Buying from unwilling seller forced by court to sell

fwsober

I made an offer to buy a house earlier this summer which was accepted, and started to arrange my mortgage and look forward to moving in. However, the process has been moving very, very slowly, from the seller's end (it took weeks from them to instruct a solicitor and to return the property questionnaire) and it has eventually been revealed that they have only put the house on the market because they were up in court to force repayment of debts, and were still fighting to hold onto the home. They had to market the house in order to show they were taking steps to deal with their debts. (They were clearly unconcerned that I might be wasting time and money on my survey and solicitor in the mean time.) What's more, their creditor is HM gov, and the words "proceeds of crime" were involved. The agent has told me that the police are taking an interest in the sale.

At about this point I thought of walking away, but I actually like the house and haven't seen a better alternative yet. I guess nothing much comes onto the market over summer. Their solicitor has now been instructed, paperwork returned, and the agent is trying to persuade me to stick with it and that the sale will go through because the seller has no choice. However my understanding is that an actual order for sale has not yet been served, so there are probably innumerable ways in which this person can waste my time and money before inevitably being forced to sell (not necessarily to me), especially as they have children.

My question is: specifically, how many ways could this go wrong?

Thanks.

Strapped

fwsober wrote: »

I made an offer to buy a house earlier this summer which was accepted, and started to arrange my mortgage and look forward to moving in. However, the process has been moving very, very slowly, from the seller's end (it took weeks from them to instruct a solicitor and to return the property questionnaire) and it has eventually been revealed that they have only put the house on the market because they were up in court to force repayment of debts, and were still fighting to hold onto the home. They had to market the house in order to show they were taking steps to deal with their debts. (They were clearly unconcerned that I might be wasting time and money on my survey and solicitor in the mean time.) What's more, their creditor is HM gov, and the words "proceeds of crime" were involved. The agent has told me that the police are taking an interest in the sale.

At about this point I thought of walking away, but I actually like the house and haven't seen a better alternative yet. I guess nothing much comes onto the market over summer. Their solicitor has now been instructed, paperwork returned, and the agent is trying to persuade me to stick with it and that the sale will go through because the seller has no choice. However my understanding is that an actual order for sale has not yet been served, so there are probably innumerable ways in which this person can waste my time and money before inevitably being forced to sell (not necessarily to me), especially as they have children.

My question is: specifically, how many ways could this go wrong?

Thanks.

Lots. Sorry if that's not what you want to hear. They will almsot certainly stall and stall.

LisaLou1982

Agree with the above poster,

It might be worth consulting your solicitor and seeing what they advise before you proceed any further. Maybe get them to find out if the house must be sold.

All depends on how long youre prepared to wait OP.

Richard_Webster

Sorry but I doubt if there is any simple way of pushing this through.

Lots of stress an cost I'm afraid. Buy something else.

DVardysShadow

I agree. Buy something else. Once the words 'proceeds of crime' are invoked, you can only imagine vindictive reaction by the sellers and the police wringing their hands and saying "It's a civil matter, you'll have to bring a private prosecution".

Horseygirl123

We went through a similar situation over 20 years ago when buying our second house. The seller had been made bankrupt and although the banks were foreclosing he was doing everything in his power to be awkward. This was also the time of the housing boom when gazumping was rife so he was always accepting higher offers. My husband was as bloody minded as him though and hung on through it all. Various buyers dropped out but we were still there waiting in the wings. One day we got a phone call from the bank asking if we were still interested in the purchase which we were. They got the bailiffs in a couple of weeks later and we got the house for over £10,000 less than we had offered. Served him right. But it took 13 months before we eventually moved in.

bouicca21

Cassandra like, I can tell you that several years ago I had a neighbour who was an unwilling and bloody minded seller; he systematically damaged the house before doing a bunk. I also know of a case where everything went swimmingly well for the buyer (not quite so good for the vendor's wife who didn't know the house had been sold until the buyers turned up with their furniture ready to move in).

Your risk, your choice.