Mrsgranny
We have experience of trying to sell our property with a house buying company. Please don’t touch them with a barge pole! They immediately gave us a lower offer than market value. This of course was to be expected we knew and as our property was difficult to sell we agreed. Then they surveyed our house and dropped the price by a further £12000. Because of the difficulties we decided to take the hit and again agreed. Next step was they kept saying that our solicitors were delaying things by not providing info they’d asked for. When we complained to our solicitors they told us they were providing the necessary info but the buyers solicitors just kept asking for the same thing. Our solicitor started to blind copy us into anything he sent them. Next time they said our solicitors were dragging their feet we were able to point out that we had been copied into all correspondence and what they were saying was untrue. Turns out this was their delaying tactics to induce stress and anxiety. When we tried to move things along because the vendors of the house we were buying needed to get things moving too. The house buying company asked us what date we wanted to complete, we choose a date and all parties agreed. The day before completion date the house buying company contacted us to say that as the process had now taken over 12 weeks (yes, because they caused the delays on purpose) and the market had changed, they would normally have to do another survey and they could no longer offer us the agreed price. It was all rubbish the market was in fact the most buoyant ever, houses in my area were flying out the door. They’re idea of being helpful was that they could still go ahead but would drop the price by £48000! I cannot tell you the stress and embarrassment we felt at the situation we had now found ourselves in, we would have to tell the vendors of the house we were buying, our friends, our family. I was in bits, I’d spent so long boxing everything up, making plans etc. I had the vendors of the house we were buying to consider and at the back of my mind was that my house was difficult to sell, this was my only chance. My husband and I spent all night going over everything and what we should do, arguing, crying. Realising that they were now trying to do us out of about £80000. My husband said he couldn’t live with himself if he let them steal our life savings, which was basically what they were doing (and finally we both came to our senses and realised what was happening. Now we class ourselves as educated, rational, sensible people these people were preying on our emotional and stressful situation. The next day when they rang my husband for a decision he told them in no uncertain terms what they could do with their offers and we felt a weight lifted. These people prey on people when at their most vulnerable - I dread to think of those in desperate situations or or their own that they have trampled along the way. Please don’t ever get sucked in by them. To end on a good note we decided to use some of our savings to improve rather than move and we have both fell in love with the home we once fell out of love with, we are now happy here and class ourselves as the lucky ones. Apologies for the long post but I felt it important to explain how easily it can happen and how these companies lure you in with an almost acceptable offer to start with that they never intend to honour.
i am so glad you had a happy ending we will avoid the house buying company but unfortunately we cannot stay where we are as illness is making us move closer to family so we cannot stay i know what you mean about the crying as i have cried everyday for months i just wish the bank would understand the misery it is causing for us and our family