h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My house purchase has just fallen through.
Estate agents just phoned and said the vendor no longer wishes to accept my offer and they want to fully market the property.

Apparently they got convinced that I was trying to haggle on the price even though I hadn't done any such thing. Sounds to me like they regretted the price we agreed.

As you can imagine, not too happy at the mo. But I'll leave it till tuesday to sort stuff out, there's always a chance they'll realise how daft they are being.

Oh, apparently if they don't get a new offer they'll still accept mine then.

I can assure you my 'offer' will have changed in nature by then and may involve suggesting they perform some anatomically impossible act with said property.

The new housing act hasn't kicked yet I take it ?

I'd make a point of telling ever estate agent in the area about him and his way of doing business - but I'm vindictaive.

>>I can assure you my 'offer' will have changed in nature by then and may involve suggesting they perform some anatomically impossible act with said property.<<



Sideways too!!

well it's a bit weird really.
They dropped 10k to get a sale, which was me. And I had already turned the place down at its higher price for being too expensive. And it had been on the market quite a while at the price and been through 2 agents.

When I viewed, twice, there was Mr. selling the house. Apparently so he could move in with his missus in telford. missus on this case seemed to mean g/f.
Then when I said I wanted to bnring in a roofing contractor to tell me how much the work to be done on the roof would cost, I suddenly start hearing about the wife who thinks I'm trying it on to get money off and making up things about me wanted 3 quotes for it and os forth. Then I get the list of contents being left and there's things like the lights being taken wiuth £50 written next to them.

I wonder if it is a sale due to divorce or separation and she is wanting more money and being greedy?

Hmmm - lights are fittings - shades and chandeliers aren't - however wall lights are fixtures.

I'm starting to think of lowering your offer on the grounds of the additional expense they are now putting you through - I think yoou've assessed the root problem accurately.#

tok to take light fittings and so forth providing they are replaced with simple ceiling rose, flex, bulb hlder and bulb apparently.

Whats the new housing act?

What I will say if they come back on tuesday and say they're sorry is require a 500 + mortgage arranmgement fee drop to cover the potentially wasted survey and mortgage and that they sign this week and get their solicitor to confirm it to mine. That way they can't back out.

I could go for a lot more, dunno if I wanna push it or not. see a) if it happens and b) how i feel if it does.

Looking up rentals now.

You could demand they fix the problem prior completing.Together with the guarantees to match.

The clock is ticking and the only one smiling is the solicitor as he adds up his fees.

Under the new act it is intended that England adopts something similar to the Scottish system - basically if you accept an offer then you have to pay to back out.

do you do not have a temporally contract with an intention to sell and buy?

better proof, then mouth to mouth.and if both parties would not object you can torn the emporally contract.

It's no wonder that estate agents are one of the most despised occuptions...

In England, at the moment as I understand it you can pull out right up to exchange of contracts. Anyway I will be talking to my solicitor as I have been thinking further.

Throughout this Mr. (who I believed I was dealing with) has been very naggy about moving fast and signing.

All my legal correspondance has been to Mr as far as I recall (need to look out a few key documents though) so my question is, does Mrs. even have the right to cancel the sale? And if she does did Mr. have the right to sell to me in the first place? Did Mrs even know it was up for sale? Does Mr. know that Mrs has cancelled the sale?
If not, that's fraud isn't it? attempted anyway! Maybe he was trying to sell before she found out?

Either way, I ain't getting back in that one, even if they do come back on bended knee. Sounds far to messy and unpleasant. And I don't want to buy a house when it isn't clear who is selling it.

The other question is, do I say I've had it with houses and blow the equity on a car?

Ooh blimey.

Not the season for this is it. We were going to sell soon but we've last week had a letter of the council saying they are demolishing some houses in the area and renovating some others due to several problems including
(i)Subsidence
(ii) Poor drainage
(iii)Lack of Lintels above windows and doors in the outer brick layers.
(iv)Deteriorated wall ties (those metal butterfly things that hold the inner and outer walls together)
(v)Poor connectivity between the roof and the upper part of the walls, leading to the roof pushing the walls outwards.

Forutnately we can probably afford to remortgage to pay for whatever work needs doing. We know that (iii) has cause a crack in the wall above our front window and we think that (ii) may be a problem. So we'll have to pay for scaffolding, new brickwork above the windows and new drains probably. What we don't want is (i) as that would mean v. expensive underpinning (as if the others aren't expensive enough). (v) is not a problem in our house. Apparently insurance companies are very reluctant to cover houses that have been underpinned so we *really* don't want that
I recently changed insurers on my house because I had tenants in there the year before. It seems changing insurers makes it very difficult to get a claim to proceed. Plus we're moving to Wales permanently, now, not in the five year timescale it takes to get insurers to actually pay out for a major bricks and mortar claim.

You know that bit in the vendor's forms that says 'Have you ever received a letter from the council that affects your property?'

Gotta laugh, or you'd have to jump off a bridge somewhere. We're having £1000 + vat worth of investigative survey done next week.

In your case, well you seem to be well up on anything I would do

Well that was a conversation killer then

I was waiting for Icky to come back with his reply

well, I can't compete with that Orcus!
As I may have mentioned my drains need work on them. One bit ot replace collapsed section and one bit to reline the drains with a plastic liner cos of all the cracks. And then power wash it apparently. Over 1000 quid + VAT. I sure hope the insurance pays, cos I ain't paying all that!

Currently today i have to write my 3rd psychology tma up. been procrastinating all weekend. I'll do it this afto .

Well yeah, kind of my point was worse things happen at sea.
I don't think it will be as bad as it potentially could be. Reading between the lines of what our surveyor says it's going to probably require repairing the drains and maybe two lintels above windows and a bit of repointing. Not much change out of £10,000 there I wouldn't think but then we have (potentially) £80-90,000d equity so in the end we just need to spend a bit to realise the equity.
It's doubtful we have subsidence as the surveyors think the whole house would be moving, not just one corner.

Such is life and one has to deal what it throws at you. No point in dwelling on it, we just have to deal with it and get on with our lives.

I hope you manage to get your dream home from someone who is willing to sell soon
One thing I would say is (and yes they always say this but who does it?). Get a structural survey done. It costs about £300 so. Much less than we're going to have to pay out soon. Sigh.

My friend just moved into her first home. Aside fom a few things that the house inspector really should have noticed (like the fact that half the basement lights aren't working and the fact that the preciousl owner put a 10 bucket of paint in the bathtub to hide a large rusty chiped spot, she is pretty happy.... PLUS she has central air.

With the humidex up around 33C over the next few days, I think I will be spending a LOT of time at her place......

but the *good* news is that my buildings insurance will cover the repairs to the drain, bar 50 quid excess. This is excellent news as we're talking a bit over a grand for the job.

They should be doing the work wednesday next week, which is a bit of a while away but the earliest they can do. Oh, and I have a tentative move date of June 23rd so really need to find a rental place ASAP!

So you're selling your place anyway then? Your next attempt at a purchase should be easier - you can go as fast as they need and already have your mortgage in place. Bloody annoying though. Have they attempted to woo you back yet?