House sale agreed but vendor doesn’t have anywhere to go just yet.

Thrugelmir

Flugelhorn said:

I think there are a lot of these chains around at present - people quickly and easily getting offers but then can't get the place that they want to go to, either they can't find it or miss out to someone else.  Just wondering how many will decide not to move after all - if they are keen to move then the only way is if they break the chain

Far easier for the potential purchaser to simply find an alternative property if they are in that much of a rush. Given they've probably spent more time themselves finding a suitable property themselves than they allowing the chain above. 

lonibra

pinkteapot said:

You'd need a fresh mortgage offer if you change property anyway. In your situation I would keep looking and if a property comes up that's at least as good as this one, and where the sellers are ready to go (check the chain above them too), then jump ship. But don't pull out of this one unless you actually find somewhere else. 

And make sure you drop it into conversation with the EA that you're viewing other properties. They might be able to focus their client's mind a bit.  

Exactly this. Keep looking and in the meantime don't spend a penny on this transaction without a clear sign of commitment from the vendor.

Personally, I wouldn't hint to the EA that I'm looking as (depending on their ego) the vendor might decide to take offence and do something stupid.

MrsBrush

Whilst we were up for sale, the EA was making it totally clear to potential buyers that they would need to wait for us to find and buy another property. I still think this is okay, provided it is all transparent.

We saw first hand what the problems are - we had an offer sitting as 'pending' until we had accepted an offer on ours (same EA) but we couldn't formalise the offer we had made on the house we had found. Meanwhile the vendors of that house continued to market the property and received another offer from FTBs through a different agent. The vendors then tried to force us into a bidding war, which we were having none of as although it had a great potential, the place needed significant work to get it to a decent  standard, so we pulled the plug but left the original offer on the table and carried on looking. After we found the house we are now trying to buy, after a few weeks the FTB's valuation was downgraded significantly (they had ended up offering £20k over list price, and we had upped ours to 10k over but we have a lot of equity) so they lowered their offer significantly, so the vendor came back to us again to see if we would still be interested - er, thanks, but no! By this time we decided we didn't want to deal with that vendor as he had shown his colours - they had already lost 2 buyers and it became  obvious why. We wouldn't have been surprised for him to pull more stunts along the way.

lookstraightahead

MrsBrush said:

Whilst we were up for sale, the EA was making it totally clear to potential buyers that they would need to wait for us to find and buy another property. I still think this is okay, provided it is all transparent.

We saw first hand what the problems are - we had an offer sitting as 'pending' until we had accepted an offer on ours (same EA) but we couldn't formalise the offer we had made on the house we had found. Meanwhile the vendors of that house continued to market the property and received another offer from FTBs through a different agent. The vendors then tried to force us into a bidding war, which we were having none of as although it had a great potential, the place needed significant work to get it to a decent  standard, so we pulled the plug but left the original offer on the table and carried on looking. After we found the house we are now trying to buy, after a few weeks the FTB's valuation was downgraded significantly (they ended up £20k over list price) so they lowered their offer significantly, so the vendor came back to us again to see if we would still be interested - er, thanks, but no! By this time we decided we didn't want to deal with that vendor as he had shown his colours - they had already lost 2 buyers and it because obvious why. We wouldn't have been surprised for him to pull more stunts along the way.

Are your buyers still waiting? 

MrsBrush

lookstraightahead said:

MrsBrush said:

Whilst we were up for sale, the EA was making it totally clear to potential buyers that they would need to wait for us to find and buy another property. I still think this is okay, provided it is all transparent.

We saw first hand what the problems are - we had an offer sitting as 'pending' until we had accepted an offer on ours (same EA) but we couldn't formalise the offer we had made on the house we had found. Meanwhile the vendors of that house continued to market the property and received another offer from FTBs through a different agent. The vendors then tried to force us into a bidding war, which we were having none of as although it had a great potential, the place needed significant work to get it to a decent  standard, so we pulled the plug but left the original offer on the table and carried on looking. After we found the house we are now trying to buy, after a few weeks the FTB's valuation was downgraded significantly (they ended up £20k over list price) so they lowered their offer significantly, so the vendor came back to us again to see if we would still be interested - er, thanks, but no! By this time we decided we didn't want to deal with that vendor as he had shown his colours - they had already lost 2 buyers and it because obvious why. We wouldn't have been surprised for him to pull more stunts along the way.

