Sellers haven’t found anywhere - when to issue ultimatum

windoworange

Partner and I are first time buyers. We found a flat we loved and had our offer accepted 28 Feb. At the time we were told sellers have family who live locally so there was an option of going chain free. It’s a 2 bed flat and sellers are a couple looking to expand into a family home.

The sellers are sending mixed signals and at first seems super motivated. They accepted offer £25k under asking (we are buying in zone 6 of London). They responded to solicitors etc very promptly, and were very welcoming and accommodating re getting survey done quickly. We have always said we would want to move mid-late June in line with our tenancy contract ending in early July, and have been led to believe consistently that this timeline would work.

Mortgage offer expires mid September.

We are now *very* close to exchanging (all that’s blocking is one outstanding minor query from sellers solicitor and us to transfer our deposit money) except for the fundamental fact... they haven’t found a place to buy yet. We’ve been told they’ve been looking hard but it’s been two months and NOTHING.

For the past two weeks we’ve been trying to put pressure on via the EA and nothing. They are still saying that they would possibly consider going no chain and staying with family or renting... but will not make the decision to pull the plug and say they will go for it.

Clearly, if there’s a chain, even if they found somewhere tomorrow, we are too late to get the moving timeline we originally wanted if they buy somewhere else. So they are keeping us hanging based on two possibilities... it completes when we always wanted, or a minimum of 2 months after that with potential open ended forever.

What complicates things as well is our tenancy contract - our letting agents contacted us recently asking about plans for renewal, and we were totally honest saying that we’re planning to move out but not sure about when. They didn’t totally discount possibility of shifting into a rolling contract, but said that they would come back to us shortly and if we weren’t ready to leave in time for the end of the tenancy we’d have to negotiate whether a rolling contract was even possible.... so essentially, there’s a fair chance this whole delay could leave us homeless, too!

We just really need them to make a decision regarding whether they are going chain free or not. The uncertainty is driving me mad. If they say they definitely don’t want to go chain free, maybe we could move on and negotiate further from there depending on what our landlord says... but they won’t even commit to that at the moment!

We are thinking about issuing an ultimatum saying we will pull out if they don’t decide if they’re doing chain free or definitely not within 3 working days. Do you think this is wise? We stand to lose £700 of irrecoverable costs, 2 months of wasted time, a lot of energy and the fact we love it - but I just feel like in this market maybe they stand to lose more. Final aspect - this is ALL via the EA, we do have the sellers email and phone that we’ve sighted on various forms etc... is it worth reaching out to them directly?

Any advice hugely appreciated!!!

Thrugelmir

Why are they going to lose more? If they are struggling to find a suitable property. Then they can simply stay put for the time being.

Number of properties listed with Agents is at an all time low. People are moving less often being one reason. Nothing to suggest that this situation is going to change anytime soon. Meanwhile the population continues to grow.

diggingdude

Pretty sure your rental agreement would just go onto month-to-month without any further interaction

Cakeguts

You could always start looking for a different flat. Then if you find one you like and your sellers still haven't decided what they want to do you could buy a different one. However there is no guarantee that the sellers of the other flat will find something any quicker.

pinkshoes

1. Go and look at some other properties. Perhaps with the same agent. This will hopefully hurry the vendors up.

2. Your tenancy will automatically go onto a rolling contract. Just ignore the agent.

3. If step 1 successful, then before coughing up search fees, give your vendors 28 days to exchange otherwise you will go with new property.