Vendors wont take their house off the market

jamie304

In that case people shouldn't accept an offer if they don't think the buyers position is suitable. They can say 'come back and make me an offer when you are in a better position', or 'if you really want it and you are not in a good position, make me an offer I cant refuse!'. If they do accept, they should take off the market.

MissBehaving

jamie304 wrote:

In that case people shouldn't accept an offer if they don't think the buyers position is suitable. They can say 'come back and make me an offer when you are in a better position', or 'if you really want it and you are not in a good position, make me an offer I cant refuse!'. If they do accept, they should take off the market.

I agree with this comment. Surely when the OP put an offer in for the house, the details of their own sale would have been disclosed.
If the vendors have had two other offers and not accepted them, then is it because they were below the OP's offer, or because they were also in a chain?

Surely there has to be an element of honesty in this world. If the vendor is not happy about the buyers situation, why not come straight out and say it.

Personally, I wouldnt have the confidence to put all my eggs in one basket if I were in the buyers situation. And if I were in the vendors position... I would be honest with my buyer and lay the cards on the table from the beginning.

Woby_Tide

blueshrimp wrote:

Am I being unreasonable. We saw a house on Saturday and immediately put in an offer which was accepted, however, the vendors (according to their stoppy estate agents), wont take their house off the market. We have sold our property STC, however our buyers haven't sold theirs, and they have said that until we have a complete chain, their house stays on the market.

We have taken our house off the market for a period of 6 weeks (2 of which have gone), in order to allow our buyers time to sell theirs, and I would have expected the same treatment in return.

but if they don't sell in the next 4 weeks, you've then lost the property you 'wanted' and evidently loved to offer immediately plus you still have to sell your property. Going back on the market after a few weeks is often a lot harder, you've lost the initial 'push' and exposure, plus potentially people may see the property re-marketed and wonder if something is wrong to make the sale have fallen through so quick.

This is the downside of viewing and offering without a chain in place behind you, if you fall for a place it only makes it harder if everything doesn't slot into place. In the last 2 weeks you could potentially have lost a buyer in a better position and now be seeing the other property being taken off the market.

None of our agents advised to stop marketing until a chain could be proved and details provided.

LizzieandThomas

In my opinion you havent sold your house yet - have the people buying yours instructed solicitors ?
If it was me i would keep my house on the market you could be waiting forever !
I dont blame the vendors - the people buying yours are very lucky , not many people would wait. x Good luck x

mi-key

#11 - lets be honest, there are no guarantees a house that is sold is actually sold until the contracts are signed - either party can pull out at any time for any reason.

My point is that the seller accepted an offer based on the buyers present situation. Maybe what they should have said is 'yes, we will sell for that amount, once you have a buyer lined up / mortgage in place etc... then come and see us and we'll go ahead on that, and then we'll take the house off the market, but if someone else comes along first with the same offer, we'll sell to them'

Accepting an offer should be just that - agreeing to sell at that price to the person you've accepted the offer from - accepting an offer, but not actually accepting it, and still actively looking for another buyer is out of order.

As an example, with the house we are buying, we made the offer conditional on the house being taken off the market, and no other viewings arranged. The EA was happy to do this ( we are FTB's though, so this obviously makes it easier, but there is still no guarantee for the seller we wont see something we like more or just change our minds and pull out ! ) and said it is always their policy to take houses off the market once an offer is accepted, as as far as they are concerned this means the house is sold - they dont mess buyers about by continuing to look for a better price for the seller.

AndrewSmith

Put the boot on the other foot for a second.

If I had an offer from an unproceedable buyer immediately after they had viewed my property would I take it off the market? Not likely.

An offer is worthless unless it is proceedable. As the bottom of the chain is still not closed then, unfortunately, your offer is not proceedable as it is still subject to the sale of a property lower down.

I would expect the property to remain on the market. Remeber that the EA has an obligation to get the best price from the most proceedable buyer for their client the seller.

By advising the seller to take the property off the market the Agent would not be acting in the best interests of his client, until your offer is proceedable.

I am currently selling a house, If my agent asked me to remove my property from sale on the strenght of an unproceedable offer I would tell them to sod off. Although I have found a property that I want I am not going to offer on it until I am proceedable. It puts me in a far better position of strength so far as negotiating goes and the offer at that time will be taken far more seriously. At that point I will then demand that it is removed from sale. Until I have sold and am proceedable I have simply asked the agents to inform me if there is any other serious interest or other offers, and have told them I will be offering once I have sold.

In fairness that is about as far as I can expect to go until I am proceedable.

Until your chain is closed you have very little bargaining power I'm afraid. Welcome to the property game.

silvercar

I can see it both ways. Until a chain is in place an offer is really only an expression of interest.

But I recently sold my house, my buyers had a complete chain but it turned out the FTB at the bottom of the chain was a messer who couldn't get a mortgage and lied to us all. In effect he should have been discounted and the chain considered incomplete. When he fell away we stepped in and bought out the house at the bottom. Had the chain not linked up we would never have found out that we could all move.

Although I agree with AndrewSmith's sentiments, by not making an offer now your seller is not considering their move which also slows the chain.

AndrewSmith

I agree silvercar.

Apologies I should have extrapolated regarding the situation with the house I have found.

There is no upward chain as the vendor is not buying. They are moving back in with parents following cahnges in their circumstances.

I agree that, where an upward chain is involved, it may be a good idea to prompt upward movement by making an offer subject to sale.

Andy

blueshrimp

Basically the people who have offered on our house are very serious. They have instructed their solicitor and have had the survey done on our property. We took our house of the market, because they gave us an offer we thought acceptable, and you can tell if people are really intersted in your house or not - all I am asking for is the same response.

I have spoken to their solicitor and even offered to put down a deposit at this stage. I am also willing to show them evidence that our mortgage is in place (we are purely transfering the mortgage across from our current property). So as far as us and our buyer are concerned - this is 100% going to happen.

I know that times are different now - but where has the trust gone in all of this.

I still don't want to loose this house :-(

pigeonpie

Your anxiety's a result of the english legal system where you haven't 'bought' until you have exchanged contracts and until then the vendor can behave as unethically as they like. From time to time mutterings go on about changing the law to bring it into accordance with other systems where you sign conditional on a mortgage (max delay a month) or you can't offer until you are in a definite position to buy and your offer, if accepted, is binding on both parties (as I understand the position is in Scotland).
We lost out on something we really liked as the vendor accepted a higher offer, having already agreed to our's (and where there was no chain) and where the vendor didn't even come back to us to ask if we'd match the other offer.
However I have enquired here in London about property that is Under Offer and been told I can't view it unless it falls through. That is the policy of certain estate agents. So it's not uniform. Try to speak to the agent......and very good luck. Hope you get your house.