Should I threaten to pull out of this sale?

PoisonIvy

We put in an offer on a place in late March, survey completed mid April. Solicitor raised queries on several items on April 20th which still have not been addressed by vendor's solicitor, who is blaming first the vendor for not paying fees, then the local council (freeholder) for being slow to respond to queries.

I'm extremely fed up. Our mortgage offer expires at the end of August. I don't want to lose the money we've already spent but if our mortgage offer expires that'll probably happen anyway. I've waited two months and still NOTHING but lame excuses.

I want this flat, but no amount of chasing seems to work. Should I just threaten to start looking elsewhere?

anselld

Yes, start looking. You never know you might find something better.
Make sure the vendor's agent knows you are looking.

Simon101

You probably should. They don't sound like motivated sellers and so they might pull out later.

However no one on this forum can know how much you love this house. If its the "one" then persevere. However my gut reaction is that if you are asking if you should pull out, you probably should.

robatwork

Looking can't hurt this sale. In fact if you "accidentally" contact the vendor's EA asking them to go back on their list etc.... can only have a beneficial effect to the vendor.

Gentoo365

I am in a similar position. However I happen to know that my vendor wants to sell as quickly as possible. Therefore I am more confident that the hold up is due to third (or maybe fourth) parties who have no interest in speeding things up.

In my case it seems to be the management company of a block of apartments talking their time. Also some difficulty in getting confirmation of an item on the land registry record.

I don't actually know when my mortgage offer runs out (probably best I find out). But I am not going to look for anywhere else as if I did I would probably just be back at stage one again.

Yorkie1

We get many posts on here where the freeholder in a leasehold property drags their feet. There's not a lot that the seller can do except to push them to hurry up.

OP, are you getting any indication that the seller is on the ball to chase outstanding stuff?

hcb42

if this seller wanted to sell they wold be all over it, the fact that they arent might intimate they are not that eager to sell...

Gentoo365

hcb, unfortunately I know from experience that 'being all over it' does not speed up disinterested freeholders and council staff.

PoisonIvy

Yorkie1, I haven't had much indication that the seller is on it. He's a first time seller and it sounds like he needs hand holding (though the EA would say that I suppose).

I'd phone the council myself but I don't know where to begin. It's just some basic stuff about the buildings insurance, from what I've been told. It's not a council property (Victorian conversion) and these are rumoured to be very low on the priority list.

If my mortgage expires I'll need to shell out another few hundred quid to reapply, when we're already £800 down after having to pull out of another sale.

gazfocus

We're in a similar position, buying a house that's currently Vacant and no-one seems motivated other than us. It seems to be us chasing everyone (even the sellers solicitors via nagging the estate agents). We put our offer in mid-april and we've still got no idea about a completion date.

AlexMac

In a similar position once, my lender just extended the mortgage offer deadline... after all,they want your business