House sale could fall through at any time.

jabe22

I got a phone call last Wednesday form our Buyers (FTB) to say how excited they were to be moving in our house in 2 days time on the Friday. We knew nothing about this and haven't even exchanged contracts yet! Apparently the 9th June was the date initially put forward at the beginning of the sale process but we were never informed of this.
The FTB's had quit there rented accommodation as of from the Friday so have now had to go into B&B.

The hold up has been on our purchase due to a number of things which were/are C&G mortgage documents being lost in the post (had to get them to send 3 times before solicitor received what they needed) searches to come back -still at the moment waiting for the environmental one to come back.

Our FTB's have threatened to pull out now unless we can exchange and complete within the next week, but my solicitor has said this time frame is
impossible.

As a goodwill gesture we have offered to leave all the white goods in the kitchen free of charge but this doesn't seem to please them, so are still threating the above.

Can I please ask what else do you think I could possibly do to keep them from pulling out???

We are phoning the solicitor every day and I keep asking can we exchange & complete on this date etc but the solicitor still won't look at fixing a date.

lynzpower

Why wont your solicitor give a projected date? I think if i were in your buyers position I PERSONALLY would be using this threat to get it all moving. They might pull out they might not, and to a certain degree you cant influence thier minds one way or the other but if a date is what they want, no amount of sweeteners is going to change that

WHAT is it thats delaying your solicitor giving you a date. Is it anything from thier side not there yet? If you feel you are not being heard, you could always approach one of the partners in the solicitors to discuss "performance" at the end of the day you are payin for this service and you need to be getting your moneys worth too. Consumer revenge and all that...

jabe22

lynzpower wrote:

Why wont your solicitor give a projected date?

He says he needs a query answering from the enviromental search from our sellers solicitor and a possible andemity(SP?) policy to be taken out.

We want to move ASAP and i'm forever phoning them but were not seeming to get anywhere due to one thing or another that's needed for our purchase.

What i can't understand is why our FTB's solicitor has allowed them to think they were moving into our property without even exchanging!!

lynzpower

cant you consider going into B&B for a bit, as its your vendors that are dragging it out for your sellers IYSWIM

NervousYetFeisty

Looks like you've all been messed around here. I can understnad why the FTBs are making the threats, even though you're behaving impeccably and sound like very fair people. But they'd be stupid to pull out now - even if you couldn't complete for another two weeks they'd be missing out big time, having shelled out for the survey etc and if they did they'd be back to square one, with no guarantee that the same wouldn't happen with another property. It could be months before they complete on another place.
Good luck, anyway and lets hope the FTBs see sense.

jabe22

lynzpower wrote:

cant you consider going into B&B for a bit, as its your vendors that are dragging it out for your sellers IYSWIM

We can't take our 2 large breed dogs in B&B, so it isn't an option for us unfortuately.

Debt_Free_Chick

I have to admit that I think your buyer's have been a bit naive - after all, they are FTBs and almost certainly didn't understand what was involved.

The only way completion could have taken place on Friday would be following exchange of contracts and then an agreement between the two parties (you & them) via each solicitor.

I think they've taken the original date of 9 June "as read" - a simple call to their solicitor would have told them that this date was never feasible, if contracts hadn't been exchanged.

Personally, I would be sympathetic & understanding with them - but also firm. They have misunderstood and made a mistake.

Where are they living now? Can they not just stay there until completion?

jabe22

Debt_Free_Chick wrote:

I have to admit that I think your buyer's have been a bit naive - after all, they are FTBs and almost certainly didn't understand what was involved.

The only way completion could have taken place on Friday would be following exchange of contracts and then an agreement between the two parties (you & them) via each solicitor.

I think they've taken the original date of 9 June "as read" - a simple call to their solicitor would have told them that this date was never feasible, if contracts hadn't been exchanged.

Personally, I would be sympathetic & understanding with them - but also firm. They have misunderstood and made a mistake.

Where are they living now? Can they not just stay there until completion?

That's exacally what we think they've done and that's why i'm so upset with their threats to pull out. If it was us being difficult with dates etc i'd hold my hands up and take whatever happens but it's not, we're just as eager to move as they are.

They are in Bed and Breakfast now and as it stands they have said they will only do one more week in the B&B and then that's it.

Debt_Free_Chick

jabe22 wrote:

That's exacally what we think they've done and that's why i'm so upset with their threats to pull out. If it was us being difficult with dates etc i'd hold my hands up and take whatever happens but it's not, we're just as eager to move as they are.

They are in Bed and Breakfast now and as it stands they have said they will only do one more week in the B&B and then that's it.

But where will they go?

Think about it .. .they'll have to go back to square one and go through the whole process again with another property. And they'll still have to pay all the fees to abandon this purchase.

It will be months before they're in another property - and I'd use that as my negotiation tool.

"We're really sorry that you're in this position, but we're not deliberately holding things up. We're having to go through all the normal hoops in order to complete on our new house purchase.

I can understand you want to pull out and of course we can't stop you doing that, especially as we haven't even exchanged contracts yet. I suppose you know this, but you'll still have to pay your solicitor for all the work they've done including all the searches. And it will take as long again before you can move into another property.

It seems a shame to waste the money you've already spent and then have to wait months to complete on another purchase. Would you reconsider and just let us complete on our purchase? As soon as we can move out, you can move in and it shouldn't take too much longer"

Or something like that. It's difficult to rehearse a discussion with them as we don't know how they'll respond.

Worth a try though. You might also want to let your EA know, in case you have to remarket again quickly. In fact, let your EA know anyway - he/she might speak to the buyers and talk them round, perhaps even pointing out their mistake.

Good luck - let us know how you get on.

NervousYetFeisty

For what it's worth, we're FTBs due to exchange and complete on Friday. Yesterday our sol warned us not to hand in our notice yet!

NervousYetFeisty

Another idea - If they do pull out, the whole chain will collapse. Could the rest of the chain contribute something towards their B&B costs to stop this happening?