Ready to set exchange date, seller has no where to go, options.

Prothet_of_Doom

Can I tell you my sorry story from 1994/95 when I took a job some 160 miles away. We put our house on the market, and looked at a few houses in the new area and eventually got an offer on our house.
We had an offer accepted and the seller was moving to an empty property. They didn't need to move but dream house. 300 year old cottage etc.
Eventually after 4 months of stalling, our buyers started to give us ultimatums, because their buyer was getting impatient.
I spoke with the sellers of the house we were buying direct, and they assured me that there was a small problem with a flying freehold, but within 2 weeks they'd exchange contracts. Being trusting or stupid, we exchanged on our house and moved in with my parents for 2 or 3 weeks.
After 4 weeks we still hadn't exchanged, so we started pushing. We wanted to be in at christmas given that I'd started the job in August, so we gave them an ultimatum. They turned around and said "In that case we won't bother moving"
A week later we looked at a similar house that actually backed onto that house and were told that despite coming 160 miles, we'd have to wait until they got back from church to view it.
having viewed it, we explained that we were living in one bedroom with a toddler in my parents house, some 160 miles away, and that i was living in a b&B midweek, and we'd already spent 5 months waiting for one buyer, so our offer was based on them exchanging in 8 weeks and moving out in 10.
They agreed verbally, and given that they were church goers we assumed they wouldn't be lying, when they said they could go and live with parents or friends if that happened as they had no children.
They lied.
When we said after 10 weeks "exchange or we'll have to pull out" they pulled out stating the reason as our unreasonable demands.

The moral of the story ? You can't force anyone to move. The likely reaction to holding them to a deadline is that they back out.

Gizmo22

Victorianhistorian

Good point about her fees, she was a bit stroppy today and actually said she had put a lot of time and effort into this and really wanted it to come to a conclusion!

Didn't like to point out the viewing consisted of her opening line of I have to be on the other side of town in 20 minutes whilst looking at her watch... Very sorry that it's nearly a 3 hour round trip for us!

Memo of sale completely wrong, several million initial calls then nothing for weeks

Curious to know how much commission they earn, is it a fixed thing or percentage

Gizmo22

Prophet of doom

Love the name, anywhoo point taken!

Once saw a local church lady looking suspiciously like she was avoiding paying a train fare, then noticed me noticing, suddenly remembered to obtain one!

Difficult business this house buying lark, more like a poker game than anything else.

Lolly88

@Prothet of Doom that story is so depressing...very apt username. It sucks that you had to go through that...how long did it take you in the end to find somewhere. All these stories about nightmare vendors is making me dread buying a house. I think you're onto a lost cause with these vendors Gizmo

Rambosmum

We had a similar issue, our vendor was dragging their heels. Had no where to go - was trying to buy another property but it was going much slower than ours.


We didn't issue an ultimatum, as it was a really popular house so no point, but we did ask the reason for the hold up and what we could do to help the situation. In the end we agreed she would move in with friends temporarily and we would let her store her stuff in the garage.


Throughout the process we has ascertained that other than the equity in the house (which was being split with her ex husband) she was actually not well off at all, two disabled kids (who could stay with dad for a while) and only working part time. So moving in to rented or paying for storage was a real stumbling block. We chose to be nice, and it worked for us. She has two months left on her free storage.

westernpromise

I have little sympathy with timewasters generally but I find I can manage to have even less in the current climate. By this I mean that house prices are going sideways. In the recent past, to sell without having lined up a buy was potentially risky. You could sell at £100k meaning to buy at £130k but if you sold first you could find that by the time you found somewhere to buy, it was £140k, leaving you out of pocket.

For the time being this risk doesn't really exist, so someone who sells with nowhere to buy can just rent until they do find somewhere. Other than the rent, there is no cost or risk to doing this. Anyone who puts a buyer through all the expense and hassle of legal fees, survey fees, mortgage arrangement fees and GOK what else while having no real intention to sell is completely irresponsible. Essentially what they want is to string along some hapless schmoe who can be made to wait and wait and wait and of course incur all those costs.

A few years ago we looked at a house being sold by a thoroughly horrible old biddy who wanted a million quid for it. Essentially she'd heard it was worth a million quid, so she wanted to get her old gnarled blue claws on a million quid. So we inquired as to her own position: what sort of place was she looking to move to? Didn't know, hadn't thought about it. Whereabouts would she want to move to? Didn't know, hadn't thought about it. Well, we wondered, was she after a flat or a house? Didn't know, hadn't thought about it. She'd done literally nothing except bug her cloudy eyes out with greed at a million quid, and nor did she intend to do anything either. We just knew that we would get to the point of exchange and only then would she even start looking. And then she'd either change her mind when she found out how little of the million quid she'd have left after rehousing herself, or at best she'd find a seller exactly like herself who'd only then start looking.

