"no chain" sale now ground to halt as mother won't move out.

childminder87

More a rant than anything really as I believe there's fluff all I can do but I guess I feel like I'm "doing something" by trawling the forums! Had an offer on our house in February 2 days after our house went up for sale but the lady wanted a quick sale to tie in with her own sale and we couldn't provide that as we had to wait until tax year end to secure a mortgage due to me being self-employed. She came back end of March and offered again as she had completed her sale and was moving into her daughters caravan to facilitate a purchase. She was a cash buyer but would have to put her stuff in storage so although there was less pressure she would want it to take a reasonable amount of time.

We found a property advertised as chain-free, offered slightly below asking price, offer accepted as seller was keen to enter such a short chain and have a quick sale with our mortgage and solicitors in place ready. He wanted us to proceed as quickly as possible, so we chased everything, surveys back all fine, valuation done, full mortgage offer in place, searches all back bar one due any day, asked his agent if he had any completion dates in mind so we could look to see rough timescales, my husband and I have 2 weeks leave coming up in 4 weeks time that we now cannot move and the seller drops the bombshell that actually his mum (who has been doing the viewings) is living there and won't move out for another 2-3 months. Estate agents are livid as chain is on verge of collapse, our buyer says she would struggle to do another 3-4 weeks never mind a total of 6 months in a caravan with her pets and husband and her stuff miles away in storage. She has been rushed into hospital with stress-induced health problems this weekend.

I had my pregnancy confirmed last week and am a bit further along than I thought and have a 2 year old already. We are half packed up as move was in the sellers words "imminent" until this week. Feeling very much attacked from all directions at the moment, buyer feels very deceived (as do I!) and no one has a clue about my pregnancy except my husband. The seller is furious at his mother according to the EA and has tried to negotiate a middle ground but she is refusing point blank to compromise. He is out the country so it's all a huge mess to be honest. I've seen a few posts where "no chain" sellers have suddenly decided to create a new chain and buy a house but not seen one yet where it's been an individual who doesn't own any house and will be renting that is holding up a full chain (or jeopardising it). I've ended up with stress migraines for the last 3 days and barely slept which is obviously not great for us and can't face being in this house for x number of months extra when everything is good to go. A few weeks is fair enough but the house needs a garage conversion completing and full decoration and I'll be heavily pregnant by this point which obviously wasn't known to us previously and I want to pace myself instead of making it much more pressurised and put baby at risk. Everything else is ready for exchange which seller wants to do ASAP.

anselld

Sympathies. However I think it may be more productive trawling Rightmove than the Forums.

Annisele

This is why the English system of buying houses sucks.

I'd start looking at other properties asap - and I'd make sure your seller's estate agent knows I'm doing that. You never know; the seller might decide he'd like to pay for his mother to have a two month holiday somewhere.

childminder87

I don't even think it's money with her to be honest. I get the impression that she doesn't like son selling up and she's doing it on her terms. really annoyed it's got to this stage. i have told them we'll have to start looking elsewhere as we're stuck in the middle of a chain which will collapse if they don't even meet us half way. EA said he's extremely upset and worried about this but she didn't seem to mind and kept turning it back to her inconvenience.

And my solicitors not great to be honest but as there's only one lender who will lend to me and they have an extremely restrictive panel I've just got to chase and chase and chase. No one stands to benefit from this but over 100 people are affected by this one woman refusing to put herself out for her child for 4-5 weeks and compromise.

Fleecedskinflint

If the place isn't empty, then there is a chain. With all the will in the world an owner occupier might have his bum sued off and the house seized as an asset before the final search on charges is made.

On the flip side, if the place is empty, why does no one want to live there. Sorry for being irrelevant, kids, births, marriages, unco-operative mothers just don't do it for me.

moneyistooshorttomention

childminder87 wrote: »

I don't even think it's money with her to be honest. I get the impression that she doesn't like son selling up and she's doing it on her terms. really annoyed it's got to this stage. i have told them we'll have to start looking elsewhere as we're stuck in the middle of a chain which will collapse if they don't even meet us half way. EA said he's extremely upset and worried about this but she didn't seem to mind and kept turning it back to her inconvenience.

And my solicitors not great to be honest but as there's only one lender who will lend to me and they have an extremely restrictive panel I've just got to chase and chase and chase. No one stands to benefit from this but over 100 people are affected by this one woman refusing to put herself out for her child for 4-5 weeks and compromise.

Put like that - then I don't normally agree with playing a "children card" (as that's unfair to those of us who don't have any children and cant do so) - but I would be paying this woman a visit in person and making sure she knew about the existing child and the pregnancy by the end of it and see if that would make any difference to her selfishness. Well - what have you got to lose by trying?

I would also mention the stress-related rushed into hospital the other person has had because of her.

Ultimately basically - its up to the owner of this house (ie the son) to come back from abroad for long enough to change the locks on his house and help his mother pack her possessions and find somewhere else to live - ie if appeals to this womans conscience don't work.

LannieDuck

My sympathies. We were also in a three-house chain (us in the middle, an investment buyer and a chain-free seller), looking to complete end of Jan when our seller suddenly announced he wasn't moving until mid-March.

No real reason, he just wanted time to pack up his stuff. We were livid and it was very stressful (I was on mat leave and supposed to return to work mid-Feb, our childcare finished end of Feb etc etc). Our concern was that we'd get to mid-march and there'd be another delay - we'd lost all confidence in the vendor.

We started looking around at other houses, but nothing came up that we preferred (although one came close). If it had, we would have jumped ship and we made that clear to the EA. I don't think it really had much effect tho; perhaps if we'd found somewhere else and got as far as pulling out it might have sped things up, but we never got that far. Luckily we completed as planned (we had a very patient buyer).

I'm not sure there's realistically much you can do. I guess push for exchange with an agreed date for completion (if you can agree on a date... ), and then it's up to the vendor to get his mum out of the house.

Hoploz

What kind of son kicks his mother out without ensuring she has somewhere else secured to live?

Hoploz

Normally I would say an extra month or two, just have to suck it up - you won't get in anywhere else any quicker.

But this being a bit of a different scenario, with a disgruntled family member involved, I would worry it could go on and on.

Hard to know what to do, you really have my sympathies.

LandyAndy

childminder87 wrote: »

our buyer says she would struggle to do another 3-4 weeks never mind a total of 6 months in a caravan with her pets and husband and her stuff miles away in storage. .

Blimey that's a bit extreme. :eek:


:cool:

moneyistooshorttomention

I'm now wondering whether part of the reason why the seller decided to sell in the first place is because he invited his mother to live with him and she has proved very "difficult" to live with. Hence he decided to sell but thought, in all innocence, that she would make alternative arrangements for herself once she could see the house is on the market and her gameplan is/has always been to scupper his sale at the last minute and he was too naïve to realise.