Advice needed regarding slow seller.

PaulParanoia

I'm wondering if anyone on here has any advice they can share with me regarding a property my wife and I are trying to purchase.

We had our offer accepted back in mid August and the house we are buying was taken off the market at that time. We are in a small chain of 3 houses with our current home being the final house in the chain. I know the first link in the chain is keen to sell as their property is currently sitting empty and they contacted the estate agents of our vendor back in August to see how quickly we could complete.

We received a draft buyers contract in late September which our solicitor returned with approval to move forward on 1st October. Since then there appears to have been no progress on the purchase. I communicated a deadline to exchange contracts of last Friday to the vendor via both our solicitor and their estate agents. This deadline has been ignored. The only information I have been able to obtain is that the vendor visited their solicitor last Friday.

My wife and I have found an alternate property but we are reticent to make an offer on it as we don't want to end up messing someone else around. At the same time we don't want to waste time on a purchase which appears to be going nowhere fast.

Any advice on how to handle the unresponsive vendor would be welcomed.

ValHaller

PaulParanoia wrote: »

I communicated a deadline to exchange contracts of last Friday to the vendor via both our solicitor and their estate agents. This deadline has been ignored.

If the deadline was not met, walk away. Or were you only bluffing? Because if you were, everyone has now seen through you and it will be harder to be taken seriously.

PaulParanoia

Thanks ValHaller.

I tend to agree with your statement. However, I'm thinking of placing an offer on the alternate property and only pulling out of the current purchase if the new offer is accepted.

I just don't want to be messing someone else around should our vendor decide to get their act together in the mean time.

ValHaller

If you put the deadline as part of an exit strategy, it is not a bad one.

Personally, I would feel free to go and make another offer after a failed deadline - it is a sort of double bluff, I suppose. If the other offer is accepted, then time to instruct your solicitor not to exchange. If your present vendor gets their act together after your new offer is accepted and before you tell your solicitor not to exchange, you will not be messing your new seller around for much more than a weekend at worst.

PaulParanoia

Update: Telling the vendor that we are pulling out of the purchase outed the truth. Turns out the vendor is struggling to get the mortgage for their purchase. We've told them that if they can get their mortgage before we have another offer accepted we will still buy their place. Doesn't look likely though.

So buyers beware ... look out for vendors who are over-stretching themselves on their next purchase. Ask for proof that they can afford the property they want to buy and don't shell out for surveys and solicitors before seeing it. Lesson learnt.

eddddy

PaulParanoia wrote: »

So buyers beware ... look out for vendors who are over-stretching themselves on their next purchase. Ask for proof that they can afford the property they want to buy and don't shell out for surveys and solicitors before seeing it. Lesson learnt.

I think it's more much complicated than that. A chain can break anywhere for mortgage or any other reasons. As examples:

- Had anyone above you in the chain had a problem getting a mortgage, you would be in the same position.

- Had anyone below you had a problem getting a mortgage, your seller may have got fed up waiting for you and sold to someone else.

So you would have to check out everyone in the chain.

To some extent, EAs may progress the sale by calling other EAs up and down the chain. So they may get wind of problems that way.

On one occasion, I even phoned an EA a few steps below me in the chain to find out what was happening. She was far more helpful than I expected.

PaulParanoia

I hear what your saying eddddy. But as per the OP, it was only a 3 house chain. I should have been more diligent at the outset .

Prothet_of_Doom

How you qualify the seriousness and ability of both vendor and your buyer is beyond comprehension to me.

Some years ago, we made ourselves intentionally homeless, in order to sell our house, and moved in to my parents, some 120 miles from my new job, found a house we wanted close to the new job, and asked the vendor a number of questions relating to how quickly they could and would move.

(Given that a married couple and 18 month old were living in a 9 foot square room with cot and double bed, and 95% of possessions in storage, the quicker the better).

They said a) If we can't find somewhere in 8 weeks, we'll move in with relatives and look to rent for 6 months until our dream home comes up.
b) If we can't move in with relatives, or friends from church, we'll look to rent for 6 months....blah blah blah.
c) Whatever, happened we promise that we will work to a time table which has exchange of contracts in 6 weeks, with a completion of 8 weeks, as we want to sell and not be in a chain when we find our house.

6 weeks later.....they have looked at all 3 houses for sale in the (small) area they want to move to, and they don't like them so they'll wait until something they do like comes up for sale, and no they won't be moving out or exchanging, unless that happens...

So what you are saying is that despite the fact that you are god fearing church going christians, you actually didn't mean a a word of what you said and you've let us waste 6 weeks, and the survey fee, and solicitors costs, knowing that we told you we'd only make an offer on houses where there was a reasonable chance we'd be moving in within 6 to 10 weeks..

They pulled out of the sale saying WE.. put too much pressure on them...I think when they said too much, they meant my asking thier estate agent "Which bit of "we promise" did they actually honestly mean, and what date would they like to commit to?.." was more stress than they could cope with.

Since then I've refused to look at any house where the seller hadn't already found their dream home, moved out already, or just built it.