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Selling our flat - nightmare buyers what do we do? (Long!)
MojoBug
Posts: 20 Forumite
Hi Everyone
This is a bit of a last ditch effort to get advice really - if anyone has encountered anything like our situation before, any help would be greatly appreciated!
My husband and I currently live in a 1 bed maisonette which I bought when I was single. We got married at the end of 2007, and went on the market right after the wedding more or less, to buy our first marital home together with the idea of starting a family in a year or so. As you may have guessed we went on right at the wrong time, and a year later we were still on the market. Finally though we had an offer in October 08, and although it was alot lower than we wanted, we figured we couldnt afford to turn it down. Our buyer had apparently got a mortgage on the go via their finance advisor, and wanted to move ASAP - ideally by Christmas. We then weny house hunting, as found an amazing house we absolutely loved, and the vendors wanted to move soon as well. Brilliant.
And then it all started to unravel. It appeared that the man who had viewed and wanted to move in, was the son - the mortgage was being taken out by the father - who lived in Dubai. But repeated reassurances everything was on track kept things going and we proceeded with the legals on our purchase. However Christmas approached and our buyer hadnt done their valuation - something to do with Barclays (their bank) asking for more paperwork which had gone missing between Dubai and the UK. However right before Christmas this finally arrived and they promised that the valuation would be booked right after Xmas.
But it wasnt. We had had our Homebuyers survey done on the property we were buying, and a few more weeks passed. Then the worst happened - our vendors pulled out. We were gutted and for a week or 2 didnt know what we were going to do. Our buyer was still making all the right noises though - its coming along, the application was being audited hence the delay etc etc. And luckily we found a second house to buy - its a bigger stretch from the 1st house, but definitely worth it. We speeded through the conveyancing on this house, and finally the valuation was booked and done on our flat. We then booked our survey (we thought having learnt from ast time this was sensible!) and our mortgage offer was in 2 days after. Our buyers however seemed to evaporate into thin air. Again - apparently more paperwork was required.
A week later we then get told several confusing things - the survey had been done by Halifax (we have no idea where this came from), the Barclays application was, well not mentioned, and they were putting in a new application in the sons name, with a big deposit from the father to boost it. This new application was apparently made with RBS, was going to be fast tracked and we were told this 2 weeks ago.
We are still waiting, about 18 weeks after offer acceptance and all we keep getting told is 'they are chasing it'. Our new vendor is now asking questions and we cant tell them anything.
We have now gone back on the market, in an attempt to push our buyer into action, but so far to no efffect. Looking back we should have done this months ago, but naively we believed things 'would be sorted by friday' - Fridays are now our Groundhog Day of no change from the week before!
Is there anything else we can do? Their finance guy seems extremely unhelpful (very slow to respond to our EAs calls, and rather rude apparently) and the son doesnt seem to know what 'chase your mortgage' means!
If we loose this second house it will have cost us over £2000 in fees and this guy doesnt seem to care at all!
Any advice would be great - we are loosing the will to live at the moment...
Mojo
This is a bit of a last ditch effort to get advice really - if anyone has encountered anything like our situation before, any help would be greatly appreciated!
My husband and I currently live in a 1 bed maisonette which I bought when I was single. We got married at the end of 2007, and went on the market right after the wedding more or less, to buy our first marital home together with the idea of starting a family in a year or so. As you may have guessed we went on right at the wrong time, and a year later we were still on the market. Finally though we had an offer in October 08, and although it was alot lower than we wanted, we figured we couldnt afford to turn it down. Our buyer had apparently got a mortgage on the go via their finance advisor, and wanted to move ASAP - ideally by Christmas. We then weny house hunting, as found an amazing house we absolutely loved, and the vendors wanted to move soon as well. Brilliant.
And then it all started to unravel. It appeared that the man who had viewed and wanted to move in, was the son - the mortgage was being taken out by the father - who lived in Dubai. But repeated reassurances everything was on track kept things going and we proceeded with the legals on our purchase. However Christmas approached and our buyer hadnt done their valuation - something to do with Barclays (their bank) asking for more paperwork which had gone missing between Dubai and the UK. However right before Christmas this finally arrived and they promised that the valuation would be booked right after Xmas.
But it wasnt. We had had our Homebuyers survey done on the property we were buying, and a few more weeks passed. Then the worst happened - our vendors pulled out. We were gutted and for a week or 2 didnt know what we were going to do. Our buyer was still making all the right noises though - its coming along, the application was being audited hence the delay etc etc. And luckily we found a second house to buy - its a bigger stretch from the 1st house, but definitely worth it. We speeded through the conveyancing on this house, and finally the valuation was booked and done on our flat. We then booked our survey (we thought having learnt from ast time this was sensible!) and our mortgage offer was in 2 days after. Our buyers however seemed to evaporate into thin air. Again - apparently more paperwork was required.
A week later we then get told several confusing things - the survey had been done by Halifax (we have no idea where this came from), the Barclays application was, well not mentioned, and they were putting in a new application in the sons name, with a big deposit from the father to boost it. This new application was apparently made with RBS, was going to be fast tracked and we were told this 2 weeks ago.
We are still waiting, about 18 weeks after offer acceptance and all we keep getting told is 'they are chasing it'. Our new vendor is now asking questions and we cant tell them anything.
We have now gone back on the market, in an attempt to push our buyer into action, but so far to no efffect. Looking back we should have done this months ago, but naively we believed things 'would be sorted by friday' - Fridays are now our Groundhog Day of no change from the week before!
Is there anything else we can do? Their finance guy seems extremely unhelpful (very slow to respond to our EAs calls, and rather rude apparently) and the son doesnt seem to know what 'chase your mortgage' means!
If we loose this second house it will have cost us over £2000 in fees and this guy doesnt seem to care at all!
Any advice would be great - we are loosing the will to live at the moment...
Mojo
0
Comments
-
Tell your 'buyer' you are no longer interested in selling to him.
This will simply formalise what is going to happen anyway.0 -
We told him today if the one we are buying falls through then hes not getting ours for sure, but we kind of dont want to shoot ourselves in the foot - if he is proceeding with an application........
(we are optomists)
0 -
If you don't manage to buy the house that you are currently trying to buy (which I hope isn't the case!
), then continue with the sale and rent for 6 months before attempting to buy again?
We are selling to rent before buying - just cannot face the whole chain thing AND don't want to rush buying...
Good luck, sounds awful!
QT0 -
What about putting your property back on the market? This may encourage your current buyer to speed things up and if another buyer comes along you could go with them.
Buyers rarely take this length of time unless there is a major problem, in my experience anyway.0 -
You need to get on the phone to your solicitor, and tell him/her to phone your buyer's solicitor, and find out what is taking so long, and ask them if they still want to go ahead with the purchase.
This is what you pay a solicitor for... (and yes, sometimes they can be a little useless!!)Should've = Should HAVE (not 'of')
Would've = Would HAVE (not 'of')
No, I am not perfect, but yes I do judge people on their use of basic English language. If you didn't know the above, then learn it! (If English is your second language, then you are forgiven!)0 -
Thanks for all the comments, we are back on the market now and back on Rightmove at a new price - so hopefully that will get something going!
Our EA bawled the buyer out last night too - if that doesnt get something done, nothing will!
Its so confusing though, as they said the money for the valuation was taken out of his account Friday - shouldnt it have been booked by now if thats the case, how long do RBS take?
Our solicitor has chased and aside from the money side, they are all ready to go apparently. Because they have an FA their solicitor seems to have little to do withthe financial side sadly
0
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