Sellers won't move out!

PhilDS

Morning all,

I'm after some advice on what my next step should be in the saga that is my house move.

I'm in the middle of a chain of 3 people with 2 houses. We've got to the point now where we and our buyer are happy to exchange. But...our seller won't agree to exchange! They say they won't exchnage until they have somewhere to move into. I know that sounds very fair as they don't want to be homeless, obviously. They have said that they will move into rented accommodation while they are trying to find a house to buy. But they have been looking for a rented house for the last 4 weeks, ever since they've known that exchange was imminent, and they still they haven't found anywhere they like to rent and so are holding up the chain while they try to find a perfect retal house!

I'm after some advice on how I can apply pressure to them to get on and move out. The problem is that they haven't really got any reason to move out. They haven't had to pay for any surveys or mortgage reservations so they're not financially locked into the move at all!

I'm at my wits end with these guys. I'm so annoyed that I just want to tell them to shove it. But that wreaks of cutting off my nose to spite my face.

Please help!

Thanks in advance...

Sapphire

I think the only thing you can do is to set a deadline - say two weeks if you can manage that - and tell them you will pull out unless they move out. Get your solicitor to try and make the deal happen within this time.

As far as I know, there isn't much that you can do to put pressure on them.

hethmar

I think you need to speak to your solicitor on this one. I know that if you put in the phrase "time is of the essence" in your contract it either forces them out or they end up paying you interest but I am not an expert - its best to talk to those who are.

Good luck.

Mumstheword

I would continue searching for a house. There's no need for you to tell them this, and who knows, you may find something better! By the time they decide to set a date, you may have had time to find somewhere else, get surveys done and set a date!

Mumstheword

alternatively, you could say that your offer is subject to completing in 4 weeks time. Each week, or part of, after that, the offer is reduced by £1,000.

It's not much off the overall offer, but a thousand a week is a costly place to live!

hobo28

Our neighbours across the road are like that. They've held up the chain for such a long time, in the end two buyers have pulled out.

I don't even know why she's bothering to sell the house. She says she doesn't like it yet there's nowhere else in the area she'd buy even if her budget was unlimited!?!!

She refuses to move out until SHE has found their new place and won't consider moving into rented.

Personally I feel sorry for anyone wasting their money on trying to buy her house. I'd be inclined to agree with mumstheword and keep looking. If your sellers are like my neighbour, I wouldn't hold out hope that they will move anytime soon.

Doozergirl

I think you should start looking at other houses and inform your vendor that you are doing so.

The fact that they are not motivated to move is not a good sign for you. I think you need to force their hand as being strung along is likely to end up in a situation where you end up losing your buyer and have to start from scratch.

I really hope this works out for you, but think you should examine other options rather than set yourself up for a shock

clutton_2

Playing devils advocate here for a minute or two - i can see it from their point of view also - , why should they move out earlier than they want to for other folks convenience ? i would feel very annoyed if someone told me to move into a rental house i did not like just to suit them, this would them incur 2 lots of moving costs.

strawberrylane

My guess would be that they are not really looking for rented accommodation at all but are stalling you in the hope that they can find somewhere to buy. I say that because most rental agencies won't consider that they are serious tenants until they have exchanged on their house sale. Certainly, when we were looking for a rented place recently, none of the agents would take an offer from us until we could show that we had exchanged on our house sale. Maybe not all rental agents are the same but I bet that most are. So, I reckon they are stalling in the hope of buying - which could go on indefinately. So, the ball is really in your court and you must do something such as imposing a deadline and being prepared to walk away if necessary (a big step when you've invested time and money in the property already). But, it doesn't sound like your vendors are very serious to me. Sorry to be pessimistic. Good luck though.

PhilDS

Thanks guys.

I agree that they shouldn't have to move into a grotty rental place, but they have known that exchange was on the cards for 4 weeks (by the way, they held it up for 4 weeks as their solicitor was "on holiday"). In that time they say they've seen 5-6 places, but none of them are good enough. It may just be me, but when I was renting there were plenty of places around to suit a number of tatstes. Besides, they will only be there for 6 months.

Redarding a deadline: the wife and I have taken your advice on baord and have decided to wait until next Friday (15th). The original completion date was set for the 22nd so if they find somewhere before the 15th we should still be on track. However, if they haven't found anywhere by the 15th we will give them the weekend and then pull out if there's no good news. We haven't told them this yet as we don't really want to force their hand until we have to.

I feel really let down by these guys and their agent. There must be a better way :rolleyes:

By the way. We started looking at other places yesterday when we heard the bad news. More out of spite I guess, but the places on offer look pretty good. I guess there's always a positive angle to look at it from???

lilybugs

PhilDS, that is a horrible situation to be in. I know as I've kind of been there, twice. A sellers accepted out offer back in February, four months later they still hadn't found anywhere so we withdrew our offer. They still haven't put their house back on the market so obviously were stringing us along all the time.

We found another house and thought that we were in a great position as there was no chain. However, when it came to exchange time, we realised that the seller had no reason to move out and then he couldn't find somewhere to rent as he had a dog. In the end we said that he needs to prove to us that he was committed to selling and the only way we'd accept this is to exchange and we'd give a longer time to completion so he had more time to find somewhere. If he didn't exchange that week, we'd start looking elsewhere for a house.

It worked, we exchanged two weeks ago and complete on the 27th but that was a really stressful time as we'd already spent £2,000 and we're so in love with the house.

Best of luck!