Chain problem

Shawn_2

I understand a lot of property buy and sell involves chain.

A friend of mine is buying a house and the seller is also buying another one. Everything seemed fine until near the exchange date the seller announced that he had found some serious problems on the property he's been trying buy and decided to walk away from it.

My friend suddenly found himself left there with huge frustration. He had sorted everything sorted on his side of the deal but the seller said they did not want to sell independently. So now my friend can do nothing but wait until the seller find another property so that they could move out.

I told him this is gonna be a long wait especially my friend's current tenancy will expire eventually but if he walks away he'd loose all the property survey fee and solicitor fees.

Has anyone here experienced similar situation and can give some suggestions to my poor friend?

hazyjo

Many of us have... I've lost loads over the years. It happens. Nothing anyone can do. Very unfortunate, but that's the way it is. Maybe they'll consider selling to your friend and moving into rented to put themselves in a better position to move once they do find somewhere.

If your friend does consider pulling out, please tell him to let the vendors know before he makes that decision. We lost a house we were buying, and we'd had a buyer who said she was happy to hang on. After a few weeks, she walked away. Had we known she was going to walk, we might have considered renting. As it was, it hadn't been deemed necessary.

Your friend should keep a close eye on the market for something else too. The house we were hanging on for when we lost our buyer, we had another buyer pretty soon after but the vendors then decided they weren't selling. Thankfully we'd seen another house we liked and all worked out well.

He won't be able to claim costs back from anyone. Unfortunately, nothing's guaranteed in buying/selling property until Completion Day!

Things have a habit of working out for the best in the end...

Jx

Mobeer

Your friend can point out to the seller the difficulties a delay causes him and the importance to him that this deal proceeds promptly. He could try negotiating a new lower price to compensate for the (real or notional) expenses this delay will cause him. Maybe he could also try seriously viewing other properties with the same estate agent the seller uses, to see if this causes the estate agent to put pressure on the seller (to protect the estate agent's fees).

Shawn_2

Mobeer wrote: »

Your friend can point out to the seller the difficulties a delay causes him and the importance to him that this deal proceeds promptly. He could try negotiating a new lower price to compensate for the (real or notional) expenses this delay will cause him. Maybe he could also try seriously viewing other properties with the same estate agent the seller uses, to see if this causes the estate agent to put pressure on the seller (to protect the estate agent's fees).

Interesting, I wonder how price negotiation can be of help here. The seller can always turn the buyers down by saying they no longer wish to sell. My friend is buying house for the first time, so he's already a newbie here which in many ways can be taken advantage of. If he lower the offer price down, how will that push the seller to speed up their process rather than building up tensions between two parties?

The seller probably don't care who's buying, but my friend doesn't have a chain below him so I think that could be something he could make use of.

System

I would have thought that you would need to offer MORE to get him to complete as planned rather than less

martinthebandit

Your friend as the buyer is in the driving seat actually, there are more sellers than buyers out there.

If it was me I would be playing hardball and inform the sellers that the price they have offered is only good for another 'x' weeks and that the they will now be actively looking elsewhere for a property that they can buy in a time scale that suits them.

But thats just me

Turv

This happens all the time i'm afraid, there seems more time wasters in the housing market than genuine buyers, there are many online sites that your friend could advertise apart from that your friend needs to be patient, i hate selling houses because of this reason of time-wasters.

I once had an old couple come looking at my 3 bedroom semi, when they wanted a bungalow, some people are just beyond me.

Shawn_2

martinthebandit wrote: »

Your friend as the buyer is in the driving seat actually, there are more sellers than buyers out there.

If it was me I would be playing hardball and inform the sellers that the price they have offered is only good for another 'x' weeks and that the they will now be actively looking elsewhere for a property that they can buy in a time scale that suits them.

But thats just me

This is everything I thought my friend could do at the moment unless he don't give a s**t about the money and effort he has put in or he finds something better.

At the end of the day, the seller does have valid point in doing so and if I were them, I'd probably do the same thing. Nobody can predict such thing and it's hard to put blame on either side, even though I would say it's more shame on the seller not choosing properly.

At the end of the day, I think the housing market at certain areas is still a seller's market, and I hope by the time when my friend decides to sell his house for a bigger one, he will still remember this.