Selling a house – Solicitor Fees and what happens if the person pulls out?

Presently looking at selling a property and have received an offer. Obviously we need to get a solicitor to do the conveyancing. Realise that this will cost us money which is fine if the house goes through but what happens if it doesn’t.(i,.e they pull out or bad survey etc)
a) Is there anyway we can put in the acceptance of the offer that the buyer picks up the costs of solicitor fees if they pull out? (they have offered under the asking price)
b) Also no doubt the survey will highlight areas and they may want to reduce the price. Can we stipulate now that the price will not reduce whatever the survey says? Or can we cover any potential costs by doing a? above. Any help / thoughts much appreciated. Just don’t want to end up paying lots of fees and it all falling through. We are presently just selling as we are moving into together and the buyer is a first time buyer.

No and no.

Choose a specialist conveyencer with a no completion, no fee offer. We had our house sale collapse due to boxing day flood, hours from completion, there was nothing to pay.
Edit – cant offer an answer on point B though!

On a similar point to above the last conveyancer I used offered a fall-through insurance policy at a pretty reasonable rate to cover against this scenario.

Also no doubt the survey will highlight areas and they may want to reduce the price. Can we stipulate now that the price will not reduce whatever the survey says?

Is this a wah?

You don’t need a solicitor to sell a house. All the problems are on the buyer. All you care about is getting the money, once you have that the rest doesn’t really matter. Plenty of DIY guides and self help books. That said as it is pretty simple there are solicitors who won’t charge if it doesn’t go through. I don’t think you can put anything legal about covering costs if they pull out but you but likewise the buyer can choose to pull out. They will have racked up quite a few costs by now, though.

Can we stipulate now that the price will not reduce whatever the survey says?

you can try…

Can we stipulate now that the price will not reduce whatever the survey says?

Would you like a big flashing light to go with that warning siren?

You can ask whatever you like but it’ll most likely get the offer withdrawn.

Would you spend hundreds of thousands of pounds buying a house without knowing what was wrong with it?

No, didn’t think so and there’s not many people that will.

Therefore, they’ll laugh at b) and walk away most likely. Just as you would if someone tried that if you were purchasing.

As others have said – if you’d said that to me, I’d walk away.

Thanks all very helpful. The offer is 5% lower than the asking price and we beleive the asking price was set at the reasonable level so we can sell it fairly quickly (i.e. Some Estate Agents were saying to put it at 10% above what we put it on at).

Sold a house earlier in the year, made it clear there was no negotiation on survey. Loads of viewings, half a dozen offers, all interested parties were happy with it as were the people that bought it.

If you have plenty of interest then I think ‘Thanks, but no thanks, I want the asking price’.

Is there anything that you think a survey would highlight that it would be unreasonable to not address? If the survey puts the value of the house at the same as the offer, then if they’re playing hardball you could ask to see the survey before reducing costs, however they may pull out. But then if they feel they’ve got a deal (based on your estate agents saying it could have gone for more) they may just be happy to pay the offer.

You can ask for whatever you like. Whether you’ll GET what you ask for – that’s a different question.

It’s part of our system that a buyer can pull out at virtually any stage. While that enables frivolous offering at times, it also covers for example the situation you have above.

Just suppose what you are asking for was the norm. The biggest purchase of someone’s life is then based on what – a 20 minute look around? If they then get an expert opinion, (at their cost, btw) who says it’s in need of millions of pounds worth of work to even make it not fall down in the next year….. you’re then saying if they pull out on that basis you want your fees covered, or if they don’t pull out then they can’t renegotiate based on the new situation.

That to me seems more unfair, if i’m honest, and I’d tell you to get stretched at that point.

IMHO you can start to consider someone is serious when they pay for a survey – which is money they don’t get back if it turns out you’ve ****ed the house up by cutting out supporting girders or whatever. Up until a survey is done – price isn’t agreed, and the house can remain available in my book.

It’s only ‘worth’ what you get for it!

Don’t start the legal stuff until the survey comes back positive.

How incredibly sensible .