Chasing the chain

Beavis_cat

Hello knowledgeable people!

My husband and I are selling our house - it's the first time we've sold a property. We are fourth from bottom in a chain; we've had no issues with that part of the chain so far. I'm having problems finding out what's happening up the chain, however - we believe that the vendors of the house we're buying have had an offer accepted, but we're not sure yet - their estate agent believes that they have, but is quite uncommunicative. He's an online-only agent, so I can't visit the business premises either.

Basically we want to know what's happening (not least so we can update the chain below), but I'm not sure how best to approach it. I can keep nagging their agent, but that hasn't got me very far so far, as he often ignores my emails/calls. Can I ask him for details of the estate agent that our vendors have put the offer in with, to try to chase things that way? Or should our solicitor be chasing now? I'm really not sure how this all works...

Any advice would be most gratefully received! We're in England, by the way.

Many thanks
Beavis Cat

pinkteapot

The EAs did all the chasing with our chain. We spoke to both the EA we were selling through and the one we were buying through. They chased everyone and gave us updates.

Unfortunately, if the EA you've bought through is rubbish, you'll have to go through the one who's selling your house. See if they can find anything out.

Your vendor's EA won't give you details of their vendor's EA.

In general, EAs are the ones who stand to lose their fee if the chain collapses, so they're usually much more motivated than solicitors to chase things up.

And the post above is one reason not to use an online EA - some of them just aren't as good as high street EAs when it comes to chasing and keeping chains together.

Hoploz

You need to leave the updating to the EAs or when the time comes, solicitors. You've done well so far but really you have no hope of keeping on top of such a big chain yourself. Leave it to them to do their jobs. Remember, it is in all of their interests to keep a chain together and get it to exchange, as that's the way they earn their money, so the agents will keep it going as surely as they can.

AMILLIONDOLLARS

My daughter exchanged details with her buyer and seller, so that they could keep each other up to date with developments, this helped in chasing up their respective solicitors and kept thing moving pretty quickly, process from start to finish about 4/5 months. Would have been sooner if her vendor hadn't been a slow coach!

You could have the opinion that it's the EA job, True. But he'll be getting his money regardless of it taking 6 or 8 months. You're the one in the hot seat not know what is happening. Daughter's offer was in end September and could have completed in December if the Vendor hadn't messed up, so completion delayed for January. Not bad going for this type of transaction.

Good luck and keep chasing.

AMD

pinkteapot

I know a lot of people seem to do it these days, but personally I wouldn't exchange personal details with my buyer and/or seller. I wouldn't want to risk getting to know them too well in case I need to pull out, renegotiate price, etc. I'm not a flaky person who'd do either of those things lightly but there's always the chance it will be necessary. I much prefer dealing through the EA and solicitor and feel that's part of what I'm paying them for.

And in my experience, most EAs aren't happy to sit back and not worry about how many months it takes. The longer it takes the chain to exchange, the more chance that someone will pull out and the whole thing will collapse. Plus most EAs are individually paid commission and who doesn't want their wages sooner rather than later?

Hoploz

Totally agree with pinkteapot.

Bad news to exchange details with buyers and sellers. Don't do it. I did it once and it ended very badly, with a buyer telling everyone I was a liar resulting in him throwing his toys out of the pram, pulling out on exchange day. Much better to communicate via the professionals, then there can be no misunderstandings.

Beavis_cat

Thanks everyone for the helpful posts. We've still not heard anything from our agent - he's not returning our agent's calls, either. It's now been more than a month since our offer was accepted and we've barely heard anything - we're still not sure if our vendors' offer on the house they want has been accepted.

I don't mind there being a wait while the chain builds, but I do resent us and our EA basically being ignored when we're trying to find out what's happening. Any further advice? We do like the house but we don't love it so much that we're prepared to wait months to hear something, and risk the current chain collapsing.

Thank you!

Hoploz

Well why not look around at what else is available. You never know, you might find something else with no onward chain and you could withdraw your offer on the original house.