Can vendor delay move?

davidmcn

marksoton wrote: »

Is it just me or does a £22k charge for leaving a mortgage deal early that has 1.5 years to run seem massively excessive?

It may have been a massive mortgage.

marksoton

davidmcn wrote: »

It may have been a massive mortgage.

Yeah, fair comment. Didn't think of that.

tlc678910

Hi OP,
From your description it seems clear to me that your sellers are not under pressure to move. This is because you mention that the house has been for sale a long time - leading me to think that they were not desperate to move and dropping their price for a quick sale. They are also no trying to move into their other accommodation asap to secure your sale. No rush to move and a family event after Christmas is their reality.

In this situation I think if you definitely want (possibly need if your own sale has gone through) this house putting pressure on the sellers or telling them you will reduce your offer is likely to make them pull out or continue to take their own sweet time. I don't think they will think that your finances are their concern - they are not going to drop their price 22K! they will just remarket.

As someone has suggested I think can you delay your own completion to move the 3 month window into the future and until after you have exchanged. That is a lot of money to put at risk on a wing and a prayer. The sellers of the property you want can pull out for any reason or no reason at all until you have exchanged. Are you legally committed to complete on your house soon or just trying to be nice?

If you need to complete on your purchase asap or your 22K is at risk you need to accept that this is your problem and not your sellers problem and act accordingly. You can appeal to their better nature about the losses you will incur - might be worth speaking to them personally (but threats are very likely to backfire in my opinion). You can consider offering them a sweetener to complete to your timescale. I would guess somewhere between 2 and 5K considering the money you have at stake. You could start by saying you appreciate it is an inconvenient time to move and you would consider paying for one of those services that packs up and moves your stuff for you (obviously only paid after exchange with completion date set)?

You don't want your position to be exploited so you do need to make it known if the timescale misses your window of opportunity the purchase will no longer be viable but I fear this may matter a lot more to you than to them.

Good luck
TLC

AnotherJoe

TBF to the OP, as they have described the situation, their offer was contingent upon a quick completion. Whilst the vendors are perfectly free to take their own sweet time, they did agree to that condition, and so the OP is also free to withdraw which I suspect the vendors won't be as sanguine about as some think.