What should you do when your house purchase seems to break down?

I鈥檓 in the final stage of purchasing a house. The housing survey, mortgage, legal adviser 鈥?everything has been done. Now the stumbling block is the negotiation on the roofing service.

According to the survey, the roof is in bad condition. The vendor also agreed on this point, and asked me to give him two quotes, which I did.

Based on the quotes, I asked, via the estate agent, for the initial purchase price to be reduced. After thinking for one day, the agent got back to me, saying that my quote was too high for the work. He even claimed that because the bank decided to lend me the money required, the house is obviously worth the asking price.

I persisted, asking him to put forward my revised offer. The agent then rudely said, 鈥淚鈥檒l tell the vendor that you pull out.鈥?I felt very angry by this distortion, and asked him again to let the vendor know of my revised offer.

Predictably enough, the agent called back, saying the vendor declined.

What do you think I should do n

It sounds like a rather lousy agent there, but if he won't do his job your best bet is to ask your solicitor to put a proposal to the vendor's solicitor asking for them to take instructions on it.

The big question is how much do you want that particular house? A fair proposal would be to meet the cost of the roof repairs 50/50. In the current market climate they say that purchases hold the upper hand and have more bargaining power than in recent years, but the vendor may call your bluff pulling out and remarketing the house. If that happens you will have to start again from scratch which could rock any onward chain you have.

Good luck

Tell them that if the vendor isn't prepared to meet you at least halfway on the cost that you will not be buying the house.

If he really wants to sell, he'll soon contact you.

The Estate Agent is working for the Vendor so really won't be overlly helpful to you at all. Might be worth approaching the vendor direct as any price negotiations (reductions) will affect the Agents final commission.

Look for another house.

If the vendor didn't look after the roof, what else has he neglected to look after - the boiler? DPC, joists. brickwork.

Walk on, you have had a close shave with a house of horrors.

I was in a similar position and the next house I found was Much better, for the same money, it had only just come on to the market. I bought it and lived happily ever after. (but thats another story)