Keeping for sale property on market after accepting an Offer

'Foreign' buyers who only want to live in the houses for a couple of weeks a year will, along with UK buyers with similar intentions, push out those who need somewhere to live and who (by dint of living in the area) keep villages and small towns in many areas alive when holiday makers depart. There are villages near me which used to be thriving communities from where people commuted since the traditional occupations declined, but now have no local shops, no school, no library and even the WI and Scouts have folded as there are so few residents. People arrive on Friday evenings and leave on Sunday, spend part of the summer there, and the rest of the year they are deserted. It self-fulfils, as the community that used to attract residents has disappeared, and often older people struggle to manage with no shop, Post Office or GP surgery for miles.

Yes, prices are high, but that is because the villages are pretty and there will always be people who can afford them, but most of them bring nothing to the local economy or to what used to be the community.

Foreign buyers and people with Air BnBs don’t create such demand as to put prices up.

I don’t know what you’re suggesting about mortgages, but nobody is going to get a mortgage if they don’t earn enough to make the repayments on top of paying the usual bills. And a deposit is essential - borrowing 100% of the purchase price can quickly lead to negative equity, as we have seen before. Even 95% is risky. Lenders are allowing longer mortgage terms - into your seventies - which lowers the repayments.

Germanshepherdsmum

If you’re following on from the comments on foreign purchasers, there’s nothing to stop local people buying the properties they buy if they want to and can afford to. Foreign buyers don’t push up prices. The problem with holiday homes and Air Bnbs is caused by British people. Some local authorities are taking steps to stipulate that new homes must be owner-occupied and to clamp down on Air Bnbs.

I am not an "economics" wizard by a long shot but surely the housing stock being brought by anyone, foreign, Air BNB's or not, will put up the prices on the basis of supply and demand. The more demand the higher the price. So, property is demanded by international buyers and Air BnB Buyers it puts the prices up and local people may find that they don't have the income to get the mortgages to buy, especially as incomes have fallen and mortgage qualification has got tougher. I think we probably need to overhaul the way we do mortgages as well as other measures to allow youngsters to get on the ladder. It now takes a typical Londoner 30 years to save a deposit and get the income to qualify for a mortgage!

If you’re following on from the comments on foreign purchasers, there’s nothing to stop local people buying the properties they buy if they want to and can afford to. Foreign buyers don’t push up prices. The problem with holiday homes and Air Bnbs is caused by British people. Some local authorities are taking steps to stipulate that new homes must be owner-occupied and to clamp down on Air Bnbs.

Keeping the housing stock for people to actually live in? I'd like to see measures to stop Air B&Bs and holiday homes pushing prices up too. As well as pricing out locals and reducing people's chances of home ownership they reduce whole areas to the status of ghost towns out of season.

Overseas buyers already pay a 2% surcharge OldFrill. I wonder what effect doubling that might have.

Labour indicated it would raise Stamp Duty for overseas purchasers by 2%

Surely, once an offer has been accepted by the vendors and their solicitors informed, then it should be illegal to continue to have the property advertised.

I think the property should still be advertised to protect against people pulling out because of financing, surveys, etc. I know our holiday home was not sold until money actually changed accounts.

It's an old home on a beach way North of Norfolk - we brought our to builders have a look. Process worked as it should, many years ago, imo.

I hope it goes well, Nansnet. It is stressful, but will be worth it when you're in your new home.

We're in the middle of this whole process again, and it's so stressful!

Last year, we found a property, and had our offer accepted, without having to go back and forth with negotiations. There was no chain on either side. We were cash buyers with proven funds in the bank. We agreed to pay a refundable 'holding deposit' to the EA, to show we were serious buyers, and the property was taken off the market.

