Its All Gone Wrong

KL62

Hello

im fed up. The thursday before easter we accepted an offer on our house from a ftb and her father who was overseeing things. Our house had only been on the market for 10 days and we'd had loads of viewings and 2 offers we already rejected. We settled on £2500 below the asking price and included new carpets, blinds, light fitting, ladders and a dishwasher as we thought it would be nice to help the ftb in her new home. We then put our offer on our our dream house the same day and that got accepted. We were so happy but aware ( after reading threads on here!) that things werent necesarily going to go smoothly. The ftb dad rang to say he was willing to go at our pace money would not be an issue and wed keep in touch to let eachother know how things were going. This week our mortgage offer for our new house is ready our survey and searches have all been done and everything was great things were moving really fast and our vendor the same shes complete with her survey searchs and mortgage offer for her new house ( shes moving into a house where her vendors are moving abroad). So when i rang my solicitor this week to find out why out ftbers hadnt been in touch with us about doing a survey on the house were in now i was told that theyd wrote 3 letters to the ftb solicitors to find out where they are at and theyd not had one response.:mad: So to cut a long story short my partner rang the ftb and she said could her dad ring us back?He did, to say he hasnt started instructing his surveys, valuations yet because hes got a landsearch back on our house and doesnt know what to make of it. Hel bring it round. So he did. This land search shows there is a landfill site just under 500m away from our house ( we live on a brand new building estate all the houses are under 10 years old).The search says this landfill site although not on our estate is jsut uner 500m away and may be conatiminated may not. A further search would be required should you want to find out. And the ftb dad said in order for him to proceed with the sale he wants us to pay for this further search and depending on the outcome he could still not guarantee he would want to go through. So i went for a walk down our street and knocked on 3 peoples doors who i know have sold and completed within in the last 6 months and asked if this had come up on their searches. Nothing. Not one of them had had any issues with anything like this? So my partner rang back and told the ftb dad that we werent prepared to pay this search when we didnt feel it was necessary we have already paid out over £1000 in searches and surveys on our new house to get the ball rolling and things near exchanging and had been waiting on him and his solicitors obviously been holding things up by ignoring our letters. Then he told us hed only committed himself to this £60 search up to now and that was all he stood to lose so it was in our best interest. So my partner offered that if they got this search done and went through with the completion wed then reimburse him for the search at the end. He refused. In the end, last night he told us he wasnt prepared in proceeding any further with the sale so as of yesterday we instructed our EA to put our house back on the market.Which in turn means our dream house is back on the market ( not for long i suspect because the vendor had had loads of offers and someone tried to put a higher offer in on it after wed put the asking price but she declined saying she didnt like doing tha kind of thing to people). Our EA rang back last night and advised we should have paid the search in the first place to keep our buyer happy and its common and the searchwould have prob come back as negative on the contaminated thing, and we wouldnt now be in this situation, but maybe if the ftb dad had told his solicitors to write to ours and then they recommended we do the extra search we would have taken their advice. But we just didnt like the way he came round and gave us this ultimatum about paying for the search and saying he didnt want to involve solicitors on this matter. Plus it annoyed us that their solicitors were totally ignoring ours all this time and the ftb hadnt got any further on with her searches when we were nearly finished with everything on our side. God i am so mad. And i am so upset at the thought of losing all that money in mortgage surveys and searches on the house we have lost now. I might as well have thrown the money down the drain! We did ring the EA back last night after a talk and asked them to ring the ftb back and say would they proceed with the sale if we went ahead and paid for this search now, but she said she would have to ask her dad and get back to us. We havent heard anything as of this morning. When the ftb and her dad came round for a 2nd viewing they mentioned this is the second time they had done this as the first house they had put an offer in on fell through on the searches as it was built near a landfill site.Im just so fed up, going to have to go through all the viewing and offer parlava all over again and the stress of it all and it wont be worth it now because weve lost our dream house, I could cry. My mum already has for me! I feel sick. I dont know what we should have done to handle things better or what. Sorry for the long post, i think i just needed it off my chest.

do_it_today!

buying and selling is fustrating -transactions dont always go through first time, the only thing I can tell you is not to worry.... the next sale on your dream home may fall through also putting you back in the running or you will find an EVEN better dream home... perhaps it is best that you sort out selling your home before buying again as chains are such a NIGHTMARE. Im really sorry for you it does hurt something similar happened to us last year. The right home for you will come good eventually just take a deep breath and start again.......

