Buyer pulled out just before exchange

grayma91

Our buyer, after viewing the house twice, putting an offer in and getting all the way to exchange has turned around and decided that the house is too small for her. Unbelievable.
We have had to relist the house and hope that our onward chain are happy to wait for us. We now need a very quick sale. 
Does anyone have any advice for getting things moving as quickly as possible if we accept a new offer? Can the searches conducted by the old sellers solicitor be forwarded to my solicitor and sent on? We had found our dream house, which was going to be our family home for the next 15-20 years and want to do everything in our power to avoid losing it any advice appreciated

boxer234

Very frustrating it happened to me after the sale dragging on for 5 months.  We put the house back on the market got another offer and it then took 3 months.  The problem is you are starting again I think they can use some of the stuff from the old file but it didn’t happen amazingly fast. 

moneysavinghero

Things take the time they will take. Nothing you can do. No guarantee your new buyer wont pull out as well. Only option if you really need a quick sale is one of 'We Buy Any Home' type of operation - but you won't want to touch those guys with a bargepole.

iwb100

Happened to us. Whole chain re-listed their properties and then when we got another offer chain was glued back together again, took a few months and we were lucky nobody sold in the meantime. Then it took months to sort the conveyancing out. Remember that you may sell quickly but offer might change and therefore you may need to re-do your mortgage application and anyway the mortgage offer you hold may expire anyway. My best advice is to be honest with your vendors about the situation and accept that in reality they will very likely have to re list their house on the market fairly soon. 

grayma91

Thanks. Our vendors are happy to give us some time to find a buyer and we have some extra cash in reserve to make up the difference if we accept a lower offer so can keep the same mortgage offer. It really, really infuriates me that the individual pulling out is not liable for any of the fees I have incurred as a result of accepting their offer. She has had two months to decide whether the house was too small. 

Greatgimp

I've no doubt your failed buyer used the two months looking for what she thought would suit her better, but kept you on as 'reserve' in case nothing came up.

youth_leader

So sorry to read this, happened to me twice, it's horrible.  I hope you find another buyer quickly.

grayma91

Exactly this. We have a ten month old and can ill afford to pay out legal fees and for surveys that might never be used. We are disgusted. 

eddddy

grayma91 said:

She has had two months to decide whether the house was too small. 

I wouldn't take too much notice of that as the reason. 

It's quite likely that the buyer had other reasons which she didn't want to discuss with the EA - so she made that up.

numbercruncher8

This happened to me, in truth they could give lots of reasons the end effect is the same.

The answer to the question is maybe but unlikely. The ex-buyer paid for the work, so it's down to them, but why would the ex-buyer give something to the new buyers for free? They have sunk costs too regarding the transactions and would see it as an an opportunity to recoup something.

For the new buyers, why rely on someone else's work? There may be problems if something in it turns out to be bad, and the discount doesn't seem worth it just so they can work to your shorter timetable.

pinkteapot

I'm so sorry this has happened. It's the worst part of the English house-buying system. Unless you're in a really fast-moving market area, I'm sure your chain will wait. The market's still post-covid slow in a lot of areas. If you were at the start of the process then your vendor could just replace you with another proceedable buyer, but if they start over with someone new tomorrow then they'll still have to wait a few months for that buyer to do all the paperwork you've done. If the EAs involved are decent they'll hold the chain together as long as they can. You can stress to your EA that you want viewings from people who are fully proceedable and preferably able to move quickly. If your EA isn't particularly pro-active then nag them to ring round all the buyers registered with them.

I've seen it from the other side. When we sold to relocate a couple of years ago, we sold to a family who were relocating to our then-town and their vendor had pulled out the day before exchange! They were in an absolute state because (1) they'd already booked a nursery place for their toddler in our town, due to the waiting time to get one, and (2) their buyer, a FTB, was pregnant and if their mortgage expired (in two months' time) then they didn't think they'd get another offer. They had a day of viewing anything vaguely in the right location that was advertised with no onward chain, and picked our house. We'd only been on the market a few days and they said to us at the viewing "We need the house in five weeks!". In the end it couldn't quite be done in that timescale, but we did go from viewing to completion in less than two months. Just by way of saying that as awful as it feels right now, it can all turn round and work out - you just need the right buyer to happen along, like we were the right seller for our buyers.