Purchasing A House Part-Exchanged To Taylor Wimpey

Cloupe

Hey everyone.

My husband and I are looking to buy our first home and wanted to be in before Christmas. We found the right house, it had no chain and so we started the process.

However, having paid out money for a survey and legal searches and mortgage valuation, we've now been told that the house is being sold to us by Taylor Wimpey as part of a part exchange where the couple currently owning the house are buying a Taylor Wimpey new build.

The problem is, is that we've been told that their new build won't be completed until February and we cannot complete until then, however, they want to exchange before Christmas and will not guarantee a completion date. The completion date will be 10 days after they inform our solicitor that the new build is ready.

Is this normal Taylor Wimpey practice? Are we being screwed over?

Thanks for any help that you can give us on this.

Gwhiz

Why would you think you're being screwed over? If the house is not ready until Feb then that's your completion date or thereabouts.

Milliewilly

If you are getting it at a bargain price as they will have paid the sellers peanuts as a part ex then you'll just have to wait. I personally wouldn't exchange without a fixed completion date plus compensation for delays for the new build being ready for the sellers to move into as they are notorious for running over / snagging etc.

Cloupe

Gwhiz wrote: »

Why would you think you're being screwed over? If the house is not ready until Feb then that's your completion date or thereabouts.

Well, we were told no chain and that the owner wanted to complete ASAP and now, they've moved it to exchange this year, completion at some point in the future to be determined by Taylor Wimpey.

That, and Taylor Wimpey's solicitor isn't communicating with our solicitor.

LydiaJ

Exchanging without a completion date is risky IMO. You end up committed to buy the house indefinitely, with no come-back if it isn't available within a reasonable time. They can create long delays and you have no compensation, and don't even have the freedom to walk away and buy something else. In your position, I'd do as Milliewilly suggests and refuse to exchange without a date, specified penalties if they're late, and a later cut-off date when you will be freed from the contract if they haven't completed.

SJCJDCLSC

I understand the position you are in as we are currently buying a new build. It all sounds pretty standard to me although we aren't part exchanging. We have a completion estimate but not a specific date. As the people you are buying from are buying off-plan they simply will not be able to complete until their new house is ready to move into. Wimpey are a very well established builder, the economy might (??) be showing signs of improvement so your chances of something going wrong would seem remote- what you need to work out is a) whether it is worth the risk because I would say there is increased risk for you or b) whether you could work around it in some way?

As we are buying like this we are weighing up the risks of whether it is a sound idea or not. Risks include exchanging but completion being delayed so our mortgage offer runs out.....what happens if their completion is delayed, will you be able to basically guarantee that you could get a new mortgage 6 months down the line? As if you have exchanged on the house you will be tied to it. If something does go wrong with the build you could be delayed indefinately from moving into your new home....

I might be talking out of my bum though as I don't know about the part-exchange process and there might be processes involved that would protect you.

I know with the builder we are buying from we asked for several clauses to be added to the contract e.g specific completion date, guarantee that they would complete before x date to protect our mortgage, removing penalties this end if we couldn't complete when they wanted us too etc but they refused all of these on the basis that they are confident everything will go smoothly - not very encouraging for us the buyer but we are going ahead because we believe the outcome is worth the gamble. Something horrific might go wrong and we end up tied to an uncompleted house, our deposit with our solicitor and no house to live in but unable to buy anything else because we have agreed to buy this house..... a risk for sure!!

The only other thing I can think of if they won't alter the contract for you is to see whether your lawyer could contact the couple that currently own the house you want and see whether they would consider an earlier completion on that property with them going into rental until their new build is ready? They might agree with this if they want exchange on their house before they have exchanged on the new build for their peace of mind?

These are just my thoughts though and have no experience of this - but good luck!!!

Fire_Fox

When does your mortgage offer expire?

Cloupe

Thank you to everyone who replied. We will definitely take these issues up with our solicitor and hopefully when she gets through to Taylor Wimpey we can hopefully come to an arrangement.
once again thanks!:T

LydiaJ

SJCJDCLSC wrote: »

I know with the builder we are buying from we asked for several clauses to be added to the contract e.g specific completion date, guarantee that they would complete before x date to protect our mortgage, removing penalties this end if we couldn't complete when they wanted us too etc but they refused all of these on the basis that they are confident everything will go smoothly -

That's nonsense. If they were so confident that everything would go smoothly then they'd have nothing to lose by agreeing to reasonable clauses to protect you if it all goes wrong. In fact, they know very well that there's no guarantee that things will go smoothly, and they want to make sure that whatever happens, they won't be the ones losing out.

See the Berkeley Homes Collective for an example of the nightmare than can ensue if this sort of thing goes wrong.

SJCJDCLSC wrote: »

The only other thing I can think of if they won't alter the contract for you is to see whether your lawyer could contact the couple that currently own the house you want and see whether they would consider an earlier completion on that property with them going into rental until their new build is ready? They might agree with this if they want exchange on their house before they have exchanged on the new build for their peace of mind?

As I understood the OP, the people in the other house have already sold to Taylor Wimpey. Why would they want to move out into rented when TW are already offering them the flexibility of staying in their own home until the new build is ready? That's the big advantage of part exchange. If the OP and her husband want to persuade the people to sell direct to them, then they'd need to offer a considerable increase in the price in order to make the hassle worth it for the people to move into rented like that.

Hopejack

Unless you are happy to wait that long I personally would be pulling out. It's a complete bummer for you though as you've obviously paid out a fair sum for survey etc. Someone somewhere should be held accountable for basically lying and telling you that it was chain free and could complete asap!

FWIW, we bought a newbuild on our first house about 10 years ago. The builder was Bellway, we bought off plans and were given an expected completion date of early June. It was second week in September before we got into the property!!! We were not happy and did get some miniscule amount of compensation but can't recall the amount - I think it managed to buy us a light fitting lol! If a house isn't built yet or isn't nearly finished then it can and often does slip I'm afraid. Same thing happened to two of my friends who were buying from different builders - both national ones.

So beware if I were you. The other thing to note with builders today is that nearly all are only working on a property once they have it sold and have the buyer locked in. As a result, things like kitchens etc are never ordered before they are needed due to cost which could potentially delay completion....

SJCJDCLSC

Lydia wrote:

As I understood the OP, the people in the other house have already sold to Taylor Wimpey. Why would they want to move out into rented when TW are already offering them the flexibility of staying in their own home until the new build is ready? That's the big advantage of part exchange. If the OP and her husband want to persuade the people to sell direct to them, then they'd need to offer a considerable increase in the price in order to make the hassle worth it for the people to move into rented like that.

Ah you are quite right, I misunderstood the notion there. In that case I suppose it isn't in the OP's interest to go for this house as they aren't going to be able to change the completion date of the new build. Tricky.

As for our situation, we were basically told that there is a 'reasonable' completion deadline but that they wouldn't be specific about a date. I can't remember the wording of the contract off-hand. When we wanted it [the date] specific we were told they would never do that. No-one has a crystal ball I suppose.

OP -If the complete is estimated to take place in February, there is a chance that they are already well into the build, you could visit it yourself perhaps and see how it is going, maybe have a sneeky walk around the site and talk to the builders to get an idea or what a realistic completion date it like and also check out any other sites they might have nearby and see how long their completions took on those sites? Might at least help you form a better opinion about the risk?