Help please re failed sale - I'm desperate

liz-paul

Ok I'll try to keep this short.
We went sale agreed on a deal where we & another bought each others houses about three - four weeks ago. This happened after a fair bit of messing around from him & an assurance from the EA that this guy is a professional (he's an EA & surveyor himself) & won't back out once sale agreed. Well today he has backed out! This sale was aleways a bit of a risk to us because apart from anything else i'm 7 months pregnant & we were only going to be in jsut before baby is born. Obviously I'm furious that we've been treated this way (have already started packing etc) but my question is: is there any way to get him to repay us for all the things we've paid out for? The 2 things I can think of are survey & solicitor which OH thinks will be aabout £2000. Or have we simply taken a risk in agreeing to buy & sell & now have to pay ourselves? Hope this makes sense I am practically in tears...

Troubled_Joe

Until contracts are exchanged I'm afraid you have no claim against him.

princessamy86

Troubled_joe is right, it's horrible but there's no legal recourse to this. You could certainly ask him, there's a chance he might feel guilty enough to pay you some money towards your expenses, but he doesn't have to. Why has he backed out? What have you paid your solicitor for so far? Just thinking that some operate on a no sale no fee basis.

ruggedtoast

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/property_and_mortgages/article1065088.ece

under "What can go wrong" at the bottom.

liz-paul

Thats pretty much what we thought but had a slight glimmer of hope. Am so gutted, its not just the money but also the fact that we have told our toddler we're moving, prepared all our stuff, spent so muc time on it etc when we should have been doing other things. We were happily living life knowing we weren't moving when he first refused our offer in Feb then he came to us a few weeks ago & got our hopes up.
He has pulled out because:
A. he's an ignorant, selfish, beep beep beep beep
B. He has suddenly decided that he might not be able to sell our house (which he was going to let our til the market improves anyway).

Don't know where he expects to find a buyer for his house now. Don't know if anyone else has even looked at it since it went on sale in Sept... Thanks for your help everyone....

stolt

Sorry to hear about the problems you have had. i strongly believe in karma i hope the house is still up for sale 6 months time and he struggling to sell it, buying a house is stressful enough but he sounds like a right .........

liz-paul

I am convinced it will still be for sale in six months which is when we will be looking again but not at his house! Am just so disgusted that a professional in the business would behave like this. Think the EA who has been dealing with it is pretty disgusted with him too....

princessamy86

Not surprised, it's horrible when people do things like this. Hope it all works out for you in the end

QTPie

liz-paul wrote: »

I am convinced it will still be for sale in six months which is when we will be looking again but not at his house! Am just so disgusted that a professional in the business would behave like this. Think the EA who has been dealing with it is pretty disgusted with him too....

It is disgusting, but there are LOTS of buyers and sellers who do this... presumably he will have paid for a survey and solicitors costs, so at least will be out of pocket himself (that isn't a huge comfort for you though).

Some people just do not know their own minds... it is a time of some uncertainty and it sounds like he got cold feet to me. This is what happened to our first set of buyers I think. The buyers wanted to complete within 6/7 weeks of the offer. It was Christmas and we were out of the country for 3 weeks in the middle of that... BUT I BENT OVER BACKWARDS to ensure that everything (including us having somewhere to live and gettign removals quotes and a provisional moving day) was in place so it went ahead smmothly...I think that they got spooked by the media and then they went on to attempt to gazunder us by £40k (we refused to negotiate and the sale fell through).

We soon had a second set of buyers (cash, investment buyers) and they offered the same amount that the original buyers offered (pre-gazunder) . That all went through smoothly. BUT I learnt to NEVER believe in a sale until contracts are exchanged....

Anyone selling or buying a house should really know their own minds and not make/accept an offer that they are not 100% sure about... unfortunately there is a large proportion of the population that doesn't think that way :rolleyes:

Hope that everythign works out very well for you and congratulations on the imminent arrival

QT

silvercar

professional........estate agent

oxymoron?

chickmug

It is interesting to note that people from all walks of life can pull out. I have seen it with solicitors, accountants, vicars, policemen, doctors and most of any other groups.

As someone else said it is worth trying to see if they will reimburse you. I was in this position when I was a lot younger and the seller pulled out on me but paid my costs to date at the point they pulled out. However I must say in my life's work in property it is very rare.