contracts signed, deposit paid, purchaser demanding more

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deedee80

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Hi there,

I am selling an apartment, in the past week the purchaser has sent back signed contracts with the deposit to my solicitor. In the contract they had handwritten in a clause requesting all the kitchen appliances. This was never agreed on the sale of the property when we went sale agreed. We sold for a cheaper price as we were not including these items. Now at the last minute purchaser has said they will not go through with sale unless they get these. EA and solicitor have said we do not have a leg to stand on. After a lot of frustration we agreed to this but purchaser has not come back and said he is happy yet. We are worried he might start demanding more furniture. Can he do this if it has not been put on contracts? Our solicitor has said the contracts are not binding yet as they have not yet been sent back to the purchasers solicitor even though he has signed them and sent deposit and my partner and I have signed them also. Do we really not have a leg to stand on. I do not want to lose sale but cannot afford to include anything else. This is very upsetting, purchaser is being so ruthless and I feel I have no rights at all.
 
Hi, You said that the other party requested all the kitchen appliances. If this is so , it is not any more than a request. Secondly, it looks to me that the purchaser is trying to bully you when they threaten to pull out. Also I cant understand why your solicitor would say that you do not have a leg to stand on if you did not include these items originally. The purchaser cannot demand anything more than that which is agreed in writing and signed by both parties My opinion is that your solicitor is not very helpful and so you stand firm or tell your solicitor to tear up the contract and send your man back his money. However I am a legal person so maybe someone in the profession might help out
 
The purchasers have made a request that the kitchen appliances be included in the sale and have written a clause to that effect in the contract. You have agreed this. If you didn't want to agree to this you didn't have to. To look at it more positively they may have assumed that these were included (which is quite common nowadays) and were being carefull by putting it in writing as a prudent purchaser should. Also it seems the contracts are signed by everybody and even better your solicitor has the deposit. I don't see how they can come back for more now. And you've sold your apartment, if the only extra cost is a few kitchen appliances - isn't that good news in the bigger picture.


Solution to them coming back to you is: 'explain that it belongs to your mother/family heirloom/sentimental value from your deceased granny etc and you can't let it go' .
 
properties can either sell with 'white goods' or without. however qanything that is integrated has to be left there as far as i Know.

you should not have signed the contracts with that additional clause. your solicitor should definetly have stood up for ya. you could have offered them to the purchaser for some extra cash.

if the purchaser pulls out now, he loses his full 10% deposit. i doubt he'll do that, and if he does, you'll have a nice little lump sum. tell them to go jump if they come back asking for anything else..

complete chancers in my opinion.
 
Chancers and your solicitor shouldn't have said that.

But is it worth handing over the appliance than losing the sale and perhaps having to drop the price to sell it again? Perhaps the deposit would cover this loss though.
 
deedee80 said:
Hi there,

I am selling an apartment, in the past week the purchaser has sent back signed contracts with the deposit to my solicitor. In the contract they had handwritten in a clause requesting all the kitchen appliances. This was never agreed on the sale of the property when we went sale agreed. We sold for a cheaper price as we were not including these items. Now at the last minute purchaser has said they will not go through with sale unless they get these. EA and solicitor have said we do not have a leg to stand on. After a lot of frustration we agreed to this but purchaser has not come back and said he is happy yet. We are worried he might start demanding more furniture. Can he do this if it has not been put on contracts? Our solicitor has said the contracts are not binding yet as they have not yet been sent back to the purchasers solicitor even though he has signed them and sent deposit and my partner and I have signed them also. Do we really not have a leg to stand on. I do not want to lose sale but cannot afford to include anything else. This is very upsetting, purchaser is being so ruthless and I feel I have no rights at all.
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if appliances are not included in the original contract that your solicitor sent them, which was signed and sent back to you with them included, then do not sign the contract and send it back to buyer. your solicitor just does not want to do the work, find another solicitor and send the buyer a letter saying that their deposit will be kept in case of the sale falls through. this advice is based on your information that you never agreed to include appliances.
 
Hi Deedee 80,
When the purchasers solicitors sent the signed contracts back to your solicitor with a new clause demanding white goods you had two options(1) sign them, agree to their demand for the white goods and have your solicitor return one copy to the purchasers solicitor at which time there is a binding contract for the house and white goods. No additional demands by the purchaser can hold water after that.(2) Dont agree to the white goods and take a chance as to whether that is a deal breaker or not. These days it is no longer purely a sellers market so the risk is you lose the deal but the decision is yours.
What I think your solicitor meant was that as they had varied the contracts (i.e putting in the new clause re white goods) before they signed them and returned them to your solicitor then you couldnt force them to complete without the white goods.

