How long to wait for buyer's surveys?

Woodlander

Good morning,


A general question here to help me be fair to my proposed buyer.


6 weeks ago I accepted a much reduced offer on the basis that I wouldn't send out a contract until the buyer confirmed he had all his surveys and his finances in place. This was to save us both money in the event that he couldn't get sufficient finance as I said I would not be accepting a further reduced offer from him.


(I've already lost £450 in legal fees on a sale which didn't go ahead because the buyers asked for a reduction to fund the cost of turning the 3 bed into a 4 bed and adding a conservatory).

By chance I have now received another offer from another buyer (I had joint agents so this is from the other agents) £11,000 more than the offer I previously accepted.


I do feel a moral obligation to stick with the first buyer because he's expended money in survey fees and so on ... but I haven't been kept informed of how his surveys/estimates are going, and was left feeling a bit as though he's taking all the time in the world and sauntering along. I had to keep asking the agents for updates and their responses were not particularly helpful.


So while I feel obliged to stick with the first buyer, I'm beginning to wonder just how long I should let it drag on before he confirms he's ready to proceed.


I let the agents know that I thought 6 weeks was sufficient time for him to get all his finances and surveys etc in place and confirm he could proceed. The agents were stroppy about it and just ignored the fact that they hadn't been keeping me up to date.


Does anyone think 6 weeks is enough time, not enough time - or what? (Bearing in mind I did stress at the outset of negotiations that because it was a low offer I would expect him to shift himself and get on with it).

Meanwhile the other buyers are champing at the bit to have their higher offer accepted - what to do??? (These other buyers have just sold their own home and need to get on with a purchase to fit in with their own sale. The original buyer apparently doesn't have a house to sell).

Red-Squirrel_2

If you genuinely intend to honour your acceptance of the lower offer, then you need to tell the people who've made the higher offer, don't leave them hanging!

Its entirely up to you what timescale you set, but are you secretly (or not so secretly) hoping they don't meet the deadline so that you can accept the higher offer instead?

nubbins

Its sounds like you want to get out of selling to the first buyer and to be honest its tempting as 11k is a lot of money. As well as the moral issue have you read both EA contracts, there maybe something that says something along the lines if you sell via 1st agent you will still be liable for a second lot of fees.
I would say the original buyer has shown some commitment by laying out money on a survey but after a month and half you should have solicitors communicating with each other, possibly a mortgage offer and searches started, if they've only had a survey I would be asking why nothing else has been done and probably considering the new offer. If you decided to go with the higher offer the least you could do is offer to pay for their survey or have a chance to increase their offer. My main concern would be what goes around come around and you could find yourself back to square one with both pulling out or the new buyer dropping their offer by 10k one day.

GL

Bossypants

Maybe this is harsh, but personally I think six weeks is much too long to be left hanging when nothing much has really happened yet, particularly if his offer is so low. If after a month and a half you don't even know the results of the survey after he specifically asked you to wait for them, he's messing about and you'll be better off without him. I'd move on and take the other offer (and if there had been no other offer I'd say put it back on the market, because this train is not leaving the station any time soon).

rosie383

We had a situation where the buyer was keeping us waiting and waiting. Eventually it was the EA who said to us to put the house on the market after about 8 weeks as it turned out that the buyer was having trouble getting a mortgage even though they still wanted to buy our house. We didn't have another buyer waiting in the wings at that point, but we felt that we had been more than fair. We did give them warning that we were going to pull out after two weeks if they weren't able to proceed.

Hoploz

Has the survey actually been done? It could be that your buyers solicitor is awaiting draft contracts from yours, as that would be the normal step following mortgage application etc by the buyer. What info have you been given about what the buyer has done in these 6 weeks? It sounds to me as if either they are waiting for you, or he is having trouble with his mortgage application.

Loopy28

I think 6 weeks is far too long and alarm bells would be ringing for me. I feel this way through previous experience, the first time my house sold I kept waiting as the EA told me to be patient but no survey happened and my solicitor said he had heard nothing from the buyers solicitor.

At the 5 week point I started to ask serious questions and really pushed my EA for answers. It then turned out from the broker that there was a serious issue with them getting a mortgage meaning no mortgage offer and no survey and it would have been a lot longer before I heard this news if I hadn't really pressed the matter. This meant the chain then all fell through and I was back to square one, plus lost money on solicitors fees and the onward survey of the house I was buying.

You may lose this buyer and your new potential buyer. Think of yourself, say that unless a survey is booked in the next week you will accept this other offer.

In terms of survey timescales, I saw my mortgage broker with all my documents, two days later had an accept subject to survey and then the survey was booked for a fortnight later. So the vendor had a survey booked on their property a fortnight after my offer. Maybe there can be delays on this e.g. needing to obtain missing payslips, bank statements etc but to get to the 6 week point and heard nothing is very worrying.

Landofwood

Nice username OP

Woodlander

Thanks for your thoughts everyone.


It was a term of my acceptance of the offer that I wouldn't be asking my solicitors to send out any documentation until the proposed buyer was able to confirm after surveys/estimates/mortgage offer that he could proceed at the original agreed offer price since I made it clear I wouldn't be accepting a further reduced offer from him. We agreed because of this there was no point in either him or me incurring legal fees in advance of him making sure he had the requisite finance. (This is a large modernised Victorian house and inevitably there will be scope for "this needs doing and that needs doing".)


I suppose the mistake I made when setting out conditions for acceptance of his low offer, was not imposing a deadline for him to give me this confirmation.


If I didn't know the estate agents were supposed to be working for me (cos i'll be paying their bill) it would be easy to come to the conclusion they were actually working for the buyer - the only time they email me is in response to my queries about what's going on, and then their response is a vague "We've emailed the buyer and we'll let you know when he gets back to us." (They are a national multi-office agency.)


Apparently he's "still waiting" for the result of his latest survey which took place on 21 April.


The 6 weeks deadline I imposed last week is up today, but I'm still uneasy about dumping this buyer and going with the other buyers .....

Hoploz

When you say 'latest survey' do you think it sounds like he has had more than one valuation, ie he got turned down by one lender and has his fingers crossed with another, or is it a more detailed survey than the first?

I'd say there's no harm asking the agent if he can ring round and get a few viewings for you, tentatively testing the market due to lack of progress.