Q. Help, I am in despair, after agreeing a sale on my property £75,000 below the original asking price I am just about to exchange contracts and my buyers have come back via their solicitor asking for a further £30,000 reduction, reciting the main reason as being several urgent repair issues highlighted in the homebuyers survey, despite the surveyor valuing the property at the purchase price, what can I do if anything? I will have to withdraw from my purchase if they go through with this.
A. Gazundering is unfortunately becoming more common especially in a market like this. It sounds to me like you were already taking a fairly hefty hit on the price and are clearly unable to meet with their unreasonable demand. There are a couple of things you could try to resolve the issue. Firstly and most importantly the surveyor has valued up the property, a massive point in your favour, he is absolutely saying in his report that the property is worth the money, just highlighting some repairs. Ask to see a copy of the survey, you are perfectly within your rights to do this, at least then you can see for yourself the issues that have been raised, having done this ask your solicitor to A. point out that the surveyor has Valued the property at the purchase full price and B. ask them to obtain estimates for the repairs in order to justify the reduction. I think you will find that the cost to rectify the problems and this figure of £30,000 will not correspond. If they still remain unreasonable then its worth speaking to your agent on your purchase to see if their vendor would be willing to reduce anything off your purchase price which could then be passed up the chain.