Are your buyers still waiting? 

Yes the chain below us is still waiting, but because of our onward purchase which is taking a very long time. The house we are buying now is better all round for us (better location, better condition, £40k cheaper etc), but we are having some problems with a very slow conveyancing process, which is taking forever.   The vendor of our house is moving into a rental, but has an onward purchase ongoing which needs significant work before he can move in. he hadn't realised that the 'no frills' cheap internet conveyancing = no help and needing to chase them daily to get them to do anything!

Thrugelmir

MrsBrush said:

lookstraightahead said:

MrsBrush said:

Whilst we were up for sale, the EA was making it totally clear to potential buyers that they would need to wait for us to find and buy another property. I still think this is okay, provided it is all transparent.

We saw first hand what the problems are - we had an offer sitting as 'pending' until we had accepted an offer on ours (same EA) but we couldn't formalise the offer we had made on the house we had found. Meanwhile the vendors of that house continued to market the property and received another offer from FTBs through a different agent. The vendors then tried to force us into a bidding war, which we were having none of as although it had a great potential, the place needed significant work to get it to a decent  standard, so we pulled the plug but left the original offer on the table and carried on looking. After we found the house we are now trying to buy, after a few weeks the FTB's valuation was downgraded significantly (they ended up £20k over list price) so they lowered their offer significantly, so the vendor came back to us again to see if we would still be interested - er, thanks, but no! By this time we decided we didn't want to deal with that vendor as he had shown his colours - they had already lost 2 buyers and it because obvious why. We wouldn't have been surprised for him to pull more stunts along the way.

Are your buyers still waiting? 

  The vendor of our house is moving into a rental, but has an onward purchase ongoing which needs significant work before he can move in. he hadn't realised that the 'no frills' cheap internet conveyancing = no help and needing to chase them daily to get them to do anything!

Personally in those circumstances I wouldn't be in any rush either. Why waste money unneccessarily? 

pinkteapot

MrsBrush said:

Whilst we were up for sale, the EA was making it totally clear to potential buyers that they would need to wait for us to find and buy another property. I still think this is okay, provided it is all transparent.

Totally agree. With one of our moves a few years back, we wanted to move to a very specific area and would need to wait for a house to come up there. It was such a popular area that things sold very fast so we needed a buyer to be taken seriously. We were totally honest with viewers about the situation. 

We knew what our house was worth. Had a buyer got over-excited and made a really high offer, we would have taken on the cost and inconvenience of going into rented temporarily. As it was, we accepted an about-right offer from a FTB but we knew we'd easily get another buyer very quickly at that price if the FTB walked away, so there was no incentive for us to get out and rent. The FTB knew our situation and we told them not to spend money till we'd found something. Took us about 2 months to find something if I remember rightly (not that we were rejecting houses - just had to wait for one to come up for sale!). Buyer knew the score and could have walked away at any point. 

What is unfair is when sellers say they'll rent and a house is chain-free, then they change their mind several weeks into the process. 

hb2

We found our new place a few weeks after accepting an offer on our house. Unfortunately, it took months for our vendors to find somewhere. I know this was very difficult for our buyers who were in rented accommodation and keen to get on with their purchase.

Our vendors refused to move into rented because they needed to port their mortgage and were afraid of exceeding the time limit to do this (or so we were told by the EA, we never met or spoke to them directly). We refused to do it because we would have stayed put if our purchase had fallen through. 

Fortunately, things came together although it took 6-7 months all told. It seemed like forever at the time but I have heard plenty of horror stories of chains that took much longer!

Thrugelmir

hb2 said:

Fortunately, things came together although it took 6-7 months all told. It seemed like forever at the time but I have heard plenty of horror stories of chains that took much longer!

Many houses are lived in by the same occupants for decades. If it's your future dream home. Then waiting is often the only option.