Failure to Exchange on new build

dpw

We have just seen a deal too good to pass by on a completed newbuild- last 2 properties on the development(Bryant) - huge house etc for much lower than the going rate for any houses (old or new) in the area - discounted ~40%. However we have had to give a £1000 deposit and exchange(not completion) in 21 days. We expect to be able to do this, but are now concerned if we fail - will we lose the house. If they don't sell to us because we're too slow, then surely they will have to remarket again and risk further delays and failure to complete with the next buyers

Does anyone have any experience of this situation, and not achieveing exchange by the deadline - how did you get on? were you given more time?
I would be grateful for your advice just to reduce the stress for the next 3 weeks

silvercar

£1000 is a lot less to lose than losing a 10% deposit if you exchange then fail to complete!

Don't rush and do things properly. Most importantly in the current situation make sure you have a mortgage offer that will be valid at the time of completion.

dpw

Our mortgage is already in place pending survey, and will still be valid until next March. First Direct have been very helpful with us and have arranged an urgent survey this week(Very pleased with FD service up to now). Not anticipating problems here as we are <75% LTV, and house massively discounted(although aware not to take it for granted).

We have accepted the risk of losing the £1000 if we don't exchange in 21 days, but was just wondering whether they do build in some flexibility to the system as suggested by the EA marketing the property for the developers.
We don't anticipate problems completing as there is no completion date deadline as part of the deal(yet anyway), and as far as we are concerned we want to move asap. I'm certainly not planning on risking my 10% deposit if I thought there was a problem

dubsey

The was lady at my DD's primary school that bought a new build house in 2006 with Bovis and it took her slightly longer than that to exchange, but they were fine about it. In fairness it wasn't much longer than that (five weeks I think) but she was also part-exchanging her old property and the house she was building was already completed and raring to go. I don't know if that makes any difference.

There are two Bryant developments near me, one was finished a very long time ago, but they still have properties remaining, the other has only just started at the other end of town. They seem quite desperate to get rid of the last few on the old site, so I am sure that as long as you are in constant contact to let them know what's happening I would have though it would be fine. Have you asked the sales person in the office?

dpw

They have already moved sales off site, so all marketing and contact is via the EA, who thinks they would be flexible. But he is being careful with what he says as he is only an agent. But he essentially said the same, that as they want to clear the properties there will probably be some flexibility

Amino

looky here for where I am at with Bryant: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1198755

rugbygirl27

In answer to your question - no, it shouldn't matter if you go slightly over the 21 days. We were given 28 days to exchange but it took about 6 weeks - that was due to the builder's solicitors delaying things.

hethmar

Dont worry, they will be bending over backwards for it to go through.

Premier_2

As rugbygirl27 said

They will expect exchange in 21 days, and will monitor your progress towards that. If you are making good progress they won't want to lose a postential buyer over a few days delay allowing you to take a little longer, but if they think you're dragging your feet they may decide to re-market the property.

Usually you can sometimes pin part of any delay on the seller and so request more time e.g. slow releasing sale contract to your solicitor despite it being requested promptly.

To meet the timing, keep onto your solicitor and lender daily if necessary to ensure they are expediting the transaction. Make sure you are aware of anyone that is holding matters up so you can push them yourself - no one else will. If it's something from the sellers side that is holding up the exchange, make sure you tell them promptly (so that you can use it should you need more time later) and use the EA to help apply pressure to get the seller to move as quickly as you need them to. If you do this, it should be quite easy to get to exchange in 2 weeks, so 3 weeks will be a breeze.

Good luck!

donna1975

We are doing a part x with wimpey and we were told that it had to been done in 28 days, this was back at the beginning of august, dep paid to wimpey, we had mortgage in place but it was withdrawn due to apparently the broker not telling the lender it was a new build, we then used the mortgage broker wimpey recommended and things were plodding along nicely but there were still a couple of things that had to be done for new mortgage one of the things we had to do and one wimpey had to do, my husband spoke to the part x manager on the thurs asked if all was ok and he was told yes, its going slower than we'd like but its ok, then to our surprise on the following tuesday we recieved a letter in the post saying the deal was off as we hadn't completed within the 28 days, i got on the phone to wimpey staright away and was told until the 2 issues were sorted that the deal was off and the house was back on the market, i even offered to pay another 10k dep to hold it and they said no, he said come back when you have everything you need to carry on with the sale but until then house is for sale. so we carried on trying to sort out new mortgage but a week later we had a call from a surveyor, wimpey wanted to survey our house and then a few days later the solictor called me, wimpey wanted a copy of our hips so we think they were just trying to scare us in to hurrying up, althought we had done everything we could we were waiting on others to sort it all out. I thikn a letter saying please hurry up would have been better than the letter we got would have been better lol