We didn't even put in an offer, told the EA why, and sure enough, the house never did sell, to anyone.

I think at some point you have to cut your emotional losses. Your sellers are in effect negotiating in bad faith because at no point have they ever been in a position to state a completion date and neither will they do the thing they could do to enable that, i.e. arrange to move into rented. Pain though it is you need to look elsewhere, not least because if you have no alternative opportunity you can't walk. As in Prophet's examples I strongly suspect that if pushed these people will simply choose not to sell at all.

BJV

OP I think you can tell that this happens a lot.

I never thought it would happen to me. Previous moves had been like a well planned military operation.

The only bit of advice I would give and it is hard, is to forget emotion. This is a business transaction. Believe nothing unless you see it in writing and your solicitor tells you. Don't forget that if you have a mortgage they will be working for you as well as your lender so they will not the real situation.

I buy houses ( rental ) almost as a hobby and they always go though. No hassle, I sort of know what i am doing and what the steps are. I sort of know what needs to happen and when and it still happened to me.

I blame myself as I let emotion get the better of myself. I ignored by own rule, never believe until it is in writing.

You want everything in black and white written down. No matter how nice or horrible someone may seem ignore everything.

EA have no real legal sway. They just try to push things through to get commission. You can use this to your advantage as they do not want to lose commission it could be mega bucks.

That said your vendors need a reality check. FTB's are just about as good as it gets. OK they can be flaky, needy etc but they are the start of the chain and they hold a lot of power, they just don't realize it.

OP I honestly hope that they get themselves into gear. I doubt that they will be able to exchange within the time frame but no harm trying. But again don't believe anything until you see it written down.


In your situation I would try to push it through but i would in the mean time start looking.

100% I would not wait, after all you are spending a massive amount of money why should you?

Good luck Op and let us know what happens.

BJV

westernpromise wrote: »

sold by a thoroughly horrible old biddy who wanted a million quid for it. Essentially she'd heard it was worth a million quid, so she wanted to get her old gnarled blue claws on a million quid. .

I think I ended up buying that house ha ha. Joking apart she sounds dreadful. Hope she never sold it and never got her magic 1 million. !

westernpromise

BJV wrote: »

I think I ended up buying that house ha ha. Joking apart she sounds dreadful. Hope she never sold it and never got her magic 1 million. !

She didn't. We know this because her neighbours are parents of one of our daughters' classmates. They confirmed how horrible she was and is. Like the OP's seller she was quite clear that she was going to do absolutely nothing whatsoever towards vacating the property. So once it was "sold" the "buyer" was going to be told to wait there forever and just strung along.

It was a 4-bed in a conservation area and probably it was worth a million. The greedy old cow had lived there for 40-odd years and you could see it had last been decorated 39 years ago. It had pine floorboards on the ceilings, for example,which were a thing in the 70s, and likewise a pine kitchen that had turned orange through age. When she opened one of the orange unit doors with her wizened blue waxy claws, the clash of colours was like a piece of Imari stoneware.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3f/Bowl_2%2C_Imari_ware%2C_Edo_period%2C_17th-18th_century%2C_stormy_seascape_design_in_overglaze_enamel_-_Tokyo_National_Museum_-_DSC05316.JPG/1200px-Bowl_2%2C_Imari_ware%2C_Edo_period%2C_17th-18th_century%2C_stormy_seascape_design_in_overglaze_enamel_-_Tokyo_National_Museum_-_DSC05316.JPG

Gizmo22

Hello all,

EA is silent, my husband is of the opinion we should not chase her at all, she knows where we stand.

Our cards are on the table, although not ideal we are lining up viewings, broadened the search, dropped detached only, considering less bedrooms, needs doing up that's fine, no garage we will build one, medium garden, will do tiny, hate gardening, re-sale potential, don't care as no plans to move.

As for the money down the drain, I'm gutted, the children have been so understanding, this year they have had nothing, no holidays, school trips, no special birthday treats, all for the new house.

Also as I'm literally looking at everything, really getting confused, several houses are on for example £280,000 and when I look at the sold history they have last sold only 1-2 years ago for between £30,000-£50,000 less. These are not immaculate done up houses, no new extention, or kitchens. These are making me nervous. Should I avoid?

So sad when others play games, really no need for it!