Seller Delayed Exchange at Last Minute

HolySalami

Finally found ourselves in a position to buy our first house early this year, having 2 kids made selection of house really difficult as most three bedrooms have a tiny box room as the 3rd bedroom. but, We found one, just near where we are so no school change for the eldest etc.

Offer made late Feb, mortgage application to full approval 8! days... solicitors... well ours are rubbish theirs are rubbish, to be fair to the EA she has been great really assisting in pushing both sets of solicitors on.

We have tried setting timescales for exchange a number of times to try and pressure replies from queries to come through. Last one through Friday morning, all ok to exchange. paid deposit to our solicitors... phone rings at 2:30pm... excitement builds, i answer expecting to be told yes you've exchanged and completion date of 26th agreed.

BOMBSHELL!!! Solicitor called to advise vendors cannot exchange as they are in negative equity... I believe they thought they maybe but the mortgage redemption has turned this up for sure. We had no idea! :mad:

Weekend ruined... no idea where we are now, if it will even happen... we're approx £1,500 of non refundable costs into this transaction, another 4-6months saving to re-coup...

What next... need to get onto the EA Monday morning (off ill on Friday)...

warby68

How frustrating but don't give up quite yet.

If its only come to light when the redemption figure was supplied, hopefully it isn't a huge amount and there will be a proposal to cover it that the mortgage lender can live with.

Hopefully it isn't a tactic to squeeze more out of you to settle their shortfall by leaving it to the last minute when you are very committed.

Keep your fingers crossed. Weekends are the worst when you have something like this going on.

HolySalami

Thanks,

I'll be standing firm on the cost, they know we're at the top of range and from the sound of it they need the sale as there struggling financially...

moneyistooshorttomention

My first thought on them "being in negative equity" was = They arent very good with money then - not to know how much they owe.

Now that someone has suggested it could be a tactic to try and push up what you offer at the last minute - I would carry straight on with my first thought and pretend total innocence of any thought having crossed my mind it might be a tactic. I'd probably give the general message to any intermediary person between myself and them that my reaction translates into a "Taking it at face value and buyer is clearly absolutely astonished vendor has only just found out about this and is now just sitting waiting for vendor to sort it out". So - there wouldnt be a murmur from me that implied the thought had even crossed my mind of offering them more money:cool:

They're either daft (ie bad money managers) or greedy. Either way - it's not up to you to do a thing basically.

HolySalami

We originally offered 10k under asking and settled on 7k under which takes us to the top of our range. They had reduced the property after it had been on a month for £5k more than when we viewed so I guess they were hoping for more.

As suggested my plan is to leave it to them to sort, it's not my issue. Will speak to EA and try to gauge whether they can sort or if it's a dead duck!

What gets me is I can't believe they are short of cash... when we views the property it was in really good condition, sky tv installed, netflix being watched, 2 cars, garage with 2 expensive road bicycles in.

G_M

Just chill for a couple of days. Anything can happen.

HolySalami

Cheers!

Just a bit gutted after Friday as that would have meant we'd have been in in 2 weeks.

HolySalami

Update is.... no update.

Aparently they are trying to sort a payment plan with their lender(s) for the negative equity issue. EA belives this is a relativly small value of circa £2k. how long do these things normaly take to sort?

HolySalami

Great news! We exchanged today..!

debbie2311

Glad it all worked out, Holy Salami

HB58

Great news! I hope you have a smooth run to completion now.