Walk away, tell them that you have re-thought your budget at youre sorry but its just a tad out of reach. Apologise then walk away. Let them make a decision if they want to sell it a bit cheaper and come back to you.

Just happened to a mate of mine. Price accepted and a week before completion they offered £20k less.

He told them to do one, making their risk a total failure and shagging up the whole chain. Mate is staying put now for a bit.

If the house is now worth less than when the offer was made, why not reduce your offer and wtf have people negged the OP for asking?

It's a fair question to ask so silly to neg rate the question. dl

Suppose it's no different to the 'golden years' when people were asking for more than the offer made or offering it to others at the higher price.

Simple market forces.

if you we're selling your house and accepted an offer, and at the last minute someone that really wanted it came in and said i'll give you 10k more than mr and mrs Smith, would you turn them down? i'm not so sure unless your very rich!

While maybe it is wrong morally, you shouldn't have a go at the op for thinking of it. Its now the buyers who get chance to get a bargain wether its right or wrong. Your priority when buying a house is yourself only. inmho.

Exactly I suppose it's very easy to act holier than thou, when it's someone else's money your talking about.

I do wonder how many peoples morals would soon disappear if £10k was waved under their nose. :)


Saying that I asked for opinions and I respect them all.

This happened to us on one of our house sales. Whilst we are not rich by any stretch of the imagination, we turned them down. They offered 5k more than the couple who bought our house.

We had shook on the deal and stood by it. The couple really wanted our house and the deal was almost done. Silly or not, there was no way I could have upset them for the sake of 5k. I would hate it to be done to me :thumb:

Also would it really be worth 5k to start the process all over again, i think not. I know i would rather give up 5k than wait x number of months to exchange.

I agree

Nothing wrong in asking or acting upon what you are suggesting Mark. Why buy into negative equity ? You could also ask for a re-valuation if your concerns are genuine, that's how markets work i'm afraid :)

My mum is desparate to sell her house has accepted an offer from someone who really wants the house, but whose ex-husband is being a pain. She has already lost the purchase of a house due to the delays. This stress is causing her a great deal of anguish.

She has now found another house and had the offer on this one accepted. If the buyer of her house suddenly lowered the offer it would devastate my Mum and leave her in a terrible position where she could not afford to move and she must move as her neighbours are making her life a living hell (personal reasons)

You say that it is a simple business transaction - I disagree, strongly. IMHO it is a form of blackmail: you are effectively saying "you lower your price or lose your purchase" and that (again IMHO) is a morally reprehensible thing to do. People are directly and negatively impacted by such an act - you've made your offer, stick with it.

ive read this topic but my repsonce to the original posters question would get me banned i guess.

Well put. :thumb:

Agree 100%.

The approach in the original post leans a little towards sharp practice in my opinion, assuming the handover / takeover process hasn't taken an undue length of time or the seller isn't messing about.

Personally I would prefer to pay what I think the house would be worth to me and what is affordable. I am in the same circumstances at the minute I have just paid 282K for a house that I reckon will soon be down to 250K. As I am not buying to make money or planning on selling on anytime soon, I think I have paid a fair price for the place for what it is.

Placing an offer in front of the seller and time binding it for a couple of days before reducing that offer is acceptable as no one has committed to anything at that point. Leaving it until near completion is a little unfair to the seller, and it may sour the relationship between the seller and yourself possibly resulting in some unpleasant surprises when you take over the house....

When Mrs C and I were looking to buy our first house, we'd saved up a deposit, had our offer accepted, and then had to get the survey and valuation done in order to get a mortgage.

The bank's surveyor came back with a value that was £10k less than the price we'd agreed.

We had a 10% deposit, but the bank would only lend us 90% of their valuation, not the price we'd agreed. In other words, we found ourselves nearly £10k short. At that point we had no choice but to reduce our offer in the light of the bank's valuation - not through any act of greed, but simply because the bank disagreed about the value of the property.

IIRC we ended up meeting halfway, which still meant that all the money we'd set aside for furniture and other expenses had to go straight on the house instead. We couldn't possibly have paid a penny more - we'd have had to pull out entirely.

So, under the circumstances, was it 'morally reprehensible' to reduce our offer?

Does it make any difference that we were buying brand new from the builder rather than a private individual?

Well said - people who shaft others over even in business may get it all back with interest one day. It is a sweet thing to achieve - get someone back for stiffing you!!

Now that said, I would entertain it if markets were in decline as now and we were a good few months after any initial and accepted offer.

It was done to me once and I took great delight in telling them to take a running jump and therefore their dodgy punt costing them the best part of a grand in mortgage application and survey fees.

It isnt that commercial or clever in my view - especially if you find a turd in your cold water tank 6 months later and sand in your radiators... At your own peril be it - remember that karma thing ;)

D

Saying that, my valuation might just say the same. Will just have to wait and see.

With prices falling at £150 a day ... I would wait til exchange and ask for a discount to be passed up the chain.

I get the turd in the tank thing, but sand in the rads? :wonder:

No mate - you could fax that through and prove your case.

Also as you say it was a builder - and we all hate builders dont we!!!! Many of them rip people off all the time!!!!! (sorry - touchy subject this week - I'm on my 4th, to try and get a comical estimate but even this one never calls me back).

D

Yes - you are probably right. Trickier and more time consuming than dumping in the loft ;) Just wrap up some fish in newspapers and hide under the floorboards for luck ;)

D (and no I never done it!!!) ;)

or prawns in the curtain poles :D

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If you're hoping to use an already pressured situation to gain an advantage over someone else simply because you think they're desperate, then you just may be a cnut.

It's whether you can live with being a cnut or not that will make your final decision, I suppose.

Can I conclude, that the massed posters here would all pay £10,000 more than the house is currently worth, if they were in this situation?

Youd think so from the posts, but I do not believe for one second that they would.

Unless it's been about a year since the offer was accepted, it's highly unlikely that the value has dropped by £10k. I wouldn't have offered £10k more than it was worth in the first place.

As for the assertion that this is purely a financial transaction, I'm sorry but thats bollocks; these people are buying and selling homes not just houses.

We've had this happen to us last time we moved house. Luckily we were in the position to tell our buyer to take a running jump and in the end they came crawling back but as the OP points out, at the moment it's a buyers market and his sly tactics may well simply lead to this chain collapsing causing stress and adding to the financial burden for all involved (expect his own selfish self, of course).

Once upon a time a gentlemans word was his bond. Those days, it seems, are long gone.

If you think its worth less now or will be in a months time then I see nothing wrong with saying to them you've had to reconsider your position and need to reduce your offer - After all you'd be a mug to pay more than it's worth just so you seem like a "nice guy" to strangers.

I do think you should do it now and not mess them about waiting a few weeks though as thats just underhand.


I'm a potential buyer though so perhaps that affects my thinking, I imagine most of the angry posters are home owners.

Spot on, it's the attitude of "oh, I'll wait until the last minute when everyone's desperate" that's wound me up. If you're going to do it, phone the estate agent tomorrow and get it over with instead of letting people get their hopes up and spend more money on the process.