advice wanted - vendor pulled the plug

chaucer

house purchase has fallen through with a resulting loss of survey, search and legal fees...

vendor insisted on exchange dates that solicitors advised were impossible to meet so deal fell through...

does anyone know if we have a legal recourse to pursue a compensation claim against the vendor?

lynzpower

i dont think so mate.

Why were the dates impossible, coudlnt a deal have been struck?

bs0u0128

nope, no money exchanged no legal comeback, dust off move on

dexters_mum_2

If contracts weren't exchanged, there is no comeback.
Can nothing be salvaged, in what way were the deals impossible and why did you solicitor advise this was the case?

chaucer

without our knowledge, our vendor instructed her solicitor to push our solicitor, for exchange dates one week from her instruction with the further requirement of completion one week ( 5 working days ) after that...

our vendor threatened that unless these dates were met they would withdraw from the sale

our solicitor advised that completion within 15 days = more legal fees & completion within 7 working days = extra fees per day + no guarantee of completing on agreed date due to external factors so the possibility of punitive charges could then arise

our buyer's solicitor told our solicitor he could not exchange in the time requested anyway

both ourselves and our buyer could and would have exchanged within 10 days and then completed as soon as possible after the 15 day penalty period

thus, for the sake of approximately 10 days, the deal fell through

we still have our buyer (we hope!) but we have lost hundreds of pounds due to the incomprehensible inflexibilty re: dates of our vendor

there must be some way of getting compensation for the financial (not to mention the stress etc) loss

goldbyron

Sadly that is the 'good'old English property laws for you that everyone moans about. If there was a way for financial compensation - the business would be a hell of a lot less stressful...

Unfortunately as hard as it is you need to grit your teeth and just move on. You could always try and strike a deal next weekend after the vendor realises he has bitten off his nose to spite his face! Seriously your vendor sounds very inpatient and unrealistic - maybe you could suggest you would exchange in next 2 weeks and see if they agree - it will take at least 6-8 weeks for another transaction to go through and it seems really stupid pulling out.

If not - just accept the harshness of the situation and keep looking...Good luck and keep us informed next week.

freebo_2

chaucer wrote:

without our knowledge, our vendor instructed her solicitor to push our solicitor, for exchange dates one week from her instruction with the further requirement of completion one week ( 5 working days ) after that...

our vendor threatened that unless these dates were met they would withdraw from the sale

our solicitor advised that completion within 15 days = more legal fees & completion within 7 working days = extra fees per day + no guarantee of completing on agreed date due to external factors so the possibility of punitive charges could then arise

our buyer's solicitor told our solicitor he could not exchange in the time requested anyway

both ourselves and our buyer could and would have exchanged within 10 days and then completed as soon as possible after the 15 day penalty period

thus, for the sake of approximately 10 days, the deal fell through

we still have our buyer (we hope!) but we have lost hundreds of pounds due to the incomprehensible inflexibilty re: dates of our vendor

there must be some way of getting compensation for the financial (not to mention the stress etc) loss

Your solicitors are your expert legal advice on this issue and you should ask them.

However they will tell you that if you have not exchanged contracts you have no legal recourse whatsoever. I've been there, know how you feel but you need to accept that its how our awful, stupid house buying system works...

dexters_mum_2

I would let the vendor stew for the weekend, There is no way they could get a buyer now to complete as quick as they wanted to go.
Are you still interested in buying the property? You could ring your conveyancer and ask them in the week to maybe out forward a notice to the vendors solicitor that you are still interested. Once the vendor has stewed a bit, you may find they want the deal back on??

do_it_today!

This happened to us too - basically we were getting the house at a good price but she pulled out and then there were different stories from the agents and her solicitors about higher bids for £5000/10000 more the deal fell through in august funny thing is I dont think it has sold and doesnt appear to be sold on website where you can check how much houses sold for??? (the property was inherited by a woman who lives in the US and has no intention of coming back) the whole thing very stressful and most annoying but I dont think there is anything that can be done

Robert_Sterling

chaucer wrote:

there must be some way of getting compensation

There has been no breach of contract.

leftieM

I wonder was your vendor looking for a way out - maybe they thought they could sell for more money? It sounds very odd otherwise.
You'll know for the next time! It is painful to pay out money that you will never see but there is no choice if you want to move. You can't relax until you exchange contracts.
We lost our buyers last Friday. I pitied them - we'll be a few hundred down in sols fees but they had got the survey done, had gone 2 months down the line and then the mortgage company wouldn't give them a mortgage because one of the buyers had a blot on his record. Why this didn't show up earlier I'll never know (I wonder if one of them didn't want to buy and they wanted a good excuse.)
Good luck. You'll get somewhere even better next time.