Help !!!! !!!! - Delayed by chain in scotland

marksimonpowell

aggrhhhhhh!!!

We are selling our property to a chap moving from scotland. He has been completing his sale for the past 2 weeks, which has always not happened due to one reason or another [which has stopped us from exchanging]. we can not get to the bottom of this - our solicitor says what happens down the chain is nothing to do with us [i can not believe this] our estate agent is doing her best, but doent appear to be getting ALL the facts.

we are now apparently moving on friday [31 march] but as of 28 march we still dont know!!! the house is packed and our 2 year old daughter wants to know where her toys are.....help us!

what can we do to find out what is going on in scotland?? how do we "fix" a completion date for them and us? apparently we cant exchange in england until the scottish people have completed.....

HELP!

dwsjarcmcd

Hi,
I think you are being spun a yarn. There is no such thing as a chain in Scotland, it doesn't exist. Each transaction stands on its own and is not dependent on others unlike the rest of the UK.
Don't know whats going on but its nothing to do with chains. Hope you get it sorted.

marksimonpowell

when i say "chain" i mean the next people down from us. the guy buying ours is selling his - thats the end of the "chain" i know they "exchange" when the offer goes in and they are legally bound to buy the house......it's the timescale we cant manage - no one will give any dates. how can we force this?

silvercar

how can we force this?

You can't. Your buyer can't exchange with you until he has exchanged on his purchase, or he would risk not having the money to pay you on completion.

I am in a similar position but in reverse. At the top end of a chain is someone who refuses to exchange until she has sorted out some legal matters unrelated to the sale of her house. The whole chain, five of us have been waiting since January to exchange. The FTBs have now exchanged, meaning my buyer has to move out of his house beginning of May. The rest of us are all still waiting to exchange. Every week we are told, "just a couple more weeks". So we wait because (1) we like the house, (2) we have spent money on surveys & legal costs & mortgage application fees (3) it would take us at least 6 weeks to get to exchang epoint on another house. Grrrrrrr

zappahey

marksimonpowell wrote:

when i say "chain" i mean the next people down from us. the guy buying ours is selling his - thats the end of the "chain" i know they "exchange" when the offer goes in and they are legally bound to buy the house......it's the timescale we cant manage - no one will give any dates. how can we force this?

I'm not sure I understand this correctly, but if your buyer has sold in Scotland then the offer includes the entry date and that is also binding, all subject to completion of the missives (effectively exchange).

Generally, in Scotland, an offer is submitted with a price and an entry date but subject to completion of missives. In our case, missives were complete in about two weeks and at that point it became binding.

If your buyer cannot give you a date then it suggests he's either stringing you along or he is facing some sort of problem sorting out the contract in Scotland. It's possible he was not as far along the selling process as he originally suggested to you.

I would suggest it's time to start asking some hard questions of your buyer.

marksimonpowell

thanks alot for that.

it would appear [we have found out today] that the buyer at the bottom has yet to receive his mortgage offer - which certainly does suggest that his sale was not as far advanced as we were initially led to believe. the original entry date was 17 march. i am now being told that we have not yet got a firm date for the issue of the mortgage offer, although it has been offered in principle?

this is a nightmare!

zappahey

marksimonpowell wrote:

it would appear [we have found out today] that the buyer at the bottom has yet to receive his mortgage offer

Do you mean the buyer of the scottish house? If so, then that really is cause for concern. It's a few years since I bought in Scotland but I'm sure that, due to the different system, a solicitor won't even place a formal offer on your behalf unless the mortgage offer is in place (or has some other assurance that you have adequate funds to proceed), which means, effectively, your buyer's house is not sold at all and the process has not even started.

marksimonpowell

the offer on the scottish house is in [along with the mortgage offer in principle], solicitors are all instructed and "allegedly" talking to eachother. it would appear that the formal offer is very late from the woolwich? all the queries etc. we are told that all queries have been answered. i cant believe its so difficult to get a straight answer from a mortgage lender? or is there another problem we have yet to see?

mistythyme

Have been in a situation (buying and selling in Scotland) when the deal was done and dusted and entry date agreed , then the sellers put back the entry date 3 times - in fact the day we were getting the keys we werent sure if we would get them or not due to this happening.

So though it is not meant to happen it does - and we could have used it to walk away but we really wanted the property.

Hope you get it sorted soon.

irnbru_2

mistythyme wrote:

So though it is not meant to happen it does - and we could have used it to walk away but we really wanted the property.

Were you not entitled to any monies for the delay?

mistythyme

No we knew we got a good deal as they accepted our first offer and didnt put it to closing date (otherwise we would have been bid out of the market) so we didnt want to risk losing it by trying to claim and the solicitor wasnt hopeful .