Contract signing date pushed back, but we have handed in our current notice!

EmmacaJ11

Hello,

I hope someone could help or even offer advice to myself and my partner...

We have recently purchased a new-build home through a shared ownership scheme, (we have a mortgage on 25% of the property and pay the rent on the remaining share to the Housing Association). The property has been completed, ready for us to 'supposedly' move in the next month.

We were told by the Housing Association that because the property is a new-build there may be slight delays due to building works...but other than that, it would be a speedy process as we are purchasing a new-build and we are first time buyers with no chains attached.

It was agreed that our contract signing/exchange date was to be 19th October 2017 and that we should hand our current rental notice in to our landlord ASAP to avoid any difficulties with overlapping with current tennancy. This is what we did promptly (as advised), and are set to move out at the end of October. There was to be a slight time-overlap with moving between properties but this was fine as it gives us a chance to move out over a few days, rather than rushing out in a day.

We have recently been told (after a month of chasing the various parties involved) that they are going to need to delay our contract signing date as the Housing Association's solicitors have not passed our documents to our solicitors (so the relevant legal work has not yet been done).
It seems that the work has just been 'ignored' and no-one has bothered to inform us of this until now. The Housing Association have now said they cannot give us a predicted contract signing date and that we are unlikely to move until November (at some point) - this is a large problem as our current tenancy ends on October 30th. If we were (somehow) able to extend our tennancy another month (until November 30th) we would have an issue with potentially having to pay two lots of rent (one to our current landord and the second to our new property) - this would occur if the new contract signing date was moved to the beginning of November. The Housing Association have said that they will not be lienient with payments if this occurs as it's our 'fault' if we have not terminated our notice prompltly enough......even though it's them moving the goal posts.

We basically feel like we are being bullied into having to conform with whatever they tell us 'as there is no other option' and are consequently paying for their mistakes, lack of communication and sloppiness.

Are they allowed to to this? There is a chance we will be homeless at the end of October if this pans out how they currently predict. - May I add we have been efficient and very conscientious throughout this entire process and have not caused any delays ourselves.

Thank you, any help would be much appreciated

sammyjammy

Nobody should have advised you to hand your notice in this, this is entirely your decision. You will need to now make arrangements to cover the gap inbetween leaving your rental and moving in, you could try and discuss a longer stay with your landlord.

Lesson learnt but you really shouldn't hand your notice in until you are absolutely sure of your moving date (in law).

Its a new build and the goalposts move, last month my sister had to live in a caravan for six weeks due to her contract ending and the landlord not wanting to budge.

Comms69

Until you exchange you have no right to anything. So why on earth you handed in notice is beyond me.


Upside is you don have to leave, downside is if you stay you owe your landlord double rent.

aneary

Do you have it in writing that you were advised to hand in your notice?

You may have more of a case to complain if you do.

saajan_12

The thing is the HA / developers don't have to return docs / queries / even sell to you let alone sell within any assumed 'goal posts' as there is no contract yet. Only once you exchange contracts with a fixed completion date (not even if you agree to complete on notice), then both sides are committed to buy/sell on a particular date, so that is the earliest you should give notice on your rental.

Who advised you otherwise? If the HA, they are the 'other side' so you should have asked your advisors whether this was a good idea before proceeding. If your solicitors, you may wish to complain if they didn't warn you of the implications but most likely they will have stated this is your decision.

Now, I would
1) speak to your LL to request if they will accept you withdrawing notice or extend the stay. Note they don't have to agree, and can claim double rent if you stay beyond the expiry of your notice.
2) wait until legal checks and due diligence are done on your purchase, and negotiate a longer (say 1 month) gap between exchange and completion to minimise the overlap for you. Only give notice on wherever you are staying at the time once you exchange.

EmmacaJ11

Hello,

Thank you for your reply. We assumed that it was common-place that notice is handed in if advised by the Housing Association. It was made clear to us that all parties should stick to the exchange date of 19th October, so we hadn't expected delays that were down to sloppiness and inefficiency alone.

I'm sorry what happened to your sister, however our property is fully-built so the delays are not down to it being a 'new-build', they are simply down to neglect of our documents and time-frames.

We were stuck in a rutt, as our current tennancy ends October 30th, if we hand our notice in any later than September 30th we will have to stay until November 30th regardless. We obviously wanted to avoid this, had the agreed contract exchange been stuck to, with paying two lots of rent, in mind. It has also been extremely difficult to even get any sense out of anyone involved - which is why it's taken a month to find this out!

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

EmmacaJ11 wrote: »

Thank you for your reply. We assumed that it was common-place that notice is handed in if advised by the Housing Association. It was made clear to us that all parties should stick to the exchange date of 19th October, so we hadn't expected delays that were down to sloppiness and inefficiency alone.

