Sold house in Scotland - delays in exchanging

Debs0778

All


I'm after some advice, I'm not familiar with this process and could do with the benefit of your experience.


I sold my Flat on 11th November, with an agreed entry date of 5th Jan. Mid December my solicitor contacted me to ask, at the request of the buyers solicitor, to put the date back until the end of Jan - I agreed.


For the last week or 10 days I've been chasing my solicitor to ask for the exact entry date and to query if missives were now signed. Each time I was told they had contacted the other solicitor and would get back to me with an update asap.


This morning I received this message from my solicitor



Kindly see attached a copy of a letter together with a formal letter in furtherance of the missives. I would be grateful if you could read this through and thereafter contact me with your instructions as to how you wish to proceed. As the enclosed is a formal letter in furtherance of the missives, either party is free to walk away from negotiations without any liability as there is no concluded contract in place at this stage. It is only when you accept the conditions contained in their formal letter in their entirety and instruct our firm to conclude the contract that missives become concluded.


The letter is asking for the date to now be 12th Feb and the second is a letter accepting the qualified acceptance.


Now I'm no expert, but I'd have expected that acceptance long before now.


Should I be worried about all this, is it normal? Only yesterday I made an offer on a property and I'm starting to worry this sale is going to fall through

davidmcn

Yes, it's normal. Your purchasers are ready to conclude a contract. But they now want the date of entry to be 12 February. Accept that and you have a binding contract. Speak to your solicitor if you're still not sure what's going on.

googler

So your solicitor is basically saying if you accept 12th Feb, the deal is done and missives are concluded (and that there aren't any other conditions preventing them from concluding).

You have a choice - accept 12th Feb, and your deal is concluded, or renegotiate to bring the date forward.

At the end of the day, talk to your solicitor. It's what you're paying them for. If you're in doubt, ask. They're supposed to advise people like you who aren't familiar with the system.

Your first action should really have been to phone or e-mail them rather than posting here, but ....

Is the same solicitor acting with regard to your offer on the other property? If so, what entry date did you put in the offer?