Seller booked removals before exchange and won’t change date

AnotherJoe · 6 December 2019 at 10:22PM

Eleanor_23 wrote: »

Hi, looking for advice on an extremely difficult seller.

Seller to us is at the top of the chain.
Two people in the chain below us.
Chain below, plus us, all want to move before Christmas. We’re all ready to exchange and if we did by Monday coming it would have been ok. Top of the chain doesn’t want to and they’ve gone ahead and booked removals for 7th Jan and have said they can’t change it.

Of course they can change it. Did they really say that or have you or the EA translated from "dont want to change it" ?

Is this allowed. How much power does the top of the chain have against the 3 of us below?

Thanks

As said depends how hardball you want to play.

Thrugelmir · 6 December 2019 at 10:23PM

shortcrust wrote: »

I’d be livid if I were the OP. How rude to unilaterally try to force a date on a chain!

There’s one date I wouldn’t be moving

Exchange and completion is a game of bluff. Unless all parties agree on a date. Anything else is pure conjecture. No one has to justify their reasoning.

Norman_Castle · 7 December 2019 at 9:19AM

Eleanor_23 wrote: »

Top of the chain doesn’t want to and they’ve gone ahead and booked removals for 7th Jan and have said they can’t change it.

Was there any suggestion by others that this date might be an option? They shouldn’t have booked it without agreement.

ACG · 7 December 2019 at 9:41AM

Something similar happened to us.
People I was buying off booked a date hoping it would force some movement - it didnt.
However, they were then tied in to that company so we could only move on the dates that company had available (as they would alter the dates but not offer a refund).

This sounds like a similar situation. You could try calling their bluff but they know you are financially and emotionally invested so the chances of you following through are pretty slim.

GDB2222 · 7 December 2019 at 9:54AM

I wonder, quite often on this forum, whether the OP just needed to sound off about her annoyance. Whilst I agree with the advice given, I find it hard to believe that anything was said that the OP did not already know.

Albala · 7 December 2019 at 10:03AM

Works both ways. We're selling, at the top of the chain, and had agreed a date for completion on the condition that exchange took asap because of booking removers. Our buyer's conveyancer kept promising exchange day after day but it didn't happen, and are now saying that the FTB below them, after dragging their feet for a fortnight, are unhappy that the date has been moved. This is unavoidable, and totally not our fault, because we can't now get removals before the completion date, which was conditional on exchange being well in advance. We have still not exchanged. We have even booked removers to fit the new date to try to unblock the problem going back and forth again, even though we'll lose hundreds of pounds if we have to cancel because anyone pulls out before exchange, as ours is a long-distance move. Frankly, I feel sorry for our buyers, caught in the middle. If it all falls through, we can easily wait. They are the ones that can't. But there is absolutely nothing we can do. If the chain mucks about to the point we can't get removals when we warned them again and again that our removers were getting booked, that is totally not our fault. We agreed to every date offered us for exchange and completion. And the new completion date was asked for by our buyers, not us, when the previous one became impossible.