We paid for the higher level survey as it was an older property, and due to some issues that were flagged in the report, we followed this with a structural engineer's survey. All at great expense. We decided to press on with the purchase. On the day before 'Exchange of Contracts', having transferred our deposit to our solicitor, an issue came to light with the Title Deeds and we were unable to exchange. I guess it should've been noticed much sooner by our solicitor, but thank goodness it was noticed before we exchanged. We decided to wait it out for this problem to be sorted with Land Registry Dept., which ended up taking months, during which time we had other obstacles with the vendor. At this point, with great disappointment, we decided it was all too much stress to continue, and we decided to pull out, losing a great deal of money already paid to solicitors, surveyor and structural engineer.

Now, here we are, going through the whole process again with another property! Solicitor deposit paid, surveyors fees paid (awaiting report). Once again, there is no chain, and the house is marked as 'Sold Subject to Contract'. However, reading all the stories here, it doesn't fill me with any kind of confidence in the whole house buying procedure.

What should be a happy, exciting time, looking forward to buying what we hope will be our future home during retirement, is filled with stress and dread that someone else could potentially come along and snatch it from us. I'll be so glad once we've actually exchanged contracts, at least then I'll feel a bit more confident that it's hopefully going to be ours one day! Fingers crossed!!

£250k is well below average though, so most people will pay it on houses other than their first homes, which are exempt anyway, I think.

Sell by dates on packs makes sense, as they would need to cover guarantees, and things could go wrong after a survey was carried out. People would only get a survey when they were selling, so that wouldn't really matter in most cases, would it?

Yes, packs would involve expense for the seller, but they wouldn't have to pay for a survey on their purchase, so it's swings and roundabouts, I suppose.

W've only bought three houses ever, and the last was 25 years ago, so I'm speaking from memory of a time that may well be different from now, but from that perspective it does seem sensible to me for only one survey to be carried out on a property, rather than one for every interested party.

The Home Information packs involved sellers in expense and they had sell by dates as I understand it (I wasn’t a conveyancer).

Stamp duty is only paid by people buying houses over £250k. I would rather that than the lost revenue be paid by everyone, home owners or not. In 2023 it brought in £3.3bn of tax revenue.

I vaguely remember Home Information Packs. Why were they unsuccessful? It's a good idea in principle, surely?

Re Stamp Duty - I don't think the fact that without it there would be a hole in revenue is a good reason for keeping something unreasonable. Why not replace it with something fairer if we need more money? (What that 'something' would be will depend on perspective, so I'm not suggesting anything on this thread, as it will just attract comments on its viability or fairness, which isn't really the point).

We have been there Doodledog, with the very unsuccessful Home Information Packs.

If home buyers don’t pay stamp duty - and I hate it as much as the next person - then the resultant black hole will have to be filled by taxes paid by everyone. At least one has the choice of whether or not to buy a property, and at what price having regard to stamp duty. I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if a Labour government increased stamp duty - the Conservatives lowered it - on the basis that if someone can afford to buy a house they are well off (VAT on school fees thinking).

I would like to see a change in the law to make sellers complete (and pay for) a survey that is independent and has insurance that covers the buyers. There could be clauses that allow for remedial work to be signed off if the initial survey flags up issues that the vendor then puts right, so that vendors don't have to keep getting the house surveyed. The survey could be valid for a set period and properly regulated.

When we last moved we paid for three structural surveys, as we were looking for an older property. On of them showed a ridiculous number of problems - so many that the surveyor told us that he would sell us the report without the insurance cover, as it would be folly to go ahead. One of the features of a small town is that everyone knows everyone else, and we subsequently discovered that that house had had several surveys done on it. The vendor knew it had structural problems but needed to sell. Whilst I can't blame him really, it meant that thousands was wasted by people hoping to buy, and who suffered disappointment as well as financial loss.

My son and DIL are currently buying their first house. The vendors are downsizing, and have nowhere to move to yet, but they accepted my son's offer (he has a mortgage in principle) and the house is showing as SSTC. My son said they seemed like decent people, and I have my fingers crossed that everything goes through - the last one they looked at ended in disappointment.

