Help with chain, any options?

Kellyrosie

hi all, we want to complete before stamp duty, we have a house sale going through at the moment - we chose a house we could renovate with the extra money left over due to the stamp duty holiday.
The owners of the house said they don't really have a chain when we agreed to buy and that the person who owns their new house they're moving into is just waiting for our sale to go through, we went to measure the house on saturday and they dropped the bombshell that the person who they're buying the new house froms purchase has fallen through.
So their part of the chain at the moment really is facing delays.
We're selling our flat and we have a first time buyer, so our side is going to move very quickly, on the basis that our side is moving very quickly is there any pressure we can put on to make this work has anyone been in a similar position and what they did with this news?

AnotherJoe

Kellyrosie said:

hi all, we want to complete before stamp duty, we have a house sale going through at the moment - we chose a house we could renovate with the extra money left over due to the stamp duty holiday.
The owners of the house said they don't really have a chain when we agreed to buy and that the person who owns their new house they're moving into is just waiting for our sale to go through, we went to measure the house on saturday and they dropped the bombshell that the person who they're buying the new house froms purchase has fallen through.
So their part of the chain at the moment really is facing delays.
We're selling our flat and we have a first time buyer, so our side is going to move very quickly, on the basis that our side is moving very quickly is there any pressure we can put on to make this work has anyone been in a similar position and what they did with this news?

Yep, you say "exchange by date X and complete by date Y or we pull out because we cant afford it and we'll lose our buyer"

You have to mean it and pull out it if they dont. Or you yourselves go through with your sale and move into rented / parents / whatever.

My daughter gave her vendor an ultimatum, "exchange today or the deal is off" ,and vendor caved.

Not all will though so you have to mean it and given your financial circumstances it seems as if you would have to anyway.

Natbag

Four options basically:
1. You wait until the vendor completes on a purchase and vacates, and hope your buyer is happy to do the same
2. The vendor breaks the chain and finds alternative accommodation in the meantime to allow the rest of the chain to complete - you can ask, but this could be tricky as short term rentals are hard to come by and they may not have family they can stay with
3. You break the chain by completing on your sale and go into temporary accommodation while you wait for your purchase to complete, to secure the cash
4. You pull out of the sale and find another property to buy - although you are then passing down the same problem to your buyer and risk losing them too
How many weeks in are you? 

Kellyrosie

We are around three weeks in, we have our sales memo, we've nearly done our searches on the house we're buying and had our mortgage survey done for the house we're buying and our buyer is in the same position for the flat. So i imagine we have 1 week left of searches and our mortgage offer should be ready within a week or so

tink_1983

Kellyrosie said:

We are around three weeks in, we have our sales memo, we've nearly done our searches on the house we're buying and had our mortgage survey done for the house we're buying and our buyer is in the same position for the flat. So i imagine we have 1 week left of searches and our mortgage offer should be ready within a week or so

3 weeks in? Your highly unlikely to meet the june deadline now sadly.
All depends how much you want the house ?

Natbag

Three weeks is no time at all, they could find another house tomorrow and it wouldn't delay things too much. Often chains aren't complete for a few weeks anyway.
The problem is that to meet the stamp duty deadline, you needed to have a fast and problem-free process, and these things rarely happen that way even in short chains, so it may not have been wise to base your move and finances on not paying stamp duty - that was always going to be tight if you only just started the process three weeks ago. You could still hit a delay on so many things, as I'm finding currently, it's impossible to know.

tink_1983

Has your agent confirmed for sure how many in the chain? Any new house in the chain could bring more and more to the chain depending on their upward position!

Kellyrosie

sorry we're a month in, we have a new build flat, and first time buyer so even when the mortgage survey person said theres nothing to detail really, our HA said the process is usually 4 weeks for our sort of flat, so from our side i think it will be very quick its obviously just their side - our flat is two years old

tink_1983

Searches alone in my area have taken 9 weeks. 
Then with a flat there will likely be some buyer enquiries around the leasehold I'd say. 

Get your agent to chase and confirm the chain  asap.

Dont rely on the stamp duty money, even if your sale is quick, your purchase and the onward chain isnt likely to be that fast. If your relying on it you may be over stretching.
Look at the waiting to exchange thread for a sad reality dose :-(

MaiTai

Have enquiries been raised,has the lease been reviewed by your buyers solicitor (assuming you are in England) has the management pack been ordered and reviewed? EWS1 available.....the list goes on

4 weeks is wildly optimistic!

Typically if all goes well I can progress a freehold house to completion in maybe 8-10 weeks,A leasehold flat could potentially add another 4 weeks.Also the process can be extended by Covid but in my experience things are getting back to something approaching normality.

This of course depends on many factors outwith my control.....I can only proceed as quickly as the slowest link in the chain!


Chances of completing your onward purchase in time to beat the deadline I would say possibly if the chain completes quickly,with good solicitors and nothing unusual crops up but in reality probably not!

Kellyrosie

yes we have management pack sorted and EWS1 was sent to the estate agents about a month ago, were using direction law who have been amazing so far, just need to keep positive i guess, we could stretch to end of september if really needed but would help not to lose 5k