Waiting for buyer to sort their mortgage

StokesM91

Hi Everyone, I am posting hoping for some words of wisdom and also a rant!
We put our house up for the sale August Bank Holiday weekend with Purplebricks (massive mistake!!) it is a 2 bed end of terrace house, in a cul de sac on a nice estate, we listed the property for 140k, which is really reasonable for our area as most houses like ours are now currently listed for 155k. 
5 days after the advert went live we received an offer for the asking price and were thrilled, we thought it was fate as the house we originally liked had sold but came back on the market the very next day and was right in our budget so we viewed it and put in an offer which was accepted....all seemed to be going well.
8 weeks into the chain the buyers rang me up (after Purplebricks gave them my number without my permission) stating the bank had down valued our property by 10k, and they realised they didn't have the deposit they thought they had, therefore they could not afford to go higher then the mortgage valuation. I spoke with purple bricks and advised we couldn't drop that low due to the house we were purchasing so requested they send them our valuation report, reports of other houses they had sold in the area and gave them a week to sort out their finances and appeal against this valuation before we remarketed, the buyers vanished and completely ghosted our estate agent so we put the house back up for sale. The next day we received a new offer from a new buyer, I explained the issues we had previously and why the house was back on the market. Other houses on our estate which were identical to ours had come up for a lot more then our house but we kept the price the same as we wanted a quick sale due to being in the chain. I advised the searches were already done and he just needed to get his solicitor to purchase them to quicken the chain up, we agreed to knock over 2k off the house price and in return he would  push the sale through ASAP as he had cash!!! It turns out our buyer never had cash in the first place, which wasn't checked by Purplebricks, even though my estate agents texted me to say they had seen proof of funds!! it took him 3 weeks to formally appoint a solicitor and 5 weeks to get the mortgage survey requested, he then requested new searches to be done, even though there were already searches completed and available to buy. I have tried to push this as much as I can, as the house we are purchasing is perfect for us and in the area I really want to live in, unfortunately the house prices have sky rocketed since we originally started this process and we cant afford any of the houses which are coming onto the market so we are desperate for this sale to go through. 
My main gripe is with the buyer as I feel massively conned into knocking money off when he had no intention to push this through at all and has seemingly delayed the process for no apparent reason, I would have more patience if he had brought the original searches to show willing but he didn't even appoint the solicitor properly, but I am massively annoyed with Purplebricks as I feel they haven't helped the situation at all. I rang the post sales team throughout November to request they check the buyers position as our solicitor hadn't heard anything, and they told me I needed to be more realistic with my timeframes and they would chase him and get back to me, which they never did. My estate agent then left the company and it took 26 days to even get the new agents contact details to try and speak to him to get him to bridge the gap for communication but again I was told I wasn't being reasonable expecting the sale to get through within 8 weeks and he now never answers my calls or texts. I then chased the post sales team throughout December and only found out 2 weeks ago that the buyer was in fact getting a mortgage but he tried to get a mortgage with his "company" name as he was going to buy to let our property but that was rejected so he has had to reapply for a personal mortgage. I have messaged our buyer personally to ask how he is getting on his end, the last I heard from him was the 17th December where he said he should hear back about his mortgage by the 18th, but he didn't. I spoke with Purplebricks today to be told if I cant wait for our buyer to sort out his mortgage they will relist my property and how it isn't his fault there's a delay, but I am the one paying for their services so surely they should have my interest at heart and have chased him properly in the first place and advised us that 1. he didn't have cash like we were advised when accepting the offer and 2. his original mortgage offer was rejected, and given him a deadline? They advised me his mortgage broker is on annual leave now due to the festive period and will be back next week and how the buyer cannot chase the mortgage lender personally, however I don't think that is true. I know covid is delaying things, but surely waiting this long for a mortgage offer is abit much
I have lodged a formal complaint to Purplebricks as I cannot understand how in 17weeks we have had 2 buyers now who don't have their mortgages sorted, and that they don't seem actually follow through and check how the sale is progressing. I would have thought as an estate agent you would want your houses sold, so would be trying to bridge any gaps and helping along the sales and vendors. I just feel they only do something when I call them, and even then I just get an attitude back and made to feel I am unreasonable and impatient for expecting the people who offer on my property to have their finances in order and to actually be trying to get the purchase sorted.
I am really worried we will loose our property we want to purchase, but at the same time I feel I have been gracious not once but twice now for buyers who don't seem to have any issues messing us about. 
Do I just pull the property and relist with another agent and hope our sellers will hang on a little longer, or do I wait it out and see if our buyer can get his mortgage sorted? 