Contracts only come finally binding when both purchasers and vendors have signed and the vendors solicitor has posted the signed copy back to purchasers solicitor. Up till then people can pull out seek to amend contracts etc...
 
Thanks for all your advice everyone. Its just upsetting cos they got the property for way below what we wanted and the only thing we stipulated upon going sale agreed was that they weren't getting the white goods. We bought them ourselves, they cost us a fortune and are less than a year old. We are getting nothing with our new house. They know we don't have the time to hold out and they seem to be very shady individuals handwriting this in at the last minute. If they were in a position to demand more then I know they would. I just wasn't sure if they could do that. They may only be kitchen appliances but I just feel like they are robbing us now, taking us for all were worth.
 
Because we had to chase them to sign contracts. EA had to tell them that the house we want to buy had gone back on market (which it had) to try and speed them up. They obviously then decided to use this to their advantage.
 
My parents bought an apartment earlier this year. The white goods were supposed to be included in the sale (told this verbally by EA). However it was not in the contract and when the vendor changed his mind there was nothing my parents could do. He even took the oven out. So it seems to me that unless it is agreed with both seller and purchaser and in both contracts then it won't be legally binding. The fact that they hand-wrote it into the contract doesn't make it legally binding unless you have signed it. I would imagine if you have signed it then you will have to give them the white goods. There are some pretty horrible people out there as my parents also found out this year. Just move to your new place and try not to let it get to you too much.
 
i'll give you option number 3
they said we want a fridge washing machine etc....
they have not said it must be your ones. ie you could go onto Dublinwast.ie (this site is for people who want rid of there stuff for free) and get some free ones and leave them there. this way you complete the contract and still have your white goods
 
The property market is currently favoured in the hands of the buyer, I look at it this way: Previously sellers would break contract as they offered a better offer once the deal was supose to a done thing. This buyer is doing the flip side, trying to get the most out of the sale as the shoe is now on the other foot. Whats the cost of the white goods ? A few thosand ? It might be worth taking this hit to close the sale.
 
I don't agree with the last poster, you've signed the contract for the white goods that are there now and just leave it at that.

The fact that they got the property for way below what you wanted is neither here nor there. It's colouring your judgement of these people. Maybe that's all they could afford and more importantly you were willing to sell at that price. You can't assume that they are bad people just because you feel they paid too little for the house. This is just a business transaction. Handwriting in the condition doesn't make it shady - they are fully entitled to do so and you were fully entitled not to agree to it - but you did end of story.

Don't understand your reference to purchasing the white goods yourself - who else would do this for you?

Now you may be able to buy your next house at a lower price too. Beneficial to everyone as you will be paying less on a mortgage than your would otherwise have had to. You can try and negotiate the white goods as part of the deal or if they are not there offer a price whereby you can afford to buy them yourself.
 
Niallm said:
i'll give you option number 3
they said we want a fridge washing machine etc....
they have not said it must be your ones. ie you could go onto Dublinwast.ie (this site is for people who want rid of there stuff for free) and get some free ones and leave them there. this way you complete the contract and still have your white goods
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I strongly suspect this happened when I bought. In the absence of photos of what was there when I viewed the house, there is nothing I can prove...
 
deedee80 said:
Thanks for all your advice everyone. Its just upsetting cos they got the property for way below what we wanted and the only thing we stipulated upon going sale agreed was that they weren't getting the white goods. We bought them ourselves, they cost us a fortune and are less than a year old. We are getting nothing with our new house. They know we don't have the time to hold out and they seem to be very shady individuals handwriting this in at the last minute. If they were in a position to demand more then I know they would. I just wasn't sure if they could do that. They may only be kitchen appliances but I just feel like they are robbing us now, taking us for all were worth.
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Are you not making enough profit on moving house to be able to buy some new appliances??
 
LUFC said:
Are you not making enough profit on moving house to be able to buy some new appliances??
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you must be joking me, we have had to put a lot of extra money towards it.
Aileen sometimes the kitchen appliances come with new apartments, no need to be so smart. We bought top of the range as hoped they would last us a long time. Cooker alone was 1200. The people who bought our place were not short a few bob let me assure you. For one example they put in a higher offer on a different apartment in my estate, smaller than mine but they said they preferred where it faced. Saying they will not sign unless they get these items seems shady to me. What were we to do, start all over again, we have been sale agreed now 3 months in a slow market.
 
its a hard one deedee80, but if you need to be shot of your place, take the money and run! the likes of powercity will give a good discount if you buy a number of items for your new place. really is a buyers market out there.
 
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