Your assumption, and therefore your problem.

EmmacaJ11 wrote: »

We were stuck in a rutt, as our current tennancy ends October 30th, if we hand our notice in any later than September 30th we will have to stay until November 30th regardless. We obviously wanted to avoid this, had the agreed contract exchange been stuck to, with paying two lots of rent, in mind. It has also been extremely difficult to even get any sense out of anyone involved - which is why it's taken a month to find this out!

An overlap between leaving your current rental property and moving into the new house should have been expected and budgeted for. The Housing Association you are buying from/with has absolutely no responsibility for your dealings with your current landlord.

G_M

EmmacaJ11 wrote: »

We were stuck in a rutt, as our current tennancy ends October 30th, if we hand our notice in any later than September 30th we will have to stay until November 30th regardless. We obviously wanted to avoid this, had the agreed contract exchange been stuck to, with paying two lots of rent, in mind. It has also been extremely difficult to even get any sense out of anyone involved - which is why it's taken a month to find this out!

Makes little sense. Presumably from what you say you are on a monthly periodic tenancy. That gives considerable flexibility.

Your Exchange date slips back so your tenancy slips back. What's the problem?

As others have explained you made an assumption which turned out to be false. All you can do now is negotiat with your landlord and hope he is understanding (bake him a cake!), or find somewhere temp you can move to, or breach your notice.

comeandgo

would you be able to move into a holiday home for a few weeks since the season is over? You have been ill advised to give notice on your current home.

rtho782

This comes from your unrealistic expectation that there will be little or no overlap between your rental and your mortgage.

You have to budget for this when buying a house, if your finances are so tight you cannot afford an "extra" months rent, you cannot afford to buy a house, with all the financial risks that come with it.

You should not have handed in your notice prior to exchange of contracts. They are currently not even obligated to sell to you - they could sell to someone else if they wanted.

Withdraw your notice if the LL will allow, if not, put your stuff in storage and rent a holiday home/airbnb/go to a hotel/stay with friends until you complete.

Nobody owes you anything, nobody is liable for anything.

EmmacaJ11

Hi all,

Thank you all for your suggestions on our situation. Some of the replies are getting a bit confused with what the real issue is we are facing, but it is incredibly difficult to convey the totality of the situation in words. Again, I do appreciate your responses - even if some are worded slightly more strongly than perhaps necessary.

I want to clarify that we have not had 'unrealistic expectations' with overlap in rental - this is an issue that has been confused within the thread. We always knew there would be overlap and have budgeted for this.

Whether or not we made the right decision to hand our notice in when we did (it seems not), we were advised to do this by the Housing Association (in interest to all parties), so as far as we were aware - this was something that everyone was doing (there are other people in our situation currently). When an expert advises you to do something, generally you listen if you haven't been informed otherwise.
As stated, we are first-time-buyers, so are hopeful that when (what should be) a reliable source provides an instruction, it be correct and advisable to do. In hindsight (which is a wonderful thing) we perhaps should not have given our notice, but we were not to know this was not commonplace, as we were lead to believe it was! Furthermore, if we hadn't handed in our notice and the contract dates (as aforementioned) had been adhered to, we would be paying an extra months rent for absolutely no reason whatsoever...which where we live, is A LOT of money to just throw into our landlords pockets for 4 weeks of not even living there.

So in response to "You have to budget for this when buying a house, if your finances are so tight you cannot afford an "extra" months rent, you cannot afford to buy a house, with all the financial risks that come with it." - we have budgeted. Believe me....and have paid for many mistakes made by others already - however, we were not prepared to pay another months rent for no reason at all. This would have been throwing money down the drain.
Also, we are buying through a shared-ownership scheme - designed for people trying to get their foot on the ever-more-challenging property ladder. These schemes are tailored for people who may not have quite as much money in the bank as people who buying outright.

I also want to clarify that our tenancy is not very flexible - wherever this assumption has been made it is false. If our tenancy was flexible, we would not be having such an issue.

Again, I really appreciate everyone's responses and I agree that perhaps we should have waited to hand our notice in. However, this may have resulted in the case where we'd have been paying a large sum of money in rent, for not even living there anymore. For us, this amount is too much to potentially just throw into our landlord's pockets which is why we made the decision we did - which again, was advised by a (supposedly) reliable source - we have this in writing. I wish we were in the position where we could happily pay a months rent for no reason (lucky you, if you are in this position)! - If this was the case, we'd not have had to make the gamble we have had to make.

I expect the route we will need to take is living with friends/family until the legal works on our new build have been done and a contract signing date has been re-assessed.