Help! Completion date won’t be met - New Buyuer

bethan11

Hi!

I’m hoping for some advice if possible. I’m currently in the process of buying a house. Offer made and accepted in January. Solicitor contacted me on Tuesday and asked for the deposit to be sent and said that the completion date was the 8th of May. Paid, handed in contract (no contact due to COVID). 

Solicitor then calls me yesterday to advise that the seller can’t complete on that date as their tenant (ex husband) is refusing to leave the property and states that they are self isolating. If they had COVID or symptoms it would be past the 7 day isolation window before I complete. They have not had a shielding letter from the government.

Estate agents have since informed me that the tenant hasn’t attempted to look for a new property and simply doesn’t want to risk leaving the house to view properties so I could be looking at over a month before he decides to start looking..

Where do I stand?? I agreed a completion date, paid my deposit and exchanged the contract but now it can’t go ahead on the date due to the seller.

Comms69

Have you actually exchanged contracts? if so, i suggest your solicitor gets out a very big calculator!

the only person to blame here is the vendor, and they're going to be paying a metric ____ ton.

AdrianC

I think it's unlikely contracts have been exchanged, given the current circumstances.

Apart from anything else, no sane solicitor would allow exchange on a property with tenants still sitting.

davidmcn

"Paying the deposit" and "handing in the contract" to your solicitor aren't the same as "exchanging contracts". Has your solicitor told you that you have exchanged contracts? I suspect what you're being told are the reasons for the other party not exchanging contracts, in which case you stand in the same place you were a couple of days ago.

bethan11

Thanks everyone!

So I signed everything I needed to sign, gave my signed documents back to the solicitor and gave them a very generous list of dates I could complete on. The solicitor then contacted me and said that the sellers solicitors had agreed completion date of the 8th of May and they trusted this was acceptable as it was on my list of proposed dates. I then made the deposit payment on the back of the fact that the completion date was agreed. Hope this makes sense! 

greatcrested

So you've given your solicitor everything he needs from you in order to Exchange. That does not mean he has Exchaged!

When he spoke to the seller's solicitor with a view to Exchanging, the seller's solicitor refused because of the tenants. That is almost certanly what happened.

You will not be Exchanging, far less Completing, till the tenants leave.

Presumably you knew there were tenants living in the property? Had you informed your solicitor of this? Had you had assurances from the seller, directly or via the EA or via your solicitor, about the tenants' departure plans?

bethan11

I’m waiting on more clarity today from my solicitor on whether they HAVE exchanged. From the conversation I had with her it appeared they had, as they arranged the completion date and payment a day before the phone call out of the blue to say that the seller can’t meet the completion date. 

bethan11

It’s also worth me mentioning that I was not informed that the tenant was still at the property - never mind self isolating until they’d taken my payment

Thrugelmir

bethan11 said:

It’s also worth me mentioning that I was not informed that the tenant was still at the property - never mind self isolating until they’d taken my payment

Weren't you aware of that there was another party involved? The EA should have kept you informed of developments. Lockdown is hardly a new event. 

blue_max_3

If the vendor didn't tell their solicitor that there was a tenant, then the fault lies directly with the vendor. And it is going to cost an absolute fortune! There are specified costs which can be reclaimed. You need to contact your solicitor to sent a notification to their solicitor to start the process.

AdrianC

bethan11 said:

I’m waiting on more clarity today from my solicitor on whether they HAVE exchanged. From the conversation I had with her it appeared they had, as they arranged the completion date and payment a day before the phone call out of the blue to say that the seller can’t meet the completion date. 

The completion date has to be agreed in order to exchange, because the date is part of the exchanged contract.

I suspect what's happened is that the solicitors have spoken on the phone, yours has said "Right, we're ready to exchange - and there's vacant possession, yep?" - to which the other solicitor's said "Ah, about that... My client tells me..."