lookstraightahead

Personally I would put your property back on the market. 
Lots of people are struggling with their finances etc and cannot make up the difference in cash between what they are happy to accept value wise and what the bank is willing to lend.
we are buying a house and our vendors are trying to hurry us up by accepting a structural survey they already have, as they are desperate to get their house. I'm not going to do that and it will take as long as it takes (reasonably) from my end. I have nothing to sell so that's a benefit to my vendor.
as far as all the legalities go, I can't advise, but I'm not sure what you can achieve. Get yourself on with a high street agent and you can (theoretically) just walk into their office.

teachfast

Sounds like you need to relist with a different estate agent asap.  Remember you can negotiate the % commission - 1% (including VAT) is entirely possible.  Good luck and ditch Purple Bricks asap.  You have literally no obligation to them whatsoever.

StokesM91

teachfast said:

Sounds like you need to relist with a different estate agent asap.  Remember you can negotiate the % commission - 1% (including VAT) is entirely possible.  Good luck and ditch Purple Bricks asap.  You have literally no obligation to them whatsoever.

Thank you. I think I will call round our local agents tomorrow. It's just so infuriating people are allowed to string you along for so long. Hopefully another agent wont allow such ridiculous behaviour 

lookstraightahead

StokesM91 said:

teachfast said:

Sounds like you need to relist with a different estate agent asap.  Remember you can negotiate the % commission - 1% (including VAT) is entirely possible.  Good luck and ditch Purple Bricks asap.  You have literally no obligation to them whatsoever.

Thank you. I think I will call round our local agents tomorrow. It's just so infuriating people are allowed to string you along for so long. Hopefully another agent wont allow such ridiculous behaviour 

Are your vendors holding out?

Thrugelmir

StokesM91 said:

teachfast said:

Sounds like you need to relist with a different estate agent asap.  Remember you can negotiate the % commission - 1% (including VAT) is entirely possible.  Good luck and ditch Purple Bricks asap.  You have literally no obligation to them whatsoever.

It's just so infuriating people are allowed to string you along for so long. Hopefully another agent wont allow such ridiculous behaviour 

How are they going to stop it? These are unusual and challenging times. Sometimes it's just pure bad luck. 

StokesM91

Thrugelmir said:

StokesM91 said:

teachfast said:

Sounds like you need to relist with a different estate agent asap.  Remember you can negotiate the % commission - 1% (including VAT) is entirely possible.  Good luck and ditch Purple Bricks asap.  You have literally no obligation to them whatsoever.

It's just so infuriating people are allowed to string you along for so long. Hopefully another agent wont allow such ridiculous behaviour 

How are they going to stop it? These are unusual and challenging times. Sometimes it's just pure bad luck. 

Unfortunately they could have stopped it, like I said there were searches they could have brought but didn't, they took 3 weeks to formally instruct their solicitor, they don't always answer when Purplebricks try and chase them, so I do believe they have delayed the process for no reason and the mortgage delays are just the icing on the cake really.

Our sellers will hold out a little longer, I feel for them massively as they have already held out so long its why we accepted a lower offer on our property to try and speed things up 

UnderOffer

I’d just drop the searches thing, if I was your new buyer, I would definitely  want my own solicitor to carry out new searches, you don’t say how old they are, but things do change after searches are carried out, new housing/building applications, flooding etc., so I’d want current new searches, buying a house is one of the most expensive purchases you can go through, so all areas need thoroughly investigating before purchase. 

Id definitely move to a high street EA too, sounds like PB are not working for you, so I’d pay more and try and get a better service. 

Good luck, it’s very stressful and do understand your frustrations. Try and take a step back from it all.