Stress around buying house, slow sellers and effects on our sale

Yinleung81

I would really appreciate some advice about our house buying situation. We accepted an offer on our house at the beginning of June by a first time buyer/cash buyer and also had offer accepted on our house at the same time. We withdrew from our house purchase quite far down the line in August as we were getting more concerned about compromises with the house. We did this after checking with our buyer who confirmed they were okay to wait until the end of October.

Luckily we found a replacement house quickly that was chain free and put an offer on. Alas, the estate agent asked for our best and final offer saying that there was another interested party. This was pretty stressful as we had 11 weeks to offer and buy another house to fit in with our buyer. We ended up offering £3000 over the asking price to secure the house and it was accepted.

After asking for an update from our solicitor 4 weeks later we found out that the sellers had not even completed their initial instruction pack for their solicitors so nothing had been done, our solicitor couldn't proceed with searches or anything. This concerned us and we reminded their estate agent we were aiming for end of October which was not long. After more chasing, the sellers submitted their instruction paperwork 6 and half weeks after our offer was submitted, we were livid.

Even then, their solicitors are taking their time responding to enquiries and to add to our stress our buyer starts asking if we can complete by 23rd October and asking if we could go into rented to break the chain.

This is not very possible with us having no local family to move in with and pets which makes it nigh on impossible to rent short term. We ended up asking if we could rent the house we were going to buy as it was empty as the sellers had moved out after splitting up. We had no response for a week until my partner rang the estate agent and was told the sellers were considering it and checking legality with their solicitor. Now it's a week later and we still have no answer although I don't think it's possible. We've told or buyer is not really feasible to rent but we're aiming for 31st.

After calling our solicitor again they still won't say if we will be ready to move by 31st October saying it could be possible. I'm stressing about when we tell our buyers this is unlikely to happen by 31st (it's 9 days now until then and that's only 5 working days) and I'm livid with our sellers for messing us about when they knew we wanted to complete quickly. We feel like we only offered so much money to get things wrapped up quickly and this hasn't happened at all. I would like to knock some money off the asking price for the hassle they've caused us and potentially jeopardising the sale of our house, is this a bad idea? Will this work?

I feel like our solicitors have been really unhelpful, not offering any advice, not chasing the other solicitor until we ask them too and not giving us an idea either way of If the date is realistic for us to complete.

When do we tell our buyer that the 31st seems unlikely? I don't want to leave it too late as they'll need to make plans. I feel really bad making them wait so long.

Any advice welcome.

Davesnave

Reducing the amount of you offer at a late stage in the house purchase process is known as 'gazundering.' It's the opposite of the seller raising their price, which is called 'gazumping.'

Either action can only take place before exchange of contracts, so I presume this hasn't happened yet.

While you might wish to punish the seller through a gazunder, it's not a strategy most of us would recommend, as there is no commitment to a sale until exchange. The seller might react by threatening to cancel the sale altogether, which would do nothing for your stress levels; after all, they appear to have less to lose than you.

After death and divorce, house sales and purchases are about the most stressful life events, so there's no point in complaining about that. The only thing that can help at a practical level is for everyone in the chain to keep others fully informed. Things do go wrong, frequently, so no one should be surprised when they do.

You should therefore tell your buyer at the first opportunity if you suspect that completion may not happen as planned. You could also use your agent to apply some pressure on your behalf with the onward purchase. That's what agents are for.

AdrianC

Your offer was accepted well into August? Ambitious to be expecting to move during October. Not impossible, but ambitious. Add a six week delay to start with, taking you to mid-September at the earliest...?

Meanwhile, you accepted an offer from a buyer in early June... and they're still waiting.

I'm not surprised the vendors don't want to rent to you as an interim - there's a whole raft of legalities and things that could easily go wrong for them.

ThemeOne

I think everyone who's ever bought and sold can relate to what you're going through, but not sure there's much you can do.

I wouldn't recommend offering less, as that could easily backfire.

The kind of issues you're facing are fairly routine, and the estate agents will often take on the role of smoothing things along through these rough patches - they've seen it all before, remember.

In my experience, solicitors are nearly always slow and unhelpful, so no surprises there.

It doesn't sound like you can meet your buyer's request to move out so soon, yet logically they don't have much choice but to wait, as they've already spent legal fees on the purchase. They've probably done something silly like give notice on their rented place before their purchase is really in the bag.

csgohan4

I hope your solicitors are not via Estate agents, if they are.....

Levs01

We had our offer accepted on 23rd Aug and we exchanged yesterday, complete 31st. I have not stopped and been on the phone to agents, solicitors, mortgage & vendors. Everyone, several times a week, sometimes a day to achieve this time scale. I have pushed and pulled everyone into getting here, it has not been easy, in fact at times it's seemed damn near impossible. The time scale you were looking at is possible as I have done it but, without me being on everyone, constantly, we'd still be 6 weeks away from exchange, easily!

Hoploz

The problem here is the sellers separating. This is always a problem as every decision and piece of paper has two feuding parties to go through. There is frequently one party who wants it all tied up and the other drags their heels just to be annoying to their ex.

You need to put pressure on the EA that this needs speeding up. Find out from your solicitor exactly what they are currently waiting for, the exact item, and then tell the EA who will help you by badgering the sellers.

In these situations, although the EA works for the seller, they also work for you as it is in their as well as your interests to get the deal done, so they will help as much as they can in this scenario.

You need to keep in close touch with your solicitor by calling weekly to find out where they are at, and whether they are waiting for anything in particular. Then pass the info on to the EA.

If you keep going this way it will be quicker.

If you reduce your offer your seller might dig their heels in (or at least the one awkward party might) and either slow down even more or cancel the sale altogether.

Your buyer should be advised by his solicitor that his imposed date is not going to be possible. It is always pointless plucking arbitrary dates out of the air as targets. Your seller does need to be kept informed though. If they are hearing regularly, 'yes it is progressing, they have done x and y this week' they will feel happier than hearing nothing at all and they might sit there stewing and getting cross.

If the buyer pulls out now then they will be in an even more difficult position time-wise and they will probably realise its worth waiting just two or three weeks more rather than having to start from scratch all over again.

jojo9239

We are in a similar situation made offer 6 weeks ago solicitor rings me Tuesday ok we are finished but there's a problem with her purchase she hasn't even had her mortgage offer yet even though she made her offer at same time as us! Her solicitor states there is paperwork missing etc so might not be this side of Christmas but she will try her best I plan to call weekly for updates now I can't believe 6 weeks in and they have only just realised they need to get moving!!!

Yinleung81

Thanks for the responses. We have been harassing the solicitors and seller's estate agent regularly since we found out paperwork wasn't submitted quickly but things are still going slow. Their solicitor or buyer are taking time replying to enquiries. I guess we just have to tell our buyer and hope for the best. Yes, I think they have given notice on their rental before they actually had any dates confirmed.

The sellers are a couple that have split but were not married but yes that seems to be the main problem, estate agent indicated some kind of tit for tat stuff which has slowed down communication and handing in paperwork.

Sounds like the reduction in price is not approved of in this forum, I just feel we've been messed about during this process and paying top whack for the privilege!

Yinleung81

I think it's frustrating when you're doing all you can and no one else is!

jojo9239

You only pay what you think a house is worth I assume the valuation was fine so in that case your paying what the house is worth personally I won't be dropping ours in price or making any rash demands as we could end up right back at square one. It's fustrating but house buying next to planning a wedding is one of the most stressful things going x