Need advice - seller keeps putting back date of completion

Andrew_C_3

OK, so we've just signed the various documents and were intending to exchange next week. The whole process (since our first viewing) has been goining on since July!!! we have already agreed with the vendor to complete in october as her new build property was due for completion then.

so we go through the conveyancing process and even met with the vendor last week to see the house again, no problems were raised and we still believed we were due for exchange/completion in October.


Today i get a phone call from our solicitor to inform us that the vendors new build house will not be ready until January 08!!!!!!!!!!

i'm convinced the vendor was aware of this some time ago and i'm really angry that it has taken this long for us to be informed of the delay.

We have asked for the vendor to seek temporary accomodation as this hold up will cost us money, our fixed period on our FTB mortgage has already started and we will be forced to pay rent rent for an extra 3 months IF our landlord lets us stay for this period. Otherwise we will need to find elsewhere to stay.

So basically, is there anything else we can do to get the sale completed in October? We have asked our solictor to let them know we will consider withdrawing rahter than wait until January. But this has really put a on an otherwise sunny day

beachbeth

Im sorry I can't help you with this but Im just posting to say that I understand your anger. We sold our house in May and put an offer in on another at the same time. The people we were buying off are getting divorced and this caused a bit of delay which we expected but we got to the end of July and went to have another look at the house.

We were working towards a completion date of 17th August and asked the owner whilst we were there if everything was ok at his end to proceed with this date. He was a big cagey but said ok. Well, of course we were told a few weeks later by our solicitor that end of September was the earliest our seller could (or rather would!) proceed. We were quite angry because we had specifically asked him to let us know immediately if this date wouldn't be feasible because my husband needed to book the time off work. He didn't let us know and just kept delaying and delaying and now we have lost our buyers. To say I am angry is an understatement!:mad:

It is so annoying when you realise that people lie to you in this way and just fob you off.

Doozergirl

You don't know that she knew

It's one of those things that builders do to people and can do without impunity. It isn't really your vendor's fault. She will have exchanged contracts with them already and she will be just as eager to move as you, I'm sure.

I can't see how threatening her with pulling out will help anyone really unless you are genuinely happy to walk away and find somewhere else, in which case you need to be equally prepared for things to go wrong there as well

Perhaps you could work out how much worse off you would be paying rent over paying the mortgage and consider asking her to drop the asking price accordingly - perhaps she can negotiate with the builder too. The very least thig that you have is that your vendor is commited to her sale and purchase, so although it isn't happening any time that you would like, it WILL happen for you.

The best way to deal with these situations is to take a step back and work it through, everyone together. Housebuilders do it all in their own time and expect people to JUMP NOW.

WTF?_2

Andrew_C wrote: »

So basically, is there anything else we can do to get the sale completed in October? We have asked our solictor to let them know we will consider withdrawing rahter than wait until January. But this has really put a on an otherwise sunny day

Why not start looking around for other properties? You might find some pleasant surprises price-wise as the market has changed in the last few months.

There's no commitment to buy on your behalf until you have exchanged contracts so if you find something cheaper/better you should go for it. The seller has only themselves to blame for putting off a willing buyer for so long.

Running_Horse

We threatened to pull out and rent while finding somewhere else when the vendor kept delaying, and it worked. We exchanged and got a completeion date the very next day. But only threaten this if you are willing to do it.