Gazundering in house sales

As it says in the article this is down to a very weak market at the moment and I can believe that. Even here in London properties for sale are sticking, there are no more bidding wars with properties sold within a matter of days, now properties are still for sale many months later.
I imagine this is down to a hike in stamp duty that Starmer rubber stamped early in his tenure as PM, the cost of the living crisis, and hikes in the cost of getting work done on a property as well as Landlords saturating the market with rentals for sale, again down to Starmer’s legislation.
Personally I would balk at doing this under any circumstances, if we couldn’t make the agreed price for a property we would just not go for it. Is a horrible practice.

Surveys are done at the wrong time in the whole process. In my opinion.

fancythat

Surveys are done at the wrong time in the whole process. In my opinion.

Agree.
They should be done in the beginning then a price agreed and a deposit paid.
I believe is like this in Scotland.

Fallingstar

fancythat

Surveys are done at the wrong time in the whole process. In my opinion.

Agree.
They should be done in the beginning then a price agreed and a deposit paid.
I believe is like this in Scotland.

That makes much more sense and is far less stressful.

Exactly Fallingstar.
It astonishes me that the house selling/buying systems other than Scotland seem so sloppy.

I think it should be that the vendor has the survey done and then the price asked can reflect the findings.
The prospective buyer can the decide their offer having seen the report.

Why are people so despicable now? Clearly this is a 'thing' and becoming acceptable practice amongst the cutthroat property world where dog eats dog. Honestly, I feel society has lost its moral compass.

Not everyone can afford to take that drop in price, so this could have a life changing impact on sellers and others in the chain if their purchase and sale don't go through.

Even in Scotland problems can arise post purchase. After I bought and paid for a flat it turned out that the building it was in needed a £1million roof repair. My lawyer contacted the seller and we finally accepted a decent sized refund.
A friend is in a similar position but from the sellers side of things. He's having to return a large sum to the purchaser if the house he's selling.
Methinks surveyors are not doing a good enough job!

One could say that a house is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. We've got too much in the habit of expecting to make a profit from a house sale as prices have risen and risen to ridiculous levels.

Who remembers gazumping in the 1970s/80s when prices went up and up?

I think we have to regard 'gazundering' as an adjustment in the market, however unwelcome it is to some. If prices are coming down it must be a relief to people who want to buy but have been locked out by the cost of living crisis, high prices and high interest rates.

I do think that the English system of house purchasing needs changing, there is so much uncertainty involved. The Scottish one is much better.

The Blair Government was going to bring in the Home Sellers Pack which the vendor would have to provide to prospective purchasers- survey, searches , guarantees etc. It eventually got dropped after opposition from iirc particularly surveyors and solicitors.

I’m not sure I would trust a survey provided by the seller. Even if I could sue afterwards.

My only experience of buying in Scotland d was when my sister was trying to buy there. She bid for over 20 properties in sealed bids and was outbid each time,

In desperation she bid all she had and ‘won” the final property.
She found out later it was £20,000 more than the next lowest bid.

A lot of money and almost two years of stress and disappointment, if not despair.

We certainly need reform though, perhaps some kind of initial contract at the point of offer and acceptance and a non-returnable deposit if either side breaks that?

‘I’m not sure I would trust a survey provided by the seller. Even if I could sue afterwards.’

Yes I’d wondered about that. The surveyor would have to be accredited by RICS and obviously the buyer could commission their own survey. But at least it would put issues upfront before the potential buyer made an offer. It would save all that time waiting for searches etc

Searches are a bit different. They rely on the efficiency of the Council and other bodies. Would you trust a seller not to “lose” something negative?

A lot of this type of pack could be online so the la could provide a password protected link to the sesrch results for the property that any potential buyer could access and/or their solicitor . There must be something better than the current system

NittWitt

Exactly Fallingstar.
It astonishes me that the house selling/buying systems other than Scotland seem so sloppy.

The Scottish system is not quite as wonderful as it seems. It is not dissimilar to the French ytstem and we used to discuss this with Scottish friends. Even when a sale is agreed it can be made conditional on specific items.

As Lathyrus and others have said the Scottish system also has its pitfalls, I actually think tha as a house is usually anyone's biggest purchase. buying it should not be too easy,

The market is poor at the moment because the political and economic situation in Britain and the international system are so uncertain that only those who need to move or want to get on the housing ladder are in the market. Those who just like to move are holding off until times are more certain.

Chestnut gazundering and and gazumping is nothing new. It has been around as long as we have been house buying. We bought our first house in 1968.

What I would like to see is proper training for surveyors in what kind of property they can survey. If you live in a house built before 1940, or even more, before about 1850 most surveyors know nothing about the building techniques and materials used then and find 'faults' where none exist. It is even worse if your house is Listed. Any surveyor surveying a Listed house should be properly trained for the work. The same applies even more to those doing the EPC surveys.

Our surveyor missed a lot of our structural damp, but was concerned that the concrete render ran over the damp proof course. The house was built in 1500. It does not have a damp proof course.

He also warned about the danger of their being asbestos in the plaster. Since asbestos only became in use in building the 1930 and nearly all our lime plaster was done in the late 19th century. He was clearly well out of his depth.

The EPC surveyor, apart from seeing insulation where insulation there was none, also recommending cavity insulation in a house with solid walls.

