Help - Sellers still havent found a new property

mlz1413

Stop phoning.

WRITE to your solicitor and copy to vendors solicitor and the vendors.

Say that your LL has requested you extend your T by 6 months on 31/8/10 or you have to move out. You therefore have to exchang contracts by XX/XX (at least a week if not 2 weeks before) with a move in date of 31/8/10.


If you don't hear back within a few days then the vendors are not in a position to sell to you.

Yes you have wasted money on a survey but that sometimes happens the only way you can save this cost in future is not to pay for the survey until the vendors have paid for a survey on their next house.

martindow

The problem is that assuming your sellers eventually find somewhere and have an offer accepted you could well end up with a longer chain with much more scope for things to go wrong. There is a lot of mileage in pushing them to exchange quickly and go into rented to avoid all of this. It would also be to their advantage as they would then be in a strong position to buy.

Have you gone to look at other houses with your agent to emphasise that your seller is risking losing you? Unless you show signs that you could abandon this seller they could string you along indefinitely.

Lance

Your solicitors bill will be increasing all the time unless all this is included in 'fixed fee'. How long does your mortgage offer have left? The longer they keep you waiting the more expences increase and time of mortgage offer runs out so they may feel you are in too deep to do anything while they look and find their dream home or pull out and look later. They don't sound like reliable helpful people to get involved with. I would pull out and let them chase you with a date.

BS1112

I thought I would give an update on our situation in case someone is ever in a similar position.

Well the 3rd of August rolled round and our sellers still hadn't found a new house, as sweet as they were we just couldnt hang around in hopes that a chain free property would appear and everything would work out perfectly. It became clear that they were still only looking. :eek: The EA as I have mentioned before is absolutely terrible and her lack of communication made the situation worse. :mad:

As much as I loved the house, I put some time to keep an eye on Rightmove for any other properties which looked hopeful. I came across a house in our current town which looked amazing, I later showed it to my husband who was quite keen. The next day I booked in a viewing with the EA and on the following day we viewed the house which was perfect, the sellers were great and they were happy to move out once the sale had gone through. The EA was also fantastic, super helpful and on the ball.

The next day we put in our offer- it was accepted, let the sellers of the old proeprty know that we would have to pull out, spoke with our Sol who was fab ( we did have a fixed rate ) agreed to keep the same quote and start the process, called our lender...All just fell into place.

House was valuated a week to the day, mortgage offer has been signed and sent off and all is falling into place perfectly. :beer:

This house is perfect, it has everything my husband and I need for our future family home and for his buisness. We couldnt be happier! :j

So moral of the story as many of you said - Dont put all your eggs in one basket and dont enter into chain that isnt complete.

Thank you to everyone who was kind enough to offer to reply!

azkaban420

HI BS112, Am so glad things have worked out ok in the end for you. As the saying goes - everything happens for a reason...you were really upset about pulling out and losing the house you'd initially seen, but have found something even nicer. So it's nice to see that there is usually always something better around the corner

Good luck for the successful completion on this one...all the best,

Az

carrots12

I too had this problem. The vendor did not even start looking until she felt our offer was secure. She was in the postion that she had to move
(big house, needed lots work,needed to downsize for retirement) but I think at heart didn't really want to. perhaps your vendors are in a similar situation.
We were very accomodating, even agreeing to pay her an extra 2K as she cried and said she really had wanted that price. However after 6 months we gave her a deadline and she did finally go out looking. She admitted that she had needed this to actually get her motivated.

Wished we had walked as 2 months after moving in the council took away parking and the house developed a lot of cracks!

All you can do is set deadline or if you are prepared to wait say you will have to reduce offer because of rental costs.

Doozergirl

Thanks so much for coming back to tell us what happened.

I'd say 'I hate to have told you so' but I'm very happy for you, lol! It's evident that you really did find the perfect place this time and fate was perhaps waiting for this one to become available for you

Good Luck for the coming weeks. I hope you are very happy in your new home.

Keep an eye on the old house. I'll put my money on them withdrawing it from the market.

moneysavingplumber

We've been in a very similar situation, although much faster-moving. We viewed the house a couple of times and loved it. Made an offer and subsequent higher offer that was accepted. They were apparently already purchasing an empty property. We had the survey done and arranged to go around with my builder to check out a couple of problems. I smelled a rat when the vendor commented that she'd been chatting to our surveyor for tips for when they had their survey done! Sure enough, I found out today that they'd pulled out of their purchase of the other property due to school catchment issues. Today they have gone on holiday for a fortnight too. We are currently £600 out-of-pocket. Their EA seems as miffed as we are as it appears they are just a flaky vendor, and the EA has gone as far to recommend we start viewing again, which we are. A real pain in the backside.

Apple45

Can you negotiate a roll on one month contract?

BS1112

"Can you negotiate a roll on one month contract?"

Are you asking if we can arrange another month on our current contract with our landlord? If so, no we cant, we were given an extra 2 months which was very kind but things are looking very promising that we could hopefully complete on the day we need to be out of our apartment. Otherwise we are thinking of just putting our items in storage for a week or 2.

Thank you to everyone for your well wishes! We are very excited and happy with the new house! It was a matter of - "I told you so" but I am happy to hear those words!

There really should be some kind of protection before exchange of contracts though, I think a lot of people are left out of pocket when buyers and vendors mess them around. :mad: We were very lucky with our situation but others are not as fortunate.

moneysavingplumber - Keep an eye out and hopefully something better suited will come up, otherwise would she be willing to sell and go into rented if you had to suggest you may have to pull out?

I wish you the best!

Thanks everyone! :j