Hopkins homes 28 day exchange push

Lyns2002

Hi,
We are in the process of buying a house.

Our vendors are buying a new build with Hopkins homes and we are getting increasing pressure to exchange ASAP.
Hopkins homes apparently have this 28 day exchange window. We did not find this out until after the fact and our vendors had signed up and paid their holding deposit with Hopkins. We were just told Hopkins are looking for a quick exchange, possibly 28 days. I said I will try and do what I can but I can't commit to that given how slow it all is at the moment.

Hopkins homes are now chasing the people we are buying from for exchange and we are in turn getting chased. Its only been roughly 32 days at the moment. Trouble is, we are in the middle of an equity release application (delayed by the lendors) so can't make it go any quicker.

Has anyone had experience of this 28 day bully tactic and if so, what did you say to them to back off a bit ?

I want to exchange ASAP but I can't make the equity lender "hurry up"  because they are all under pressure.

We are FTB so no chain at all.

Pulling my hair out worrying our sale is going to fall through and we will lose my dream house.

Seashell517

Pretty standard from builders. And sometimes they do go through with re-marketing the property if there's no obvious progress. Is the new build house already finished? If so, probably nothing that can be done about it if the vendor needs their sale to buy the new build; the builder's want their cash ASAP. If the house isn't complete yet, it's likely the builder's won't go for looking for another buyer until it's closer to being done.

[Deleted User]

Lyns2002 said:

Has anyone had experience of this 28 day bully tactic and if so, what did you say to them to back off a bit ?

You're exaggerating and I suspect that's contributing to your stress and hair loss.  It's clearly not a 'bully' tactic.  Their job is to shift houses as quickly as they can. 

If you can exchange in 28 days, then do so. If you can't, exchange when you can and hope you don't get beaten to the post.

Mineral1

We had this exact scenario buying out house this year, our vendors were buying a new build which we were originally told would be completed in November last year, so we raced to get our side of things done, then suddenly it was all delayed and not due to be built until January. We were constantly harassed by the vendors' part exchange company representative with phonecalls and emails for months saying they were going to pull out if we didn't exchange. We couldn't exchange because they wouldn't even give a firm completion date!

Basically we told them to sod off every time they contacted us once we realised what was happening, and ended up exchanging and completing on the same day about 6 months after we initially had our offer accepted.

Tiglet2

OP, your thread title is correct, it is a "push" and many developers adopt this tactic.  In reality, very few developers achieve a 28 day exchange because the legal work is not completed.  The legal work (and their 28 day exchange deadline) doesn't start until the buyer's solicitor received the draft contract pack, which often takes a couple of weeks to receive.  Developers like to see some "progress" and when updates on progress are provided to them, they do usually accept this until the next "push".  There's nothing you can do other than keep everyone in the loop and hope they are happy to wait.

OldMusicGuy

It's not a bully tactic, it's pretty standard for new builds. We had exactly the same proviso when we bought earlier this year. They will try to push you to get exchanged, probably prior to their year end. However, like others said, provided you can show progress in the process they are unlikely to pull out (they will have to start the sales process all over again). But be aware they can do this, so personally I would try to keep them sweet and just give them regular updates and show them you are serious about buying.