Is it legal for an Estate Agent to advertise a property as 'No forward chain'?

KateLiana27

We ran into the same issue when looking for a house. Several were advertised as "no forward chain", but when we asked the vendor, they always vaguely said they planned to move into rented accommodation or with family if they found a buyer. EAs seem to count this statement as "no forward chain". Of course it's completely un-enforceable - when the time comes, the vendor is under no obligation to do as they've said and move into temporary accommodation - as you have found out.

If you try to hold someone accountable, I imagine that the estate agent will say that the vendor told them they intended to move into rented, therefore as far as they knew there was no forward chain. The vendor has already told you that this was there intention at the time of sale agreement.

It's hugely frustrating. The moral of the story is never trust estate agents, or vendors trying to sell their house. Unless a house is empty and unfurnished, I wouldn't believe that there is no forward chain, whatever they tell me.

Personally, I would be blaming the vendor. They are the ones who fed you (and almost certainly the EA) a line about moving to rented and haven't followed through. I'd be insisting that they move out to rented as agreed at the point of sale, or you will walk away. Of course you have to be prepared to do so.

monkeymoomoo999

I have to agree with kateliana77 . Its a shame things like this happen. I know someone who is going through the same thing.

sonastin

In defence of vendors... my property was advertised as chain free when I was looking for a house to buy. My plan was to try to find a house and tie the 2 transactions together but if that wasn't going to work for whatever problem with my purchase, I'd move in with my mother. As it happened, I found repossession to buy so I was a little concerned that the buyer wouldn't be ready before the deadline set by my vendors. In the end, we were all ready to go on time but at the last minute a problem cropped up with my purchase. My solicitor pushed the completion date back 3 days to buy the vendors time to sort the problem. My buyer hit the roof because the message of "will try to tie the 2 together but won't let it hold things up" didn't get passed on by the EA - she was told that I was moving in with family and nothing about an onward purchase. As it happens, 3 days wasn't enough and I spent 9 months living with my ma - I'm pretty certain that the buyer wouldn't have waited all that time but it still irritates me that she objected to waiting an extra 3 days when it could have saved me £hundreds in moving/storage costs if the purchase had worked out.

tyllwyd

We've agreed a sale and promised to move into rented temporarily because we are paranoid about a long chain falling through - but it is incredibly difficult to stop ourselves looking at houses to buy and thinking oh, we could make an offer on that one and tie it in with our sale.

ognum

I agree that it is the vendor that signs of the information, he/she should also check the web and ask it to be ammended if incorrect.

Taking legal action is a gamble, you need to act against the correct party, it will be expensive and you may not get any return. The person who will 'win' will be the lawyers.

Why not just pull out claiming mis-representation but you did find all this information out from the vendor at the second visit.

Why is the house still advertised?