KL62

Thanks dit i know your right, im a firm beleiver in things turn out ok in the end, its just hard getting there!

lynzpower

Im really sorry to hear this, but if its any consolation maybe if you wait till after the 1st of June, Hips will be in and this might save you money on YOUR searches on your new place as the vendor will have to pay for those .

TBH over the next few weeks, I think lots of people will see thier purchases falling through as buyer realise that give it just a few short weeks and anything new coming onto the market will have to have these searches up front saving them money.

All the best though - If it didnt go wrong with those losers- in time they probably wou,d have done something else to let you down.,

One other point tho, when I was an EA, ( just a few weeks ago lol) it was bascially an issue that if the survey hadnt been booked and the sols not instructed we'd get the house back on the market to get a better qwuality buyer for the vendoir- why did your eA not do this? A stern word with them needed Id have tohught too.

KL62

Hi

thanks yeah well thats something my partner has just been on to the EA right now about. They took our advert off the internet without even asking, and now weve told them to get it back on theyve told us 48 hours!

KL62

weve now just had a call from the EA to say the ftb still wants to proceed once we have this extra search done, its just the ftb doesnt want to buy a house without this certificate. We dont mind laying this money now to go for the search, but one cant help wondering what else is going to come up in the next searchs/surveys etc?

rizla01

What a rotten situation.

My only observation is that during a sale it is VERY unwise for the vendor & purchaser to have any contact - this is what you pay the EA for.

Personal feelings can get in the way and be disasastrous, which I feel has happened here.

KL62

Yes i feel you may be right now looking back, but being new to all this we sort of thought we should all keep in touch with eachother to keep things going through promptly. We now have told the EA we dont want any further contact with the ftb and it all must go through solicitors and EA. We have not been that impressed with the EA from the start i think thats why we didnt feel we could trust them. A number of things really starting from the EA ringing me to ask id like a viewing on my own house! and then after our first offer of 185k on our new house got rejected they suggested we put 178k in , then they aranged a load of viewings of potential buyers and forgot to tell us! so we had random people just turning up when we didnt expect them. Oh so you see its just been a nightmare from the start. Our solicitor said this week to us "this is what happens in most situations, people are all pallypally at first and by the end of the transactions they hate eachothers guts".;)

lynzpower

KL62 wrote: »

weve now just had a call from the EA to say the ftb still wants to proceed once we have this extra search done, its just the ftb doesnt want to buy a house without this certificate. We dont mind laying this money now to go for the search, but one cant help wondering what else is going to come up in the next searchs/surveys etc?

To be honest, what they are after is a standard search and from what I can tell , evben if you did provide it, would their sol accept it?

TBH if its a new build it would not have got planning permission if the land was so bad. What is wrong with these people - naivetiy probably

this is the problem, they havent employed thier sol,. so their sol isnt advising them of the right way to go about it. hence this shower.

your EA needs to take your side BTW not side with them. They need to say WHY ON EARTH havent you got a sol yet, and if you dont instruct on tuesday its going back on the market. youll soon see if they are really keen by doing this. If they are they will do it. Its been weeks, IM not sure what their excuse is

KL62

looking on our documents from our solictiors their solicitors is named but as to far into the searches they are i dont know. The copy of this search he gave us is a RPS review enviromental report. This is whats showing our house is just within 500 of a landfil site, which then proceeds to say if you require a info on this landfill site to see it is contaiminated a further search is required. This is what we are having to pay for. But as you say the house is under 10 years and we have already provided a copy of our NHBC certificate to their solicitors.

lynzpower

KL62 wrote: »

looking on our documents from our solictiors their solicitors is named but as to far into the searches they are i dont know. The copy of this search he gave us is a RPS review enviromental report. This is whats showing our house is just within 500 of a landfil site, which then proceeds to say if you require a info on this landfill site to see it is contaiminated a further search is required. This is what we are having to pay for. But as you say the house is under 10 years and we have already provided a copy of our NHBC certificate to their solicitors.

exactly. this is a bog standard search that they should be doing through thier sols. I had to do it, my buyer did it ( my flat was built on "contaminated land"- an old factory) It will be inclued in the Hip.

DOnt you start paying for it, where will it end?

Your ea should be telling them this, after all.