Need Advice! Slow buyer,

TomPucci85

Hi All,

I'm in the process of selling my house at the moment and I'm getting so close to fed up. We originally put the house on the market half way through last year and after pretty much 11 months of near-silence from you estate agents we finally found a buyer.

Now that offer was accepted at the end of August, and things have once again been pretty slow since. I on my side made sure I instructed my solicitor right away but it took about a month for my buyer to instruct theirs - perhaps this should have been my first red light. Our estate agent has been useless and never really knows what happening, they just tell me to speak to our solicitor, and our solicitor (who the agent recommended) just keeps saying the same thing. "We are waiting for your buyers mortgage offer" they say - and not much else. As far as I understand most of the "actual conveyancing" is done, and this is the last bit. It's just that it's been months since the offer was accepted, and four weeks where I'm just hitting this mortgage offer brick wall - we just aren't really getting any advice on how to progress from here.

Is there anything I can do to help speed up the buyers mortgage offer? Or any questions I should be asking to have an idea on timelines? (Sorry I inherited this property years ago so I never actually went through the buying process)

I know I should be patient, but this house is empty at the moment so I'm paying from council tax, bills and the mortgage, and then these changing interest rates mean I have to fork out another £40 a month pretty soon.

quotememiserable

Do you have any direct contact details for the buyer? If so call them. Otherwise I'd ask the agent to put the house back on the market, since the buyer is not proceedable (estate agents term - they haven't come up with a mortgage offer so they're not in a position to proceed). Either that will light a fire under it, or you really will be back looking for a serious buyer.

eddddy

TomPucci85 wrote: »

Our estate agent has been useless and never really knows what happening, they just tell me to speak to our solicitor, and our solicitor (who the agent recommended) just keeps saying the same thing.

Out of interest, does your EA get paid on completion - or did you pay them their fee up front?

davilown

Our buyer instructed their solicitor at week 5 then needed a valuation at week 8, followed by searches that week as well. We completed at week 11 so does be too disheartened - you'll get there eventually!

cjmillsnun

Depending on their lender it can take that long to get a mortgage offer. Has a valuation been completed yet by the buyer's lender?

22cuddles

Very similar position here, waiting on buyer's mortgage offer - 18 weeks after they made their offer. EA say buyer is very much committed to buy but doesn’t make things any less frustrating. Hope things move for you soon.

csgohan4

22cuddles wrote: »

Very similar position here, waiting on buyer's mortgage offer - 18 weeks after they made their offer. EA say buyer is very much committed to buy but doesn’t make things any less frustrating. Hope things move for you soon.

18 weeks ouch, I would have put back on market at week 4

Tom99

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Say to your EA, if you don't give me up to date convincing information as to why I should stick with this buyer the house is going back on the market tomorrow.[/FONT]

TomPucci85

cjmillsnun wrote: »

Depending on their lender it can take that long to get a mortgage offer. Has a valuation been completed yet by the buyer's lender?

The valuation happened around the same time they instructed their solicitor (September 27th is the date it took place). So it's been over a month since that happened, I've read online that typically a mortgage offer would come through pretty soon after the valuation... so it baffles me

Tom99 wrote: »

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Say to your EA, if you don't give me up to date convincing information as to why I should stick with this buyer the house is going back on the market tomorrow.[/FONT]

Yeah I'm going to give my agent a call at lunch today and do this, create fear of loss for the agent and all right?

22cuddles wrote: »

Very similar position here, waiting on buyer's mortgage offer - 18 weeks after they made their offer. EA say buyer is very much committed to buy but doesn’t make things any less frustrating. Hope things move for you soon.

I'm sorry to hear you're in the same place, 18 weeks is insane, not sure I could accept another 2 months. It's just frustrating when you're being told by solicitors the job is pretty much done, but then there's this final piece of paperwork holding everything up

TomPucci85

TomPucci85 wrote: »

Yeah I'm going to give my agent a call at lunch today and do this, create fear of loss for the agent and all right?

Ok I called my agent now and threatened to pull out of the sale if they don't give me information on how serious the buyer is, funny how all of the sudden they pull their act together and will call the buyer for a full update... will keep you all updated!

And to eddddy, "Out of interest, does your EA get paid on completion - or did you pay them their fee up front?" forgot to reply to your post earlier, but the agent is paid upon completion. Although I'm gonna have to think twice about that. Funny how they think their job is done as soon as an offer is accepted, if the job was really done then that's surely thats when tehy should expect to get paid! If I were them, I'd be doing everything I can to get this wrapped up