FTB in a neverending purchase

Night_Fury

Hi all

We have been stuck in a chain for almost 9 months now. We have been lied to consistently by the estate agents about the readiness of others in the chain to move. Only recently our solicitor (also useless) decided to tell us our seller's sellers don't even have a mortgage agreed yet! No wonder we missed the stamp duty deadline and various other ones we had hoped to meet along the way! We've just given up chasing now as who knows if we'll get the truth.

We've had a look at a few houses since and there has been nothing we like anywhere near as much but obviously we will keep looking. We are now just hanging on in the hope our sellers find another house or their sellers magically discover a mortgage.

I guess I just wanted to find out if any others have had such a nightmare for their first time buy. We have come across literally every problem, dilemma, lie etc along the way - a seemingly unending amount of bad luck! But as there is nothing else, we just cant bring ourselves to break it off, as much as we'd like to tell various people where to go! _pale_

go_cat

oh my god I don't know how you are still sane 9 months is horrendous

Have you tried giving an ultimatum and give them 6 weeks if no exchange you ate pulling out, but be prepared to go through with it.

Aren't your sellers wanting to move

Ulfar

I know you say you haven't found somewhere else but is this because one or both of you have become attached to this house.

I don't think you are going to get the sale to complete and should move on.

R_P_W

Is your own mortgage offer still valid after that amount of time?

If they cannot get a mortgage within 9 months don't think that they are going to get one!

R_P_W

See if your seller is really keen to sell my asking them to consider moving into rented accomodation so then you can exchange and complete without the longer chain.

DVardysShadow

Still feeling sore about the stamp duty? Just drop your offer by the amount of stamp duty and a bit more to reflect the on going irritation.

This might get the deal scuppered, which will leave you free to start again.

hazyjo

OMG what a nightmare. Although there is not complete chain, so it's not really be 'happening' yet. Likely to take another 3 months or so once it is complete. I would walk away. Sounds to me like you're just being strung along.

We were buying a house last year and they lost the one they were going for. Had us hanging on for ages - then our buyer gave up so the chain was completely non-existent. Eventually, after saying they were still looking/selling, the EA heard (via the golf course - friend of a friend!) that they weren't selling and were staying put. Grrrr. Had no choice but to walk away (after a few stroppy phone calls).

Good luck!

Jx

Zebsy

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Still feeling sore about the stamp duty? Just drop your offer by the amount of stamp duty and a bit more to reflect the on going irritation.

This might get the deal scuppered, which will leave you free to start again.

^^^ This sounds like great advice to me. Rattle the cage and see what happens.

DRP

Zebsy wrote: »

^^^ This sounds like great advice to me. Rattle the cage and see what happens.

and factor in how house prices have (probably) dropped in your area over the intervening months...

gazareth

I feel your pain! We had an offer accepted on 14th December and have been waiting for our sellers to find a place ever since. They did find somewhere in February but it fell through as the survey revealed Japanese knotweed and they were not prepared to deal with it.

We are still looking around but in total we have viewed 25 houses in quite a wide area around Oxford and haven't seen anything remotely as nice as this within our budget, so there doesn't seem like any point in threatening to pull out until we have some leverage. We have asked our sellers to go into rented twice - the second time they considered it for a week but still refused.

I am worried that they will find somewhere eventually but then we will have the same situation with their sellers and we will be back to square one (although admittedly that might give us some leverage with the rental situation!).

House prices are pretty stable here and when we had our offer accepted, it was within a week of the house going on the market. There was another prospective buyer who matched out offer (asking price). So, from that perspective, we suspect that the sellers will feel that they could replace us pretty easily.

It sucks.

Night_Fury

Thanks for your responses and sympathy!

We have given many deadlines along the way but all have been ignored. We will be getting some compensation for the stamp duty from our sellers, even though it isn't entirely their fault. They have been hanging on like us for a house, and it is this house and owner that is causing the trouble. Our sellers are looking around at others things too.

We are not emotionally attached to the house, it was just the one that ticked all the boxes. Everything we have seen since has been missing something important from our criteria and as we both want to move out, we've hung on. We figured we might as well seeing as there has been nothing better. Also everything similar appearing since seems to be more expensive.

We did ask our sellers to try going into rented but as they are a family with small children, we can understand why they didn't fancy this.

Our mortgage offer has already been extended twice and we are very close to the deadline on that (July). All parties are aware, so we just have to hope. If it doesn't happen again, then its back to the drawing board as I can't see the bank extending it after 9 months!