10% despoit on exchange

[8Ace]

Knowledgable propertarians..

We'll shortly be exchanging on the sale of our current house and the purchase of the next one. The new house is about 30% more expensive then the one we're selling.

As the standard deposit is 10% on exchange of contracts, this means that we have a shortfall and will be temporarily our of pocket until completion (ie: we receive x from our buyer but need to provide x + 30% to the seller).

Is is normal practice to negotiate this % amount so that for cashflow purposes the two £k amounts are the same? We could find the shortfall if needed but I'd rather not clean out my accounts if I don't have to,.

[8Ace]

FFS. Can someone please change the topic title to "10% deposit on exchange?"

10% of a despot probably amounts to Pol Pot's left arm or Idi Amin's head and bks.

[hornetrider]

I've recently purchased and was in the middle of a 5 property chain. The FTB at the bottom paid a 10k deposit on exchange for a 100k house, and this deposit was kicked all the way up the chain. The last property in the chain was 800k, we bought at 350k and didn't have to come up with anything. I presume the properties above didn't either.

[illmonkey]

hornetrider said:

I've recently purchased and was in the middle of a 5 property chain. The FTB at the bottom paid a 10k deposit on exchange for a 100k house, and this deposit was kicked all the way up the chain. The last property in the chain was 800k, we bought at 350k and didn't have to come up with anything. I presume the properties above didn't either.

Same for us, we cleared 95k from our last sale, deposit was a little less, so didn't need to put anything in.

I have an idea though: Phone your solicitor and ask!

[fatboy b]

I negotiiated, and only paid £10k on exchange for a £320k house.

[Sir Bagalot]

Last place we bought the sellers solicitor (who he knew very well) wanted 10% deposit. We had the money but to be honest I would prefer it to be in my Santander account (I know they are the UK's worst fking excuse for a bank and they're a bunch of fkwits and s, but they pay 3% interest and I don't use them as my main bank) rather than the Solicitors client account earning fk all.

Negotiate! We easily got it to a deposit of £10K with a promise of making it 10% if we pulled out after exchange.

[Sharted]

Why would you pay a deposit on exchange?

I never have and would object like fk if one was requested.

You are legally compelled to complete once exchange has taken place what difference does 310 make?

Is this just an example of someone taking the piss out of a naive property buyer? (no offence).

[fido]

Sharted said:

You are legally compelled to complete once exchange has taken place what difference does 310 make?

Because having the actual deposit is more reassuring than a legal claim?

[blueg33]

Deposits can usually be negotiated, but in the vent of default they wil step back up to the 10%

Make sure deposits are always held as Stakeholder, not as Agent

[Muncher]

fido said:

Because having the actual deposit is more reassuring than a legal claim?

Exactly, I want the buyer's nuts on the line should they fail to complete. Pursuing them for the contractual amount could take months, if not years not to mention being incredibly expensive.