Day before completion & vendor has not signed contract - Help

G_M

kazam401 wrote: »

"Have contracts been exchanged"

Well after todays phone call - I presume not :-(

What I am finding hard to get my head round is the fact that a sale can be agreed - all the legal stuff can be sorted & paid for (by me) yet if the vendor changes her mind for whatever reason she just walks away scot free :-(

the point is that until the contracts are Exchanged (see my earlier post) the sale has NOT been agreed. That's why it's called 'exchange of contracts'!

If contracts had been Exchanged:
a) your solicitor would have rung you beforehand to say "is it OK for me to Exchange contracts now" and
b) he'd have rung you to say "yes, I exchanged today"

At that point, and not before, the deal would be struck and the sale agreed, and neither side could 'change their mind and walk away scot free'.

neverdespairgirl

kazam401 wrote: »

Surely in this day & age - a deal is a deal, we seem to be able to take anyone to small claims over any trivial matter but when it comes to buying a house different rules apply.

The deal becomes a deal at the point when contracts are exchanged. Up to then it's not a deal, it's a prospective deal. Which is why people have been asking whether you've exchanged or not. If you had exchanged then the completion date is set in stone, and there are all sorts of consequences if the seller mucks around.

If you've not exchanged yet, you have a contemplated completion date, and no deal.

kazam401

Been dwelling on this all night (being a shift worker helps with this ) & can remember my conversation with my solicitor regarding exchange of contracts & completion

I ask the question about whether I would need to call at the solicitors on friday 24th to pick the keys up or whether my wife would be able to collect them, as I would be sleeping due to working nights - I was definately told there would be no need to call at the solicitors & my wife would be able to collect the keys from the estate agents after completion - which would probably be before lunch & they would call me on the day to confirm this had been done.

I've been asked the question whether I understood the difference between exchange of contracts & completion & I understood this to be one & the same. Now recollecting this conversation with my solicitor it would seem that I have been some what misled :mad:

This doesn't alter the fact that the vendor has had over two weeks to return the contract & still hasn't. That is probably why my solicitor gave me the 24th as completion day as that gave the vendor plenty of time to sort her end out with the exchange of contracts then completion (I now understand)

My plan of action is to now try for another month in the rented property & go for completion on or around the 15th of next month - cancel my holidays, moving day, removals & get some updated insurance quotes - so long as the contracts have been exchanged of course.

18 weeks from having my offer accepted to getting to completion is some what exessive I was expecting about 8 weeks due to no "chain" being involved.

This also gives the vender another 3 weeks of avoiding her solicitor (maybe )

This house buying racket is just that a racket which will bury the un suspecting & nieve - I feel just about up to my eyeballs at the moment

I will update this post when its sorted one way or another.

Egg_custard_2

It sounds like your solicitor hasn't helped matters. You may have been confused about exchange and completion but your solicitor certainly wasn't, and should have advised you better. Why on earth did they leave it until the day before you thought you were completing to let you know things weren't on track? I think a little more communication on their part would have been good.

I hope you are able to stay in your rented accommodation for another month. If this sale does go through, get exchange sorted as soon as possible but arrange for the completion date to be as near to the end of your extended tenancy period as possible (as long as the mortgage offer will remain valid) because then you won't be paying rent and mortgage for the same period.

neverdespairgirl

Firs things first - before extending rentals or anything else, get on the blower to your solicitor and find out exactly what's happening.

Richard_Webster

Did OP ask his solicitor if he could give notice on the rental? If asked that question I can't imagine any solicitor saying it was safe to do that until contracts had been exchanged.

Did the solicitor actually say that 24th June was definitely when OP would be moving? Or perhaps that was a likely date or a realistic date to aim for, and said that a few weeks ago? Did OP check back more recently as to whether he would definitely be moving on 24th?

Did the solicitor provide any explanatory material or was there stuff on the solicitor's website explaining the process? Did OP read this?

SKIPPY

kazam401 wrote: »

What worries me most is the fact that the vendor has ignored any contact with her own solicitors for over a week now.

She hasn't just gone on holiday and forgotton to tell her solicitors has she! Hope you get it sorted.

maninthestreet

Maybe exchange and completion were going to happen on the same day???

Skint_Catt

maninthestreet wrote: »

Maybe exchange and completion were going to happen on the same day???

JUST what I was going to say! :rotfl:

I guess this is one of the cons of this occuring & why i don't want to do them both on the same day!

C xx

DTDfanBoy

Did you request that the property be withdrawn from the market ?

If not it wouldn't hurt to ring the EA to make sure no other parties have submitted an offer. As I'm sure you now understand, until contracts have been exchanged there is nothing to stop the vendor accepting another offer, asking you to raise your offer or simply pulling out of the sale.