In Scotland the vendor commissions a survey prior to marketing the property. If a prospective purchaser wants a more in-depth survey they can get that done with the vendor’s consent. When we sold four years ago no one did want their own survey done.

Nowadays in Scotland once a bid is accepted, it isn’t binding like it used to be. That came as a shock to us, as previously when we’d bought and sold it was a done deal once the bid was accepted. It took nearly three months for our sale to be finalised. You now see sale boards outside houses with Under Offer on them. That’s a new thing.

When my DS has bought and sold in the US, once an offer has been accepted the purchasers have a few days in which to put down a 10% non-refundable deposit. It’s all tied up much faster than in the UK.

My friend was selling a house in St Albans and was terrified that this was going to happen to her; she said it happens all the time. Thankfully it didn’t.

I know it might not seem very honourable but if, in the four months it takes to exchange, house prices took a dive and you found out you could buy a similar house for 20% less or that you you could now buy a four bed instead of a three bed for the same money, would you keep going with the original deal?

Someone tried it on me, shortly before exchange. What annoyed me even more was that the estate agent was evidently on the gazunderer’s side, even through he knew I’d only just turned down a slightly higher offer, since I’d already accepted hers!

MaizieD

One could say that a house is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. We've got too much in the habit of expecting to make a profit from a house sale as prices have risen and risen to ridiculous levels.

Who remembers gazumping in the 1970s/80s when prices went up and up?

I think we have to regard 'gazundering' as an adjustment in the market, however unwelcome it is to some. If prices are coming down it must be a relief to people who want to buy but have been locked out by the cost of living crisis, high prices and high interest rates.

I do think that the English system of house purchasing needs changing, there is so much uncertainty involved. The Scottish one is much better.

Maisie, I agree that a house is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it, but the type of gazumping that happens at such a late stage is surely more a case of blackmail - as in "pay us the extra, or we will pull now, meaning you will be back at stage one and have to start again from scratch with all the extra expense that will incur".
It should be illegal.

This happened to my parents in the mid 1980s.
Only a day, I think, before the agreed moving date, the would-be purchaser suddenly said they would only go ahead if my parents accepted £5,000 less. That was a huge amount to suddenly demand off what was a relatively cheap house.
My parents literally could not afford to take that hit, so my dad did the only thing he could to continue, which was to do the same to the person he was buying from. He always felt dreadful about that, but the only alternative at that late stage was to risk collapsing the chain.

Something similar happened three years ago when my DS was expecting to move within a week - there was a chain of four, and the person at one end basically blackmailed the next person in the chain into lowering her price. That person could have collapsed the whole chain.

These things happened at what should have been the end of the process, long after mortgages should have been agreed, surveys done, solicitors hired and bills incurred, and very importantly, offers made and accepted.

I can't think of any good reason why this should be allowed to happen. There should be a legal stage earlier in the process) where nothing short of a death can stop things!

Reading this, I realise we've been gazunderers.
When the survey comes through & you need to spend £7k or whatever because the wall ties are going, then you aren't sure if you want to proceed, the estate agent suggests you might want to get some money for the remedial work back off the seller.
Both me & my son have done this, buying older properties, & had rapid acceptance of the new price.
I've also known sellers whose buyers have pulled out due to issues on the survey, complain that they would have dropped the price to reflect that if they'd been asked.
As long as the survey's done really promptly after the offer & there's an immediate decision on go-ahead, go-ahead at a reduced price or withdraw the offer, I don't see it as dishonest?

If there is a legitimate reason to renegotiate an offer it is not gazundering. Gazundering is a last ditch attempt to manipulate the sellers to accept a lower offer purely for the purchaser's personal gain.

valdali

Reading this, I realise we've been gazunderers.
When the survey comes through & you need to spend £7k or whatever because the wall ties are going, then you aren't sure if you want to proceed, the estate agent suggests you might want to get some money for the remedial work back off the seller.
Both me & my son have done this, buying older properties, & had rapid acceptance of the new price.
I've also known sellers whose buyers have pulled out due to issues on the survey, complain that they would have dropped the price to reflect that if they'd been asked.
As long as the survey's done really promptly after the offer & there's an immediate decision on go-ahead, go-ahead at a reduced price or withdraw the offer, I don't see it as dishonest?

That’s a different thing, though - a legitimate reason for reducing the offer.
There was no reason when my gazunderer tried it - she evidently just thought she might as well see if I’d give in.

valdali

Reading this, I realise we've been gazunderers.
When the survey comes through & you need to spend £7k or whatever because the wall ties are going, then you aren't sure if you want to proceed, the estate agent suggests you might want to get some money for the remedial work back off the seller.
Both me & my son have done this, buying older properties, & had rapid acceptance of the new price.
I've also known sellers whose buyers have pulled out due to issues on the survey, complain that they would have dropped the price to reflect that if they'd been asked.
As long as the survey's done really promptly after the offer & there's an immediate decision on go-ahead, go-ahead at a reduced price or withdraw the offer, I don't see it as dishonest?

I would have said that it is perfectly acceptable and normal to revise your offer based on the results of a survey, but in my experience of house sales (though admittedly very limited), that would happen long before people have an estimated removal date.

Those who deliberately wait until literally days before completion or removal date to make new demands are a completely different kettle of fish though. It really does feel like blackmail when they play it like that.