Buyer position changed - what would you do?

urbanmyth

Hi all - I appreciate there's no one size fits all answer here, but I'm looking for general views.

House goes on the market, first viewer makes an offer and tells agent they are proceedable (no property to sell, no chain). Offer accepted. No onward purchase so no chain at all.

Buyer tells agent they are eager to move quickly so ball starts rolling. Weeks later, half way through the conveyancing process, buyer suddenly announces they can't exchange or agree completion date until they exchange on their sale.

What would you do at this stage? Feel misled, call it off an start re-marketing, accepting it will probably now take longer to sell, or continue to proceed accepting there could be a delay with the buyer's chain?

BornAtTheRightTime

I would demand all details of the chain they are attached to (length, how each link is paying etc), and make my decision based on that. Any failure to provide details would force me to put my property back on the market immediately.

In my experience, agents love to pretend all potential buyers are cash purchasers for as long as possible, in the hope that when you finally find out you will conclude it will be quicker to proceed than re-market. However the resulting trust breakdown often goes on to cause the chain to break down anyway.

Jeffrey_Shaw

Unless the purchaser (P) can explain the initial lie- for that's what it was- I'd impose a deadline after which you'll re-advertise.

witchy1066

perhaps at the time it wasn't a lie, your buyers may have rightly or wrongly believed they would be in a position to buy yours before they sold theirs, or thought their exchange would have gone through well before yours ,

OP get more details from your EA and as others have said depending on how far forward you all are, give them a deadline date, or stick it out , its your call

I am no expert but I do think it would take you longer to remarket and start over with new buyers and lets face it nobody knows what can cause delays even when only 2 party's are involved ,
and believe me that is something I do know about

hazyjo

Find out from the buyers whether that is what they said - or if the EA lied/provided wrong info at the start.

Then I'd decide if I want to continue with the buyer, or indeed the EA.

You are not holding the cards as the seller, unfortunately. They quite literally can't buy yours until they have completed (presuming they need the money from the sale) so it's not like you can strike a deal. Up to you if you hang on for them or if you re-market.

I would be annoyed too, but what can you do.

Jx

Babooshki

witchy1066 wrote: »

perhaps at the time it wasn't a lie, your buyers may have rightly or wrongly believed they would be in a position to buy yours before they sold theirs, or thought their exchange would have gone through well before yours

Hi OP, I agree with the above and would say it's not always helpful to jump to conclusions and assume your buyer was telling untruths.

I can illustrate what it's like from their perspective if their circumstances have indeed changed as my husband & I are also in a position whereby we have had to tell our vendor that there will be an inevitable delay in exchange/completion. We had accepted an offer on our flat, thought everything was fine, looking for an exchange in the summer; unfortunately our buyer's solicitor unexpectedly demanded a deed of variation which we could absolutely not due to the fact that our freeholder was demanding unreasonable costs for this and associated legal difficulties. We offered a price reduction, indemnity insurance etc nothing would mollify the solicitor so we had to pull out of the sale.

We are now in the process of doing a BTL on the flat which unfortunately has added on an extra period of time to proceedings. Our vendor has not been sympathetic at all, threatening remarketing etc. and demanding time-scales which we cannot give as it depends on the underwriters. Its been unbelievably distressing all round as we ARE committed to the purchase, we have got the BTL approved - we are only just managing to hang in there by a thread

I understand your concerns but please understand it may be beyond their control. Best to try & get proper clarification from the EA and I agree an explanation as to what sort of chain they are in would be in order (our chain is only us & the vendor).

System

Things must have changed since I last bought a house 30 years ago. Then it was standard practice for sellers to keep several would-be buyers stringing along at the same time, and then sell to whoever came up with the money first.
Likewise buyers "really wanted to buy" several houses, but went with the one that actually moved.

moneyistooshorttomention

hazyjo wrote: »

Find out from the buyers whether that is what they said - or if the EA lied/provided wrong info at the start.

Then I'd decide if I want to continue with the buyer, or indeed the EA.



Jx

Agreed that you need to find out exactly who the liar is in these circumstances.

The other thought is: Did you agree to accept a lower price based on the circumstances you were told? If you did (and you decide to proceed with a liar buyer) then I would be heading back towards them and making it plain that the agreed price is now up for renegotiation based on their actual circumstances.

hazyjo

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

The other thought is: Did you agree to accept a lower price based on the circumstances you were told? If you did (and you decide to proceed with a lyer buyer) then I would be heading back towards them and making it plain that the agreed price is now up for renegotiation based on their actual circumstances.

Did type something along those lines, but deleted as I gave it some thought and wasn't so sure it would be a particularly nice thing to do (even if it was the buyers blatantly lying). Tricky... certainly wouldn't blame you if you did, but obviously only do that if you're willing to stick by it and lose them.

Jx

Ivana_Tinkle

When this happened to us it turned out that our agent was the liar. It's SO enraging.

Either way, your agent has messed up (either they've lied to you or they haven't checked out your buyer as thoroughly as they could have done) so they need to get on the case and find out the details of the chain.

In our case, we agreed with the agent that we wouldn't remarket our property properly, but if a suitable cash buyer came along we would show it to them. In the event, such a magical buyer never materialised and it did all go through in the end. (We ended up in a chain of seven, when it was meant to be a chain of two.)

System

If this happened to me then I would be annoyed enough to remarket the house.

The current buyer is still welcome to buy but if they aren't quick enough then I would consider offers from other buyers.