Seller stalling at the last minute

JoannaRR

Hi Everyone

I haven't posted much before, but I've been reading the forums with interest as me and my OH are in the process of buying our first home. I'll start from the beginning, and I apologise in advance if this turns into a rant...

We found a house we loved, within our budget, perfect area etc back in July. We made an offer right at the same time as another potential buyer, for the same amount - the seller accepted our offer as they knew we were in a position to buy quickly, and they wanted to move ASAP. They were relocating to Scotland and planning to move in with family until they could find somewhere suitable.

The process of getting everything sorted and our mortgage approved was lengthy - their estate agent contacted us pretty much every day asking how we were progressing, as the sellers were eager to move. Originally, we all thought a completion date around August/September would be realistic, and we did everything we could to move things along.

Towards the end of August, the sellers seemed to start stalling a little, but not enough to worry us. The woman was heavily pregnant, so we just assumed she'd had the baby.

Fast forward to now and everything is in place. Our mortgage is sorted, the searches have all come back fine, and earlier this week we signed the contract and returned it to our solicitor, along with our deposit. We were now informed that our completion date would be around 6th October.

Today, our solicitor got in touch to let us know that the planned completion date will not be going ahead, as the sellers now have a 'related property', so they aren't planning on moving in with family after all.

We're so annoyed, upset and confused. This whole time, they've been on at us to move things along quickly. They assured us that their plan was to move in with relatives, so there was effectively no chain. We signed our contract this week, in the knowledge that the sellers were ready to complete, which obviously is now not the case.

Our solicitor agreed with us that this wasn't right, and spoke to their estate agent this afternoon - they had no idea about any 'related property' either. They were going to give a message to the sellers that if we could not complete within the next couple of weeks, we would have to reconsider proceeding with the purchase.

I'm just so angry. We love that house, and desperately don't want to lose it. But their situation now means that we could potentially be waiting until next year before we could complete, as we have no idea whether there is more of a chain involved!

I'm not really sure what I'm asking here. Has anyone been in a similar situation, or have any advice? I'm just so upset that after 2 months of them mithering us to 'get a move on', they've done this, literally one week before we were planning to exchange contracts

It's been a stressful year for me personally, and I feel like this is just the final straw. Any thoughts/advice would be welcome.

Kynthia

A similar thing happened to me and it's fairly common. Lots of sellers say they want a fast sale and hound the buyer. Then near the end when they are meant to get ready to move they change their mind about renting, need more time, think their property is worth more, forgot about their ERC, etc, etc. Very frustrating and not a lot you can do. You can threaten to pull out but that only works if they need to move quick, which they don't, or finding another buyer will be too difficult.

The same thing happens to sellers too. The buyer wants a quick sale so the seller finds somewhere they love or arranges to move in to rented/with relatives. Then suddenly their chain free buyer isn't chain free but is in a long chain, isn't a cash buyer, can't get a mortgage, wants money off for silly things in the survey, etc, etc. The seller then risks losing their dream house or has to wait ages and hopes that house prices where they're moving too don't increase too much.

It's incredibly stressful and expensive, but be patient and you'll get there in the end. Maybe start looking at other properties on the market incase this one takes too long or falls through.

Hoploz

Be patient, these things take time.

My seller was going into rented ... A month later the main agent was away, and hs sidekick called to tell us the 'good news' they had found something. Not good news to me!

Here I am that month later, no furniture left in my house as it's all at the removals depot waiting to be delivered to my amazing new house tomorrow! It might not be all bad! If you go to a different house you could be in equally a long chain, but here to are half way there, so it'd be no quicker.

Try and keep the end in your sights and remember why you loved the house in the first place. A few weeks will be forgotten as soon as you're in.

DRP

a similar thing happened to us. Moving in with family, then renting, then buying (which fell through), then buying somewhere else...

You need to keep pressuring them via the agent and the solicitor. In the end the thing that forced our vendors out was our buyers threatening to pull out and us giving them an ultimatum that our mortgage offer was about to expire (and my change of job meant we wouldn't be getting another mortgage offer for some time).

Think of some of their pressure points and start squeezing!

Thrugelmir

JoannaRR wrote: »

It's been a stressful year for me personally, and I feel like this is just the final straw. Any thoughts/advice would be welcome.

That's the nature of the world today far too often. Self interest prevails. Take up yoga. We all vow never to move again yet we do. Going through the whole stressful experience .........

JoannaRR

Thank you for all your replies.

After threatening to pull out yesterday, we've now been told that the vendors are going to break their chain and move in with relatives after all, so that we can go ahead with an October completion date as planned.

I've just got all my fingers crossed that things stay this way, I feel like I'll be a nervous wreck until completion now!

I never realised this type of thing was so common, I'm such a naive FTB!

moneyistooshorttomention

Thrugelmir wrote: »

That's the nature of the world today far too often. Self interest prevails. Take up yoga. We all vow never to move again yet we do. Going through the whole stressful experience .........

...and that's the thing. It's all so upsetting watching, at close hand, what shenanigans your buyer and/or seller get up to with being "economical with the truth" that how do you cope with getting that bit more disillusioned about the human race if you, yourself, have been playing it totally "straight"?

I can quite see that half a dozen house moves over the course of a lifetime would be quite enough to make even the "straightest" person wonder if it was worth bothering with the rest of the human race after all.:(

cloo

Glad to hear it looks like it'll sort itself out. Sadly yes, this is common, as the system is very flawed and makes things both long-winded and incredibly fragile.