LISA £450k limit - increasing chances with vendor

FoluMay

My partner and I are looking to buy in London. We both have LISAs and are therefore restricted to buying a property under £450k - however, we’ve found a perfect flat that’s on the market for £475k. We suspect it will be popular and we will be competing with people who are able to offer closer to the asking price than us. 

Is there anything we can do that will make us a more attractive option to the vendor? We are chain-free and have a high deposit, which we will outline.
We have some extra money and have discussed whether we could offer to pay a contribution to their solicitor fees or similar, but we don’t know how that would work in practice. Obviously we don’t want to do anything unlawful either! Any ideas? 

saajan_12

Other than the offer level, its really about what your position IS rather than anything you can change. Assuming you're FTBs, that can be equally a positive (chain free) as a negaitve (new to the process). How large is the deposit - if we're talking 20%+ then it might make the lender scrutinise the survey slightly less as there's more of a buffer for them, plus if there's any undervaluation then its less likely to make the property unaffordable. All small differences when youre talking about an extra £25k in their pocket. 

FoluMay said:

We have some extra money and have discussed whether we could offer to pay a contribution to their solicitor fees or similar, but we don’t know how that would work in practice. Obviously we don’t want to do anything unlawful either! Any ideas? 

No, that would be unlawful! You're not getting anything in return for the solicitors costs, the only reason you'd pay that is to purchase the property and there's no side transaction. So any money you pay them for solicitors / whatever is really part of the purchase price, so would be subject to the £450k cap. Saying otherwise would be fraudulent.