Housing chain dilemma

rushmere

I wonder if I can pick the brains of you good forum readers about a situation we find ourselves in with a housing chain.

We have had an offer accepted on the house we wish to buy, dream home, one of a kind etc. etc. We have accepted an offer from someone for our modern detached house on a small estate, south east, outside M25, so desirable but not unique. They have accepted an offer for their flat in a large development from a first time buyer. All rosy, agreed target exchange and completion for October.

We are now two weeks into November and the first time buyer's solicitor has just raised a 3rd round of questions prior to exchange. We are now not sure if FTB is getting cold feet/preparing to lower their offer. We can sit and wait to see if things resolve themselves, but as they are two steps down the chain we are at the end of a long communication line, and with Christmas approaching and a desire to "get on with our lives" we are getting nervous. Or we could pre-emptively offer a reduction to our buyer on condition that they pass it on to their buyer and we get exchange and completion by a certain time.

Having run it past our solicitor he was luke warm, with the change having to be run past two sets of mortgage lenders it may delay things rather than help, and may be money down the drain if things are actually proceeding albeit slowly. Before I run it past our estate agent (which was suggested as the next step by our solicitor as he is not "a sales expert") I thought I'd try getting a few other opinions from people without any direct involvement.

Many thanks if you've read this far.

hazyjo

My guess is it's the solicitors, not the buyers.


When did you accept the offer? Average sale/purchase takes 12 weeks. Longer for leasehold (obviously that means some will take far less, others far longer).


If you offered me a reduction to complete sooner (ie not ask more questions), I would be highly suspicious and probably end up wanting tradespeople round to check it over. Especially coming up to winter where you might be hiding roof leaks, broken boiler, etc. (Not that you are! Just saying it would make me suspicious.)


I'd just sit tight.


I always say I have no idea why people want to rush to be in for Christmas. It's the worst time to move house! Pricier call-outs, boxes everywhere when you're trying to sort presents, etc. I'd much rather wait until January, so try not to let it make you want to rush the process.

AdrianC

It's all part of the "Must have picture-perfect Xmas!" hype that results in massive debts on guff that's ignored or in the bin by Easter.


That apart, my suspicion is that it's just a pernickety FTB that's panicking at the slightest undotted i and uncrossed t.

rushmere

Thank you both for your replies. A more dispassionate view does lean towards it's just delays, not the imminent collapse of a chain, Also I have found the timeline to exchange thread on here which also makes me feel a little less stressed. The Christmas reference was to it being bad timing to put a house back on the market. Fortunately our Christmas will be pretty simple wherever we are...

Thrugelmir

rushmere wrote: »

All rosy, agreed target exchange and completion for October.

Solicitors will never commit to dates. One thing to suggest and everyone to nod in agreement. Another for different agenda's not to impact best laid plans.

SeasideSally

rushmere wrote: »

They have accepted an offer for their flat in a large development from a first time buyer. All rosy, agreed target exchange and completion for October.

We are now two weeks into November and the first time buyer's solicitor has just raised a 3rd round of questions prior to exchange. We are now not sure if FTB is getting cold feet/preparing to lower their offer.

Things can be more complicated when selling a leasehold flat. There are all sorts of things that come up, usually to do with maintenance, service charges, and the such like. Getting answers to questions isn't always straight forward, especially if the freeholder/management company is involved in getting them, because they can be slow.

When we bought our flat years ago, our solicitor sent off so many questions that our seller complained about her. Getting the answers did hold things up, but she was only trying to protect her clients. Unfortunately, it can be a slow process.

rushmere

Well it is time to update the thread. A week or two after the OP we went back on the market. By mid December we had a matching offer and were told that our original buyer's buyer had no intention of exchanging before they returned from a foreign trip in mid-January. In the light of that information we decided to switch horses. I felt sorry for our initial buyers who were still keen but felt that a certain 4 week delay and no certainty that exchange would happen after that was too much. We completed with our alternative buyer last week.

We complete on our new purchase next week having been renting rather longer than we intended.

Thanks all

hazyjo

So a shorter process altogether, but a month or so later than if you'd stuck with the original buyers :think:

Ah well, glad it worked out how you wanted.

ReadingTim

hazyjo wrote: »

So a shorter process altogether, but a month or so later than if you'd stuck with the original buyers :think:

Ah well, glad it worked out how you wanted.

I guess that's the lesson here isn't it - tempting as it may be to dump the original buyers, depending on where you/they are in the process, it may simply not be possible to find anyone new who can complete at even the same time, let alone earlier, than the old lot. Plus you have no idea whether the new lot will be less, or more, of a nightmare than than old lot.

Sometimes you've got to suck it up and stick with the devil you know...

rushmere

Exchange with the original buyer would have been mid-Jan if their buyer had met that deadline, which would have been the first one of many they hadn't missed. Also buyer's buyer would probably have wanted 4 weeks to completion, they did in October. Agreed the second buyer could also have been problematic but we chose the known unknown, rather than the known known that buyer one's buyer kept prevaricating.