House purchase - what are my options?

twister

I'm interested in house which was already sold stc through an agency, the vendor is in a rush to move, but the current buyers are not yet in a position to exchange contracts.

I contacted the vendor direct and expressed my interest in case the sale didnt go through. The vendor notified the original buyers of my interest and gave them a week to exchange contracts, this hasn't happened and he has now offered the property to me.

This is great news :j , as there are no chains involved and we can both move very quickly ... however, what is stopping the vendor from selling to the original buyer if they are able to exchange b4 i am?

the vendor said that i could leave a deposit (£5k) with his solicitor asap and that way he would not sell to anyone else .... is this possible/practical?? How would I go about this??

thanks in advance ....

a very confused FTB!!

Debt_Free_Chick

twister wrote:

I'm interested in house which was already sold stc through an agency, the vendor is in a rush to move, but the current buyers are not yet in a position to exchange contracts.

I contacted the vendor direct and expressed my interest in case the sale didnt go through. The vendor notified the original buyers of my interest and gave them a week to exchange contracts, this hasn't happened and he has now offered the property to me.

This is great news :j , as there are no chains involved and we can both move very quickly ... however, what is stopping the vendor from selling to the original buyer if they are able to exchange b4 i am?

the vendor said that i could leave a deposit (£5k) with his solicitor asap and that way he would not sell to anyone else .... is this possible/practical?? How would I go about this??

thanks in advance ....

a very confused FTB!!

Hold on a minute .... you can't possibly be sure about proceeding with this purchase until you've had a survey and your solicitor has done all the relevant searches. You really don't know what you're buying at the moment.

You would normally leave your deposit with your solicitor when you exchange contracts i.e. after the survey, searches & mortgage offer are received. I don't think you want to commit to anything before that. Normally, a deposit is forfeited if you pull out. Let's say you paid a deposit and then pulled out due to an unsatifactory search/survey .. you would have a good reason for pulling out but would lose your deposit!

Take it easy. Just do things the conventional way - there's good reason for the normal house purchase route, you just need to be patient.

Finally, there's nothing to stop the seller offering the property to someone else before you exchange. Afterall, you just managed to "snatch" the property from someone who thought they were going to buy it

loanranger_4

Have to agree with DFC.

As you point out that you could be entering a 'contracts race', i.e. the first buyer who exchanges wins, he who comes second loses his investment (survey, cost of searches etc.). I was offered a contracts race in a similar situation when I outbid another buyer (on a Sale Agreed) but I insisted that the vendor make up their mind. Get assurances that this is not the case, I assume the vendor would also be concerned that he does not have a chain of botched sales attempts ! He's only gone with you as he's desperate to sell ?

His request to leave a £5k deposit with his solicitor is unusal. As a sign of your seriousness I would offer to leave the deposit with YOUR solicitor ( who will confirm that he holds the funds in escrow ) for the property purchase. That way if falls through you get the money back.

Bossyboots

I agree with both replies here.

Twister you are letting your excitement run away with you. There may have been very good reasons why the first buyers were not ready, including trying to negotiate the price down because of a bad survey. The property could need lots of work and if that is the case, no wonder this vendor is snapping your hand off to get your money. He may genuinely need to move urgently but that is a classic way of dragging in an unwitting (and usually first time) buyer. Get yourself a conveyancing solicitor and go through the process properly. You are in danger of losing a lot of money by trying to bypass the systems put in place to protect you.