Buyers pulling out

goldbyron

Has anyone out there had any experience of a buyer pulling out just before exchange? I have heard this happens quite a bit and I was wondering why?

mjfusent

Happened to us on the day of exchange (our buyer lost their buyer) - reason given was "personal catastrophy", if it wasn't they deserved one... :mad:

Luckily new buyer was found and chain re-formed quickly now, 6 weeks later we're very close exchange again _pale_ (fingers crossed) and a couple of days from our wedding _pale_ _pale_ _pale_

We never found out the real reason, I suspect that the buyer (who was a developer) was playing two properties off against each other. Had the chain not re-formed we stood to loose £2,000+ in non-refundable fees, through no fault of our own.

lilyann1

Hello yes it happened to us the day before exchange,10 weeks into the process.
Our buyers buyer pulled out and although they said it was for health reasons,he went off to Spain on holiday for a month so he couldn't be contacted(why if someone is ill do they go abroad with no english doctors etc?)
We believe he was a developer playing off 2 properties one against the other.
We were told by our agents that it shouldn't be allowed but unfortunately it happens all the time.
Our buyers found another buyer after 2 weeks and we are just waiting with fingers crossed it is going to happen.
Good luck with yours.

JennyB

Yes, happened to me as well I'm afraid! Right as our solicitor phoned up to arrange the date for exchange. :mad: Only reason we got was that they changed their mind which is pretty unsatisfactory when you're a couple of months into a sale. They were a FTB which might explain part of it. We on the other hand were in the process of buying a house that we completely loved so were devastated at the thought that we might lose it.

Unbelievably we sold our place again in a week and then had that buyer pull out too!!! :eek: I've possibly never been so stressed before in my life than I was at this point! Luckily we sold again in just a couple of days (but for £1000 less), and we didn't lose the house we were buying. :j

Things we did wrong:
1. Not enough contact with our first buyer. Yeah they would have changed their minds anyway but we hadn't heard anything from then in a couple of weeks and I think if we'd been in more regular contact we would have found out sooner and could have re-sold sooner, it wouldn't have been so far progressed and so would have been less stressful.
2. Maybe we were a little slow in finding the house we wanted to buy (we sold our place before we had found anywhere) - but we weren't hugely slow and it's not the kind of decision you want to rush. Plus we had problems with our mortgage company which slowed things down here (No fault of our own)

Things that we were lucky about:
1. The people selling our house were really understanding and patient and gave us time to re-sell our place without putting their house back on the market - even though they were in a rush too. Hooray for ethical house-buyers/sellers! :beer:
2. We had truckloads of interest in our place so we managed to sell it all three times very quickly!:cool:
3. We had a great agent who really pulled out all the stops to re-sell.

Oh the drama of house buying/selling. :rolleyes: I'm sure it shouldn't be this way really. So stressful but it gives you great stories to tell once it's all over with.

sue_balu

I have had this happen several times but the worst one was in 1998 in a slump market. We had already completed on our present house and so were paying mega-mortgage payments for both.
A middle aged couple "fell in love" with the house, had sold their house and offered us the asking price. Heard nothing for two months whilst we asssumed solicitors were doing their work - we completed questionnaires etc.
Then a letter from our solicitor saying their sale had fallen through and would we wait for them to get another buyer. Like fools we did and after another two months it all went completely silent (They claimed not to have a home or mobile phone so no-one could call them) We eventually found out again through our solicitor that they had decided not to move after all!!
Complete time wasters it was lucky I never saw either of them again.
It took us almost two years to sell the house and set us back years financially.
The ridiculous thing is we would do it all again as our present house really was our dream house- not that anyone else would be so daft!!