what would you do

MarcoM

Hello,

We are buying a house and after all the queries were over we thought it would be just a formality to exchange and complete.
When we put the offer in both the vendor and estate agent stated that it was no chain.
Now our solicitor two months down the line has informed us that the seller is buying a property and is relying on this transaction so we only have a provisional completion date. I have checked the sellers form and even there they wrote that this transaction was not reliant on them buying another property.
We have already moved monies to our solicitor after being instructed to do so by him. We are cash buyers so we are losing interest on the cash whilst this is in a solicitor client account.

We are thinking that if the vendor does not stick with the provisional date we have a right to pull out or if we decide to put up with the potential procrastination we could drop the price we agreed.

Has anyone had similar experiences / have an opinion on this?

thanks

Doozergirl

You have 'the right' to pull out at any time before exchange of contracts. So do they.

You can try and drop the price, you can try to force them to stick to the original agreement. They too can say no.

Always a delicate balancing game. Never that cut and dry.

What would I do? Talk to them directly and ask them if they are ready to exchange and listen to them bumbling probably. It's a lot harder to be unreasonable when you talk directly to people and it's easier to tell a liar.

MarcoM

hi,

we have spoken to the vendor and as you said he did mumble.
He started saying that he rang us many times and that we did not look interested which is not true as we only got one call from him and he did not leave a message. I thought he had dialled the number by mistake the once.
I've been in touch with the estate agent a few tims as well and he never told us that the vendor had concerns. I have written proof that i've been in touch with the EA to follow this purchase and we were never told about this.

He has told us he is fine with the date proposed by the solicitors and that
it is not true that he is in a chain. He said his circumstances had changed and they decided to buy a house but he said this is done.
Now on Monday I am ringing my sol to tell him this and I want to get the true story from his end.

I note that in the seller forms the vendor had put that this transaction did not depend on him purchasing another house. If his circumstances had changed shouldn't he had informed his legal rep and us about this change?
I thought these sellers forms were set in stone.

Doozergirl

Nothing is set in stone. What he wrote may have been true at the time, it indeed may still be true. You can rely on the proceeds of a sale to buy another house without strictly being in a chain. If he can complete without relying on the purchase, then there isn't really a chain at your end, just at the upper end.

I can't see what the pertinence is of you alledgedly not being interested? If he is in a chain then that would be disastrous for him.

However, I've been in the most bizarre of situations being told different stories by different people; Vendor, EA, solicitor and the only conclusion I came to was that it had to be my vendor lying and giving different stories to different people. I got the better of the old git in the end. My H had to leave me to it. Woman possessed I was!

MarcoM

doozegirl,

i am in the same situation as you!!!
MY OH wants to deal with this guy!!!

Did you end up pulling out in the end or did you buy?

Doozergirl

I bought. I refused to exchange unless I got my own way as I'd already been screwed around on dates and had to move into rented. I'd negotiated a small discount which people were suddenly unaware of :rolleyes:

I simply refused to exchange until I got what had been agreed on. So to get to the point I was at, you have to wait 7 months for your house sale to go through, lose a house, find another one, move house twice, get screwed by the mentalist at the top of the chain who puts back exchange and completion by three months, be faced with a liar of an EA manager and have to phone another branch who then gloat and contact the area manager to sort it out, another angry EA who didn't get the sale and bad mouths you to the vendor, his angry solicitor who wouldnt speak to mine and refused, on his clients behalf(!) to exchange if I got the discount. So then go completely nuts and refuse to exchange for the sake of £1000. :rotfl:

Not the best time of my life, admittedly. But I ripped his house up, good and proper.

MarcoM

well another issue i have is that our money is with the solicitor now as he requested it. It is earning a pitiful interest rate. I'm not ready to wait beyond two weeks because i would lose loads of interest. The vendor can pay for my lost interest if there are further delays (and assuming that we stick for this house).
Everyone was under the impression that there would be a quick exchange and completion.
The vendor has agreed verbally a date with us which is imminent. I am curious to see if he sticks to it.

BTW, do house purchase completions take place on a Monday? This is the day we have been offered. I find this strange as the money would have to leave the seller's sol on the friday so the seller has two days to change his mind whilst the money is far away from the buyer by then!!!!

Doozergirl

You're confusing things. You have no legal obligation to each other at all until you exchange. Completion date is pie in the sky. You only need to transfer 10% of the total to your solicitor for exchange.

If you are not going to exchange then you can ask the solicitor for your money back until you do, otherwise (and I think silvercar knows exactly), over a certain amount of money left with a solicitor for a certain amount of time, is supposed to accrue interest.

The money will leave one solicitors account and arrive in the next on exactly the same day. It doesn't matter a blind bit what day you exchange or complete on.

I think what you should do is simply push for exchange on the day that you agreed. You must be the better person and not make monetary demands until you know the full story. And never refuse to exchange or complete unless you mean it - believe me, I did! I would have dropped it all and walked away in a second. I know they didn't believe me at first which is why it took two days. The nutter at the top of the chain put the whole thing back by a week again to get me back - didn't make a blind bit of difference to me when I had another three months of a rental contract to uphold and couldn't have cared less if it went through by that point.