Moving is a stressful and costly business. I do think that a lot could be done to remove some of the stress, but I don't know how a system where nobody accepted offers involving a chain would work. How can everyone sell before offering on another property? As soon as you move out of the end of the market that attracts first-time buyers there will be problems with that.

I'm another who resents paying stamp duty. I am not at all resentful about paying tax in general (I feel that everyone should pay towards the society they live in), but this tax seems to me arbitrary, and I don't understand the logic behind its imposition. Someone owns something, someone else wants to buy it - why should they have to pay the government money to do so?

I’m familiar with surveyors’ reports. They always contain caveats regarding not having been able to lift the carpets etc but if they are negligent professionals will often pay up rather than have the adverse publicity of a court case. They have indemnity insurance so it doesn’t necessarily all come out of their pocket.

I would prefer to get a structural engineer in before a builder, a builder has an interest in getting paid work from you and some will exagerate the problem with a house and quote for unnecessary work that he says is necessary.

You get what you pay for, if you want a full detailed structural survey, it’s going to be expensive. Older houses are going to need maintaining, so are always going to need money spent on them unless they have already been refurbished.

If the survey or your suspicions highlight issues get an experienced builder to look in more detail, if major work is needed do not underestimate the cost, add 50% to the estimated bill.

Germanshepherdsmum

You can’t rely on a survey commissioned by someone else unless the surveyor expressly assumes responsibility to you. There is really no substitute for commissioning your own survey. Money well spent.

If you read a standard surveyor’s report, it has so many get out clauses, it doesn’t seem to matter if you commission the report or not. It would take an awful lot of money to pursue redress through the courts.

You can’t rely on a survey commissioned by someone else unless the surveyor expressly assumes responsibility to you. There is really no substitute for commissioning your own survey. Money well spent.

Germanshepherdsmum

Can the buyer rely on it? Does the surveyor expressly assume liability to buyers?

To be honest they are dreadful. Pages of standard text and 'get out of jail free' clauses for the surveyor. They don't move anything, some hardly move themselves.
The professionalism of the surveyor varies and the homeowner can have rather too much influence in setting the valuation.
It does state that the property is, or is not, suitable for mortgage purposes.
Prior to these surveys, potential purchasers would pay for the survey to be done and further interested parties got a discount. So the current system does save any prospective purchaser/interested party some money. A purchaser can if course instruct their own survey but if a house is popular the seller may not favour that buyer.
I haven't heard of any surveyor being successfully sued for misinformation, most of their wives are solicitors (l jest!)

This works both ways. Our first viewer offered the asking price and the agent took our home off the market. We progressed the sale to the point of booking the removal firm when our buyer became evasive and after being pursued by the agent, admitted that he was not going ahead with the purchase as he couldn't raise the funds. The owners of the house we were buying had put down a 3k, non refundable retainer on a property, and we had bought 10k worth of new furniture for our intended purchase. I had also sold and given away a lot of our old furniture. We also had to pay our solicitors fees and associated costs. So, when we do raise the energy to go through the selling process again, the house will remain on the market until completion. Once bitten etc.....

Can the buyer rely on it? Does the surveyor expressly assume liability to buyers?

In Scotland the seller pays for the Home Report (survey) and it is free for any interested party to view.

maddyone

Germanshepherdsmum

Anyone making an offer on a property should insist that it’s immediately taken off the market if the offer is accepted.

Yes, absolutely.

We’ve had the opposite happen to us twice. We have found a buyer and so we have also found ourselves a new property. Then a couple of weeks before exchange of contracts, just when everything has been done, the buyer has come back to us and said they can only afford to pay a lower price, otherwise they’ll pull out. At this stage we haven’t wanted to lose our new property and all associated expenses already incurred and so reluctantly we’ve agreed to their new price.
We must have been unlucky because that has happened twice to us.

My friend was selling a house in St Albans and said she was terrified that, right up to the last minute she was scared that the potential buyer would threaten to pull out of the sale unless the price was dropped by twenty thousand as it had happened to several people she had known.