MONEY MORAL DILEMMA. Should you demand a last-minute property discount?

laurab84_3

As a first time buyer, I found my perfect property which was a bit more than i could realistically afford. I put an offer in and after some wangling it was accepted. However, our survey has just come back saying that 'in light of current market conditions' I should haggle on the price! What do I do!?!

scarlet_macaw

Whose fault is it that it's taken 6 months to get to exchange?

If you've been the one holding everything up then no, but if you've been trying to complete but the seller has been delaying then it's their fault if the price has dropped in the meantime.

robpw2

if you have waited six months to exchange then i would suggest giving it a try .

Yakyb

surely your house has dropped 10% also (unless First time buyer) therefore if your still getting the 6 month old asking price i wouldnt worry however if the person has asked you for a reduction on your property then essentially you will have to

davidksa

You entered into a contract you should stick to it. What if the house you were buying went up in value over the 6 months and the sellers asked you for more, would you be happy about that.

Contracts should be fixed at time of offer as in Scotland

starkj

You could try it but it would be wrong to collapse the chain.

On the other hand if prices had went up 10% nobody would be offering to pay more.

Nicki24

Absolutely not........I think they should bring in laws to stop this sort of thing. If you put in an offer and the offer is agreed (subject to the surveyor reports of course), then thats the price you should have to pay. What would happen if during the 6 months the price of property had gone up 10% instead of down would you think it was fair if the seller decided at the very last minute to 'add' 10% to the asking price? Probably not.

JayD

Well, in keeping with the general opinion here I would ask for the discount but still go ahead with the purchase if it was refused.

It would seem fair to request it, given the market drop but too inconvenient for everyone (including myself) to insist on it to the point of withdrawing.

It would all come down to who had the nerves of steel, I guess.

sluggy1967

Yakyb wrote: »

surely your house has dropped 10% also (unless First time buyer) therefore if your still getting the 6 month old asking price i wouldnt worry however if the person has asked you for a reduction on your property then essentially you will have to

I agree. Also, assuming you don't intend to sell your house in the near future or get it repossessed, the price paid is fairly irrelevant. Everybody seems so obsessed with the value of their house going up or down, but it doesn't make any difference unless you intend selling, remortgaging or defaulting. Eventually, if you wait long enough the prices will be back up again. I'm sure I read somewhere that historically, house prices have always at least doubled every 10 years, even during the worst recessions.

stogiebear

The key here is "Six months ago..."

A lot has happened over the last 6 months in the UK and a lot more will happen over the next 6 months.

Assuming that you are Mr & Mrs average and your mortgage is average then I'd recommend that you have the house revalued and the HIP updated.

There's a nice way of doing this... you can simply say that your Building Society won't finance your current situation as there have been major changes in the housing market.

If you are desperate for the house then you might go forward with it, but personally unless you have to, I'd recommend everyone put buying a house on hold for a year and a half...

So there is a chain of people? Well I'm sorry but I don't owe them anything. With the outrageous prices of a pile of bricks in the UK there would be nothing stopping me fighting for every 100 quid I could get.