4 months in and still pending exchange at bottom of chain

metallicdreams

Hi All, 

I would like to get your thoughts and guidance please as we are in the brink of losing our onward purchase. 

We are over 4 months into having accepted an offer from our buyer and our buyer's have apparently had an offer for their property prior to them making an offer on ours. Both us and our buyers have been ready to exchange since end of February, however the buyers at the bottom of the chain were not as they were still awaiting results of searches, which they obtained by end of March. Beginning of April, they had raised some enquiries to our buyers' solicitors and apparently they are still awaiting some information from the council, which we were told by our estate agents that they had been informed it would all be in place by last week and that somebody on the solicitor's side who was dealing with this was on holiday? As our builders for our onwards purchase were looking to exchange by end of Feb with completion in March and now being 2 months overdue, they have given up on our chain, and have advised they are going to cancel our reservation. We have communicated the same to our EA and Solicitors and have asked to get an imminent update and also check if the bottom is willing to proceed without the outstanding enquiries as if not, we will lose our reservation with our move, which will subsequently mean we will have to withdraw from the sale as well. Both me and my wife are completely exhausted by this whole process and have been really unlucky, as this would be the third time we are in a similar situation, after 2 of our previous buyers having to withdraw last moment, wasting our time, efforts, money and reservations we had previously for our onward purchase. 

Please could you provide some tips/hints based on your experiences/knowledge on what else I can do to chase or progress or get an update from the bottom to be able to go back to the builders and say comfortably that we will have a positive result this week and to save our reservation for the plot, which has been ready since February. 

Thanks
John      

Natbag

I sympathise. I'm 4 months in too, my vendor is getting impatient and we have been ready to go for 4 weeks but we still waiting for one enquiry in the chain to be sorted - it's a complicated issue though, and every piece of communication between the parties involved is taking so much longer due to the market being crazy busy and due to Covid. My solicitor is now off for the week, so that will be another week of no progress. It feels never ending. No hints and tips, all you can do is communicate with the solicitor/estate agent to keep everyone updated, chase for updates and try apply some pressure but it really is a 'how long is a piece of string' question.

Tiglet2

metallicdreams said:

Hi All, 

I would like to get your thoughts and guidance please as we are in the brink of losing our onward purchase. 

We are over 4 months into having accepted an offer from our buyer and our buyer's have apparently had an offer for their property prior to them making an offer on ours. Both us and our buyers have been ready to exchange since end of February, however the buyers at the bottom of the chain were not as they were still awaiting results of searches, which they obtained by end of March. Beginning of April, they had raised some enquiries to our buyers' solicitors and apparently they are still awaiting some information from the council, which we were told by our estate agents that they had been informed it would all be in place by last week and that somebody on the solicitor's side who was dealing with this was on holiday? As our builders for our onwards purchase were looking to exchange by end of Feb with completion in March and now being 2 months overdue, they have given up on our chain, and have advised they are going to cancel our reservation. We have communicated the same to our EA and Solicitors and have asked to get an imminent update and also check if the bottom is willing to proceed without the outstanding enquiries as if not, we will lose our reservation with our move, which will subsequently mean we will have to withdraw from the sale as well. Both me and my wife are completely exhausted by this whole process and have been really unlucky, as this would be the third time we are in a similar situation, after 2 of our previous buyers having to withdraw last moment, wasting our time, efforts, money and reservations we had previously for our onward purchase. 

Please could you provide some tips/hints based on your experiences/knowledge on what else I can do to chase or progress or get an update from the bottom to be able to go back to the builders and say comfortably that we will have a positive result this week and to save our reservation for the plot, which has been ready since February. 

Thanks
John      

Although it is frustrating for you and your situation with your new build, the buyers at the bottom of the chain would be foolish to proceed without outstanding enquiries being satisfied.  I doubt if their solicitor would be agreeable to this, unless the buyers agreed to waive any claim on something that may come up in the future, perhaps when they are selling on.   Put yourselves in their shoes.  Would you purchase a property without answers to enquiries?

Irishpearce26

4 months isn't long in terms of selling and buying a house. My selling and buying process was seamless and it took 3 months but i know others can go 5, 6+ months because of surveys, queries etc.

metallicdreams

Tiglet2 said:

metallicdreams said:

Hi All, 

I would like to get your thoughts and guidance please as we are in the brink of losing our onward purchase. 

We are over 4 months into having accepted an offer from our buyer and our buyer's have apparently had an offer for their property prior to them making an offer on ours. Both us and our buyers have been ready to exchange since end of February, however the buyers at the bottom of the chain were not as they were still awaiting results of searches, which they obtained by end of March. Beginning of April, they had raised some enquiries to our buyers' solicitors and apparently they are still awaiting some information from the council, which we were told by our estate agents that they had been informed it would all be in place by last week and that somebody on the solicitor's side who was dealing with this was on holiday? As our builders for our onwards purchase were looking to exchange by end of Feb with completion in March and now being 2 months overdue, they have given up on our chain, and have advised they are going to cancel our reservation. We have communicated the same to our EA and Solicitors and have asked to get an imminent update and also check if the bottom is willing to proceed without the outstanding enquiries as if not, we will lose our reservation with our move, which will subsequently mean we will have to withdraw from the sale as well. Both me and my wife are completely exhausted by this whole process and have been really unlucky, as this would be the third time we are in a similar situation, after 2 of our previous buyers having to withdraw last moment, wasting our time, efforts, money and reservations we had previously for our onward purchase. 

