Tactics for chasing slow buyer?

Windsorcastle

I accepted an offer from a FTB 3 weeks ago. I have said repeatedly I need a fast sale and want to complete by August 12th. He didn't even instruct a solicitor until nearly 2 weeks after the offer was accepted. I then asked the EA to reiterate the urgency of organising the survey and have been asking since last Thursday for the survey to be booked - the buyer keeps saying he has requested this and doesn't understand the delay.

When should I start getting suspicious and/or play hardball? How long is a reasonable time for it to take to book a survey? I'm concerned it won't happen till next week at earliest now and then it's at least another week till the report is written up.

My solicitor is doing all he should be and just says he isn't getting any response from the other side. What else should I be asking the EA to chase up to make sure they keep pressure on the buyer? What else is most timely? Searches etc?

I suspect the main problem is he is a very naïve FTB who doesn't understand how long it takes to do things, but it seems to me he hasn't actually laid out any money yet in respect of the sale, which makes me nervous.

Any advice please?

olly300

Where are you in the country?

I overheard the other day that in London and the SE that there are delays with surveyors being appointed by lenders.

I also suggest you get the buyers details yourself and don't just leave it to the EA. That will speed things up as you remove one more middleman.

shegar

Id keep it on the market and if you get another offer then push the FTB yes or no.......
If you need to move by August 12 you must be getting a move on , its only 6 weeks away.........

Windsorcastle

olly300 wrote: »

Where are you in the country?

I overheard the other day that in London and the SE that there are delays with surveyors being appointed by lenders. .

Thanks olly. I am in London, so maybe that's it. The buyer did ask for my personal contact details but I didn't give them as I prefer to do things through the EA. I always have visions of a buyer phoning or emailing me 6 months down the line to moan about something!

Windsorcastle

shegar wrote: »

Id keep it on the market and if you get another offer then push the FTB yes or no.......
If you need to move by August 12 you must be getting a move on , its only 6 weeks away.........

Funny enough, I did just that and did in fact get another offer and the buyer knows this - that's when he promised to move quickly, so I hoped that had done the trick! However, a few days further on, there seems to be no sense of urgency. What sort of exchange date should I set for a 12th August completion? I'm thinking it would be best to set a really firm exchange date and say I will walk away if we haven't exchanged by then.

olly300

Windsorcastle wrote: »

Funny enough, I did just that and did in fact get another offer and the buyer knows this - that's when he promised to move quickly, so I hoped that had done the trick! However, a few days further on, there seems to be no sense of urgency. What sort of exchange date should I set for a 12th August completion? I'm thinking it would be best to set a really firm exchange date and say I will walk away if we haven't exchanged by then.

That's unfair.

I was hearing a mortgage advice phone in on the radio on Sunday and they stated one of the issues was lenders were doing is sitting on buyer's paperwork then taking 4 weeks to instruct a surveyor who would then depending on the type of survey take up to 6 weeks to come out.

olly300

Windsorcastle wrote: »

Thanks olly. I am in London, so maybe that's it. The buyer did ask for my personal contact details but I didn't give them as I prefer to do things through the EA. I always have visions of a buyer phoning or emailing me 6 months down the line to moan about something!

If you put the EA plus the solicitors in the middle don't expect anything to happen fast.

Give the buyer your mobile phone number and get theirs.

If you have a smartphone you can easily:
1. Refuse to pick up withheld or certain phone numbers
2. Block numbers

chickaroonee

We agreed that our buyer had to have a survey done within 14 days and we took the house off the market and cancelled all viewings. I guess this might be harder if the surveyors are stretched in your area.

Yorkie1

There are quite a few threads on here where the buyer has done nothing wrong but either the lender has a backlog, or the surveying company has a backlog, or the survey is done at the end of the underwriting process rather than at the start of it.

Threatening to penalise your buyer when the circumstances may be completely out of his control, is unfair. You also have no way of knowing whether you'd encounter the same issue with any replacement buyer - unless they're a cash buyer, of course.

mrsmchapman

With all the will and want to complete quickly it may just not happen. We are just purchasing a home and the survey wasn't done for 3 weeks not due to a delay with ourselves but just down to how busy the surveyors were, this could well be the case also in your area.

Ivana_Tinkle

As others have said, the timing of the survey won't be within your buyer's control (assuming they're having it done through the mortgage company).

On the bright side, it doesn't take a week for the report to be written up - 48hrs max IME - and, since valuations now tend to be done as a final step in the mortgage application process, if it doesn't find anything awful then the mortgage offer tends to come through soon afterwards.