.

The Estate Agents work for their client, the vendor.  Their personal opinion is of no value. 

_Sam_

Have you enquired, in that area of the city what is the price difference between a house with a driveway and a similar house without a driveway? One way to find out is to have a look at the sold house prices on rightmove/zoopla, as well as those houses that are currently being marketed. If there is a price difference you can point this to the seller - though they can of course still refuse to budge. But you can then decide whether you are happy to potentially overpay for the house, or perhaps the current price is already a good one even without a driveway, etc.