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Buyers and their solicitor cannot be contacted.

Border_Reiver2
Border_Reiver2 Posts: 42 Forumite
Sixth Anniversary 10 Posts Combo Breaker
edited 24 February 2019 pm28 5:04PM in House buying, renting & selling
We put my late father's house up for sale last April and after quite a few viewings and reducing the asking price we had an offer of the full price in July. Solicitors had been appointed, various surveyors viewed the property and we presumed that a sale would be completed within a couple of months. At that point the estate agent advertised the house as "SOLD STC" However, in October the buyers contacted the estate agent to say that their mortgage lender's valuation of the property was a fair bit less and unless we would accept a much lower offer, then the sale would be off. If we accepted that offer they would get their mortgage. It is an old house (around 200yrs old) and the estate agent did advertise it as "in need of modernising" After much discussion we as a family decided to accept the lower offer, but we were not happy with waiting all that time with our house being unavailable to other potential offers. Now it's February and nothing has happened, the estate agent has been unable to contact either the buyers or their solicitor for at least 3 weeks. We don't know where we stand, do they want the house or not? Do we ask for it to be re-advertised? Do we withdraw from the sale? Go with a new estate agent?
Is it legal or normal for an estate agent to say that a property is SOLD when the buyer clearly hasn't the funds to pay for it?

Comments

  • davidmcn
    davidmcn Posts: 23,596 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Given your user name - which country is the property in?
  • It's in England
  • davidmcn
    davidmcn Posts: 23,596 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    It's in England
    Ok - in that case I can't see you've got much to lose by remarketing (in Scotland you'd need to update the Home Report first which adds to the expense).
  • What has your solicitor said in terms of the progress and where they are? Just because the buyer and their solicitor aren't contacting the EA, you should ask your solicitor for an update.

    If they are not getting much joy, ask them to give an update or risk the house being re-marketed.
  • So what happened between october and 3 weeks ago?

    Anything? Nothing?

    I would be putting it back on the market and advertising it to non timewasters who want to buy.

    You don't say how much you lowered the price to but off the back of that I would have expected to see movement.
  • When we were selling our place a couple of years ago, the prospective buyer was having trouble getting a mortgage and our EA was all over them about it. It was actually us that persuaded the EA to give them a couple of extra days before remarketing to sort it all out. As it happens they did manage to sort it and the sale went through smoothly, but I'm a bit suprised that your agent seems happy to let this slide so much. After all they don't get paid until the sale happens so it is in everybody's interest for that to happen quickly.

    SP
    Come on people, it's not difficult: lose means to be unable to find, loose means not being fixed in place. So if you have a hole in your pocket you might lose your loose change.
  • Thrugelmir
    Thrugelmir Posts: 89,546 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    When was probate for your late fathers estate granted?
  • You've been waiting several months. That sounds far too long to me. It is very possible that the buyers are searching for another property or having problems getting a mortgage.

    Personally I would be instructing the agents to re-market the property.

    The property can be withdrawn from the market again once the buyers can prove they are proceedable and are ready to exchange contracts.
  • Border_Reiver2
    Border_Reiver2 Posts: 42 Forumite
    Sixth Anniversary 10 Posts Combo Breaker
    edited 24 February 2019 pm28 9:51PM
    Our father's house was gifted to his children (in our 60's actually) in 2007, so although he lived in it and had full control, we own it and it's freehold.
    The main problem seems to be that it's around 200 yrs old and has been in our family since it was built, so there were no formal records of water / electric supply, drainage, ownership of boundaries etc that would have been dealt with had it been bought originally from a non family member. My parents bought it nearly 70 years ago.
    I have been in constant touch with the estate agent and they assure me that the buyers are very serious about the purchase even though they haven't been contactable. Our solicitor says that all their questions have been answered and they are waiting for their mortgage and she is still chasing up their solicitor to find out what's happening.
    I thought that estate agents were supposed to do "due diligence" to make sure the buyer had the funds in place before considering the property as sold. Yet even after 6 months, they still haven't got their money and during that time, we could have had other viewers and offers had the house still been advertised as for sale. Our estate agent just said that's the way it's done. Even if it was advertised as "under offer" we might have got a better offer.
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