TurboKitty

A few years ago I had an offer accepted on a house and paid for the survey to be done. The basic survey showed something that needed further investigation and a more detailed survey was required, at some considerable cost. The second survey showed that everything was fine. By now my mortgage had been agreed and all the searches and stuff had been done, which left us in a position to exchange contracts. On the day we were due to exchange, the buyer called my solicitor to say she'd decided she'd changed her mind about moving and was taking the house off the market.

It cost me a couple of thousand pounds in surveys, searches, solicitors, etc. and I didn't have grounds to claim a single penny of it back from her.

At the time I'd not been out of education long, and I'd only been working for a year or two, so such a big financial loss hit me really hard. I was sickened that people could behave that way.

I was left unable to afford to buy anywhere else and had to go back to renting. I never managed to get on the property ladder and am still stuck renting.

[Edited by TurboKitty - 8/3/2003 11:46:33 PM]

Vinesh

Can the seller increase the house price when 70 % of the paperwork, verbal agreement, etc has been done?

We have had the survey on the house done, and the mortgage sorted.

Apparition

Yes.

stephen emery

yep , i have done it

steve

Dracoro

Pull out! Think about the ££'s you're losing.

They may (read will!) be trying it on knowing that by now most people will think 'sod it, too much hassle to pull out'.

If you pull out they may change their minds and sell at original price.

Remember your survey(for the mortgage) will probably have to be reviewed so your mortgage privider will probably charge more etc..

Vinesh

But its wrong. When u give someone ur word u suppose to stick with it.

There are other people who are also very intrested with the house, its in a prime location.

stevem2k

It may be morally wrong, but it isn't illegal.

The scottish system is significantly better in this respect.

Sorry.

Steve

Nikko2

The house buying process is shocking. Needs a good shake up if you ask me.

In my case:

Solicitor:
Wireless Transfer Fee £23 LMAO
Searches £150 for F ALL for the benefit I got out of it. Shock horror the area you have lived in for 27years didnt show up anything you didnt already know about.

Landregistry:
Tap tap in goes my details to another database £150 please.

Arrangement Fee:
Can I take out some business with you please Mr Bank? Yes you can if you give us £300 first.

Estate Agent:
Not only taking a percentage of the sale price from the seller and the introduction fee for mortgage and insurance. They also charge me a client fee for finding me the mortgage FFS.

Then to top it all off I have to pay stamp duty because there is nothing for sale these days at a price without it.

And then this could all fall through at any moment. If the seller has a change of mind.

MattW

Had the same experience a couple of years ago.

Vendors tried to add 11k on date of exchange. Told them to take a long jump off a short cliff. Lost a few hundred quid, but didnt compare to 11k.

ajm

just been through it myself... except sort of the other way round. Bloke buying my house "gazundered" me at the last minute after I had a new house lined up and ready for exchange. I called his bluff as much as possible and ended up getting stitched for 5k (he had originally revised offer to 20k less!!)

At that point I was forced to accept because it would cost me the same to get to where I was again.

My estate agent then took it upon himself to try to put some of the loss onto the woman I was buying from at which point I told him to back the **** off and leave her alone as it was just morally wrong. The disagreement was between me and my buyer so I swallowed the loss myself - just couldn't do it to her after knowing how it felt to have it done to me.

The guy that bought my house is a multi-millionaire property letting tycoon, yet he still had to put the boot in... nevermind.... what goes around....

As far as I am concerned, a vocal deal (not binding in England for property) is still a deal and reneging on one is certainly not the conduct of a gentleman.

what would scooby do

I put my house on market about a year ago for £200k, estate agent said it would sell better at £197k.. verbally accepted an offer of 192k for a quick sale, then realised, hang-on prices had gone up sooo much in my area I was giving the house away.

Pulled out of sale - told estate agents to fvck off, called the buyers and apologised to them..

House now worth £300k so I was lucky I didn't throw all that away

Drunken Bungle Whore

In the house market it's all shades of grey. In the middle of it atm.

Had a couple mad eager to buy the place and paperwork was going through. Solicitor calls (solicitor is close neighbour), his friend saw the place and wanted to buy, more money, no estate agents and done in 1/2 the time.

Do honrourable thing and stick with original buyers who then pull our 2 weeks later.

Right now I don't care who buys it - if I was in the same situation again I'd take the other offer.

I really wish it could all be chivalrous and polite etc etc but at the end of the day it's such a scummy market that you have to look out for yourself.

douglasb

Vinesh - the system sucks. As others have said, what your seller has done is morally wrong, but legally right. Until contracts are exchanged, the price has not been absolutely fixed (although you will have had a valuation done, will be aware of what a fair price is, and will have had a lot of legal work done.

Like many others here, I've been on the receving end with a seller pulling out completely the day before we were due to exchange contracts. He'd put pressure on me (and my lawyer) to push for this date to exchange and complete and had involved me in trouble and expense. This all fell through on a Friday: I had the removal van booked for the Tuesday!

On the other hand, I've done something similar myself. I had an offer of the asking price on my place from a buyer who was getting divorced and had a house to sell, but had not had any offers as yet. A few days later, a first time buyer with finance arranged offered £1K less. I went with the first time buyer.

The Scottish system has advantages but is still not perfect (I've bought and sold in both Scotland and England). If the housing market is active, you can end up losing survey fees and eventually paying way over the asking price just to get the house.

Doug

WISHING

If it were me i would pull out and then get some mates to put the windows in after another sold sign goes up. Oh and not forgetting a tin of paint over the front of the house too !!

paulr

Quick question........if i decided to buy my dads house whats the minimum thing i'd have to do once we'd got a valuation and agreed a price?
No estate agents fee or searches needed.
Would it just be a case of a survey,then mortgage?

what would scooby do

PaulR - yup and solicitor..

paulr

Solicitor for the legal exchange of deeds?

scoob_babe

I think the mortgage lender would insist on searches. I know ours also insisted on additional searches to the land behind the house to make sure that there were no planning applications withn 25 metres

Jiggerypokery

On the opposite side of the coin... I was in an estate agent's last week and as we were browsing through brochures at the salesperson's desk, she took a call... It was exchange day for a property costing 685K, but the BUYER thought the price was 725K. Nice surprise eh?!!

Foot_Tapper

Thats terrible, I would pull out, w@nkers.
Give everyone in the chain, their name and address.
And give the estate agents a mouthfull as well. Gits