Reasons for purchase offers failing

googler

googler wrote: »

Well, when an offer is accepted without qualification in Scotland, the seller is agreeing to move forward on all that is in that offer, which includes;

price
entry date (settlement/completion date)
inclusions and exclusions (fixtures and fittings)
all contract terms governing the sale (see 'Scottish standard clauses')

... all of which, it seems, get thrashed out months later in E&W

If anyone is wondering about 'qualification', then for instance;

Buyer offers £X with entry date 1 July
Seller can't accommodate 1st July, and acceptance of the offer includes a 'qualification' to amend it to 1st August.

Buyer either accepts this, or it tos and fros in missives between solicitors until either a date is agreed, or one party is unable to proceed. However, this gets done in the days following acceptance of offer (or in some cases in the lead-up to offer), not weeks or months down the line.

SG27

Surrey_EA wrote: »

Looking through my sales book as to the reasons for recent fall throughs:

• Buyer was getting divorced, then decided on last minute reconciliation.
• Buyer spooked by especially negative surveyor
• Buyer decided property was more of a project than they were happy to take on.
• Vendor died.
• Vendor decided not to move at all.
• Buyer decided to go for another property.
• Vendors son made redundant and needs to move home, won't fit in to vendors new property, so no longer selling.

Im suprised theres not more pulling out after surveys nowdays. They all seem to bring up damp, bad electrics and structural issues whether they are there or not!

Surrey_EA

SG27 wrote: »

Im suprised theres not more pulling out after surveys nowdays. They all seem to bring up damp, bad electrics and structural issues whether they are there or not!

Indeed!
Most surveys I see read like the property could easily fall down or blow up before the week is out.

SG27

Surrey_EA wrote: »

Indeed!
Most surveys I see read like the property could easily fall down or blow up before the week is out.

My buyers have their survey booked this week, im dreading it!

ReadingTim

Fairyliquid wrote: »

Reading the threads it seems that more than 30% or more of house offers fail.

This is a massive amount of wasted effort. So in people's experience what causes buyers to pull out?

Money issues?
Better property came along?
Simply time wasters?
Changed their mind because of personal reasons?

Not sure if a seller would ever find out the genuine reason but the way the England/Wales market works a lot of folk are losing out both money and time let alone the stress.

The converse of this is that 70% of purchases go through completely as planned, which is a far less interesting story.

You also seem to think only buyers are at fault - sellers may also pull out, often for similar reasons to the ones you outline above. Furthermore, it's the buyer who bears the financial risk (paying for surveys etc) even if the purchase falls through, so they're the ones losing out more than the seller if the deal collapses. The seller tends not to pay a penny until after the sale concludes (although may be impacted if they're also a buyer/ in a chain).

TBagpuss

I'm not particularly surprised at the 30% figure, given what a major purchase a house is.

last time I moved, I had a buyer pull out late on in the process, as they had their mortgage offer withdrawn. I believe, based on what I was told at the time, that they were borrowing close to their limit and then failed a credit check due to having splurged on credit cards.

I didn't pull out of my purchase as I was able to find a new buyer pretty quickly.

I had, however, earlier pulled out of a proposed purchase because the survey brought to light some major issues, and the seller was not prepared to budge at all on price

Crashy_Time

MobileSaver wrote: »

Crashy, you do post some utter garbage.

The average deposit is 17%, a percentage or two of interest rate rises are not going to cause people to be in negative equity.

Transaction volumes are up 33% from 5 to 10 years so clearly people are not "just looking for any excuse to pull out of purchases."

5 or 10, you don`t seem sure? Why not post up the chart from say 2001 until now so we can all clearly see the magic of rising transactions?

hazyjo

Crashy_Time wrote: »

5 or 10, you don`t seem sure? Why not post up the chart from say 2001 until now so we can all clearly see the magic of rising transactions?

Or how about you not derail yet another thread? So bored of every bloody thread turning into a discussion on the same thing...

Crashy_Time

hazyjo wrote: »

Or how about you not derail yet another thread? So bored of every bloody thread turning into a discussion on the same thing...

Transactions and mortgage approvals falling plus asking prices too high are definitely relevant to this thread.

buggy_boy

Crashy_Time wrote: »

Transactions and mortgage approvals falling plus asking prices too high are definitely relevant to this thread.

You say that about every thread you derail.. But the question was not about asking prices, it was between offer accepted and completion issues.. Change the record we all get you think house prices are too high, you don't need to post it 10 times a day or your silly irrelevant links...

If you want to add something useful then do otherwise go away..


Now trying to get the thread back on track...

I always try to avoid buying if there is a big chain, all it takes is one tiny thing and the whole thing can fall apart... Some areas including the area I live and buy have a very high completion rate but that probably is because its such a popular area with such a high demand that estate agents are not really interested in you unless you have an offer on your house or have no chain (First time buyer/investor), it has got better, a few years ago the estate agents focused mainly on cash buyers only.