Please could you provide some tips/hints based on your experiences/knowledge on what else I can do to chase or progress or get an update from the bottom to be able to go back to the builders and say comfortably that we will have a positive result this week and to save our reservation for the plot, which has been ready since February. 

Thanks
John      

Although it is frustrating for you and your situation with your new build, the buyers at the bottom of the chain would be foolish to proceed without outstanding enquiries being satisfied.  I doubt if their solicitor would be agreeable to this, unless the buyers agreed to waive any claim on something that may come up in the future, perhaps when they are selling on.   Put yourselves in their shoes.  Would you purchase a property without answers to enquiries?

I agree. I was just trying to understand if that could be a possibility, that's all. 

metallicdreams

Irishpearce26 said:

4 months isn't long in terms of selling and buying a house. My selling and buying process was seamless and it took 3 months but i know others can go 5, 6+ months because of surveys, queries etc.

I would agree. 3 months is the standard. 4 months I could accepted as well, however all we keep hearing every week is we will have an update this week and that just continued for like almost 2 months, which is frustrating.  

metallicdreams

Natbag said:

I sympathise. I'm 4 months in too, my vendor is getting impatient and we have been ready to go for 4 weeks but we still waiting for one enquiry in the chain to be sorted - it's a complicated issue though, and every piece of communication between the parties involved is taking so much longer due to the market being crazy busy and due to Covid. My solicitor is now off for the week, so that will be another week of no progress. It feels never ending. No hints and tips, all you can do is communicate with the solicitor/estate agent to keep everyone updated, chase for updates and try apply some pressure but it really is a 'how long is a piece of string' question.

Thank you. That's great piece of update process you posted there. Wish I had that at my end too. Fingers crossed for all to go well with you too. 

Tiglet2

metallicdreams said:

Irishpearce26 said:

4 months isn't long in terms of selling and buying a house. My selling and buying process was seamless and it took 3 months but i know others can go 5, 6+ months because of surveys, queries etc.

I would agree. 3 months is the standard. 4 months I could accepted as well, however all we keep hearing every week is we will have an update this week and that just continued for like almost 2 months, which is frustrating.  

You state that you are 4 months in, but obviously the solicitor can only start the legal work when they are in receipt of the draft contract paperwork.  Do you know when the paperwork was received?  Also when was the draft contract paperwork sent out to your buyer's solicitor as they also won't start the legal work until this is received by them.

Preliminary work can be done (pre-legal, i.e. ID, paying for searches, getting mortgage offer, providing the paperwork etc), but that is not the legal conveyancing work.

metallicdreams

metallicdreams said:

Hi All, 

I would like to get your thoughts and guidance please as we are in the brink of losing our onward purchase. 

We are over 4 months into having accepted an offer from our buyer and our buyer's have apparently had an offer for their property prior to them making an offer on ours. Both us and our buyers have been ready to exchange since end of February, however the buyers at the bottom of the chain were not as they were still awaiting results of searches, which they obtained by end of March. Beginning of April, they had raised some enquiries to our buyers' solicitors and apparently they are still awaiting some information from the council, which we were told by our estate agents that they had been informed it would all be in place by last week and that somebody on the solicitor's side who was dealing with this was on holiday? As our builders for our onwards purchase were looking to exchange by end of Feb with completion in March and now being 2 months overdue, they have given up on our chain, and have advised they are going to cancel our reservation. We have communicated the same to our EA and Solicitors and have asked to get an imminent update and also check if the bottom is willing to proceed without the outstanding enquiries as if not, we will lose our reservation with our move, which will subsequently mean we will have to withdraw from the sale as well. Both me and my wife are completely exhausted by this whole process and have been really unlucky, as this would be the third time we are in a similar situation, after 2 of our previous buyers having to withdraw last moment, wasting our time, efforts, money and reservations we had previously for our onward purchase. 

Please could you provide some tips/hints based on your experiences/knowledge on what else I can do to chase or progress or get an update from the bottom to be able to go back to the builders and say comfortably that we will have a positive result this week and to save our reservation for the plot, which has been ready since February. 

Thanks
John      

Update: We have been informed by our estate agents that all outstanding enquiries at the bottom of the chain have been addressed and the solicitors at the bottom have sent out contracts to be signed. I don't understand why they were not all kept ready to be exchanged, once they had all responses from the enquiries. Anywaym they have now mentioned they should be in a position to exchange this Friday and I am hoping that will be the case. Meanwhile our estate agents are going to email the builders' Head Office to request time for us till Friday this week. Hopefully they will be willing to wait 4 more days.