Developer threatening to remarket my plot if exchange does not happen by end of week!

housemovehelp

Maz1963 said:

It sounds like the developer is going to pull the plug on me next week and remarket the property. It's been a stressful couple of days.  They insist that I and everyone else in the sales chain (5 of us, unfortunately) has to be on a two week notice to complete.  They want us to exchange asap, but at the same time they can't confirm a completion date yet, so we all have to be on a two week notice. I've been told by my solicitor that once they state the date, we all have to move on that date, regardless of whether it suits and whether we can book a removal van! The solicitor advised that with houses that are not complete yet, the developer cannot confirm a completion date until the building regs bit has been confirmed, something about them breaching their contract. I don't really understand it all but wish the developer had told me all of this in advance! Maybe they did, and I just didn't absorb it.

I'm so disappointed as I thought buying new would be easier, clearly not. And perhaps I've been a bit naive, but I didn't know they would be so stringent about all of this when I started. I understand the deadlines of developers, but they know our chain is currently sound, so why it's so difficult for them to be a bit flexible, I can't understand.  But I also can't see the people behind me in the chain (4 of them) agreeing to a two week notice to complete, at the behest of the developer, so it seems an impossible situation.

I think my only option now is to pull out of the purchase, hope my sales chain is still intact and not as stressed and frustrated as I am, and look for a rental. I so don't want to rent, but looks like I'll have to.

No doubt the developer will keep my reservation fee (£2k), which is really galling, but what can you do. So much money gets wasted in this process, it's not the first time I've been out of pocket this way. Frustrating.

I feel for you . We though part exing our 4 year old house for another new build which was complete would be a breeze. Nope. Messed us around for months and then dropped us leaving us in a right mess. Our house  is back on the market privately now but no interest as yet . We are thinking of selling and then renting until we find something else so we don’t end up on this situation again 

Maz1963

Well I'm still waiting to exchange and the developer is still threatening to cancel my reservation! The deadline is now tomorrow (instead of last Friday). They put a whole lot of stress on me and then extended by a week.  Maybe we'll get another week? Agent and solicitor are responsive, but fairly relaxed. Of course it's not them who has spent months travelling up and down the country securing this reservation (it's not local). I really thought buying new build would be simpler, but in terms of timescales, it's clearly not.  I hope that my sale at least is sound, in which case it will have to be rental for a while.  Very frustrating process when it's out of your control and there's nothing you can do to change anything.

Caramac

When we last moved about thirty years ago we reserved a new build after we had SSTC, our buyer dropped out and the builder gave us time, we found another buyer quickly only to have the builder pull out a month into the second sale. I was gutted and cried for days, it all worked out in the end. We ended up buying a bigger house for the same price.

rik111

Look at realistically if it drags on a few more weeks until your ready to exchange what exactly are they going to do. Magic up another buyer who is ready to exchange immediately ? Even a cash buyer won’t be ready for weeks possibly months. They are just doing their job trying to get it exchanged and onto their sales figures, ignor the tw**ts and just do what you can.
I could never buy a new build, everyone I’ve ever looked at the whole set up and attitude absolutely stinks, I’d end up telling them to do one and stick their house where the sun doesn’t shine.

jenoshea

Where about was this as a similar situation happened to a friend this week. 😌

lizziepop_88

@Maz1963, sorry to drag this up again, but just wondering how this panned out? We’re in the same situation right now unfortunately!

TripleH

We had this before. The sales rep was wanting exchange so they would hit their sales target.

Delays were due to the vendor's solicitors taking an age to respond to our solicitor's queries. I would get an angry phone call saying "your solicitor has had a response, you must exchange in next 2 days" often the response would be vague and not answer the query. I blocked the estate agent's number and contacted their colleague to tell them I'd only deal with them in future.