Exchanged without completition date - who has power to decide when we complete?

driley

Here's our situation, I think being FTBs we've been quite nieve...

We were looking for our first house with about four months left on our rented accomodation, figuring we should be able to push a purchase out to the end of our rental agreement or extend if we needed to. The house we wanted to buy had sellers who hadn't started looking as they wanted a buyer first, so seemed an ideal situation as it gave everyone a bit of breathing space.

Our sellers then decided on a new-build that hadn't been completed and suddenly we were being asked to exchange without a fixed completion date. We tried to refuse and asked them to break the chain and give us a completion date, but were told that their solicitor had advised them not to do that under any circumstance and everyone (including our solicitor) was telling us this is normal when a new build is involved and saying if we didn't exchange the builder wouldn't finish the house and the chain (of two) would collapse, so basically threatening us into exchanging. We did however push to get a Long Stop date on the contract.
At the stage of exchanging we were told completion was likely to be early to mid September, ideal as our rental contract ends on the 1st of September (made clear to all involved from the start that we wanted to move then).
Our sellers are under contract with the builders to exchange within 10 working days of the inspection after their house is finished and we've now been told that the inspection is booked for the 12th of August, meaning completion by the 26th of August, earlier than indicated but do-able for us, just, as it means around 1 week of double paying. We've since been told that the sellers are trying to push the builders to bring that date forward as they want to move on the 18th of August, which isn't good for us...

My question is, who has the power to say when we complete? The only date on the contracts is the Long Stop date, so can our sellers force us to complete when they want to because of their contractual obligation to complete within ten working days?

Ideal for us would be if we can say the 26th is the earliest we'll complete, so you can double pay if you want to complete earlier, or we'll complete earlier if you pay our rent up to the 26th...

kiki*_2

Dont you pay rent in advance? We are purposely giving ourselves at least 2 weeks in both properties so that we can clean the new place and then move in and clean the rented place.

Doozergirl

The builder decides when you complete. It's their contract which is watertight to suit them. The terms of that agreement will have been passed on to you by your vendors solicitor.

This is indeed normal with new builds.

You will be glad of the two weeks when you have them. We've just had a five day cross over period and only just sorted out the house we were moving from in that time. I'm physically exhausted, have worked from morning til night, haven't had tie to even cook for ourselves and it's only today I get to start sorting out the house we've moved to!

Foggster

Although frustrating and will mean you having to pay double for 2 weeks, is it really worth building up steam about? With so many sales falling through at the last minute or the mad dash of having to empty one house and move into another, I think you have a pretty ideal situation. Like Doozergirl says, it can be chaotic with a short "inbetween" time and you will be glad to have all that breathing space.

DVardysShadow

Doozergirl wrote: »

The builder decides when you complete. It's their contract which is watertight to suit them. The terms of that agreement will have been passed on to you by your vendors solicitor.

OP seems quite clued up on the contract and this term does not seem to have been passed on:

driley wrote: »

... My question is, who has the power to say when we complete? The only date on the contracts is the Long Stop date, so can our sellers force us to complete when they want to because of their contractual obligation to complete within ten working days?

They can only force you if they have got the requirement from their purchase contract written into your purchase contract. If they have not, then you could hold out, but it will cause lots of problems.

Richard_Webster

I would have held out and told the sellers that they were the ones causing the problem - they didn't have to buy a new build and it presumably wasn't made clear to OP that this floating date scenario was likely to happen. After all the sellers couldn't buy the new build without OP buying their house.

LadyBrunello

paying rent on your current property for 2 weeks would be much cheaper than finding temporary accomodation for 2 weeks taking you to mid september. You will also have time to clean up your property properly so less likely to forfeit deposit etc. Believe me landlords at the mo are looking for anything to deduct money from deposit, so make sure you have time to make evrything pristine before you leave

pinkteapot

Two weeks will fly past when you're talking about moving. Were you planning on painting any rooms or replacing any carpets? If so, do it will the place is empty - it's so much easier. I've bought two places and moved into each from a rented property with a couple of weeks overlap. It's bliss. Dreading the next move which will much more likely be a normal sale and purchase with everyone moving on one day.

You're really talking about paying one more week's rent than you wanted to. How much is that? In the grand scheme of the costs of purchasing, it's probably relatively little. You have to look at it as part of the house purchase cost. We moved into our current house and had to pay £100 for a locksmith because the previous owner had lost the patio door keys. Unexpected things come up when buying.