Cash purchase

beccybone

Hi all

We are currently selling our house and buying another.
We accepted an offer and had ours accepted on the 13th March.
We have taken ages to get our mortgage sorted, long story.
Now after being told everyone was waiting for us, we are told that our buyer's aren't ready as they waiting for the forces help to buy to be happy. We didn't find out till the day of exchange!
Now my dad has offered to buy for cash, and then sell on himself.
My question is how long would it take to change buyer's and get to completion as my dad doesn't need a mortgage or any searches etc?
The estate agent doesn't seem to be able to get hold of the buyers, or he just isn't trying, one of the two.
Any advice welcome. We are in contact with the vendors we are buying from as we know them, so I'm keeping them upto date.
Thanks

Surrey_EA

That's rather irritating.

In theory it shouldn't take long at all. If your father has a decent conveyancing solicitor, there's no reason why your solicitor and your father's solicitor can't draw up an appropriate contract in a few days.

Assuming your father is happy to accept the risk of purchasing without relevant searches, but presumably has a decent knowledge of your property. Also assuming his funds for purchase are readily available.

dc197

Your dad would have to pay stamp duty, wouldn't he? This transaction would not him, even if he sells for the same as he buys, in stamp duty.
That's unless your sale is under £125K.

eddddy

beccybone wrote: »

Now my dad has offered to buy for cash, and then sell on himself.

A couple of things to consider...

If he tries to re-sell in less than 6 months, the buyer will find it difficult to get a mortgage.

He will take a hit on stamp duty - if he already owns a property, it will be the higher rate.

SalsaDanca

My parents recently did something similar for me. Your father will have to pay legal fees on his purchase, and on his sale when he finds a buyer for the house. I sold my flat and bought a house - one solicitor handled the purchase of my new house and the sale of my flat, and another solicitor at the same company handled my parents' purchase of the flat. This reduced the legal fees, but the solicitor advised that they could only do this if there were no conflicts of interest between me and my parents.

Don't forget that some mortgage companies have rules about how long the previous owner must have owned the property, so there may be complications in selling the house. My parents were lucky enough to find a cash buyer for the flat, but although there were no complications with a mortgage they were still asked to pay for an indemnity policy against their possible insolvency

Your father will have to pay the stamp duty on a second home. Is it possible to reclaim this if he sells the property within a certain time?

booksurr

SalsaDanca wrote: »

Your father will have to pay the stamp duty on a second home. Is it possible to reclaim this if he sells the property within a certain time?

not unless the father sells the home he is currently living in and moves into the OP's house for long enough to establish that is his new home and then sell that one - I suspect an unwanted and unlikely chain of events for father.

father would also be liable for capital gains tax when he sells if he had not moved into it as his home - although the size of any gain may be pretty small given he'd only own it for a short time so probably below his tax free threshold so nothing to actually pay.

beccybone

Thank you everyone.
I thought this might be the case, he said he doesn't mind renting it out for a couple of years if nessecery.
Im not sure the extra expense is worth it or not.
We are selling for 95000 and that's about 8 grand less than what we could of sold for, if we hadn't already fallen in love with the house we are buying. We were told the buyers had everything in place and were ready to go asap.
We just don't know what's going on and the estate agent isn't willing to tell them we have another buyer.
Rant over. I guess we will just have to wait and see what tomorrow brings.

[Deleted User]

Can you change estate agents and attempt to find another buyer.

To prevent this I'd be wanting to find out exactly what is the problem with the buyers mortgage application and how far along it actually was.

I don't think I'd involve my father as its wonderful of him but wouldn't want it to cost him what it will. Query with your solicitor what his costs will be in terms of stamp duty.