Buyer has dropped off the face of the earth!

Charlotte1404

To keep a very long story short:

Accepted an offer on my flat the beginning of June.
Buyers' solicitors have messed around, passed the case around the firm, at one point went 2 months with no work done at all, much to my annoyance and my buyers'.

They have finally responded at the beginning of November, resolved all final enquiries, and we are ready to go. I have signed my side of the contract, but the Solicitors for the buyer have been completely unable to reach the buyer.

We were in communication via the Purple Bricks messaging platform. he had been responding (slowly, but still). but I have now not heard anything from him since just before HIS solicitors started to respond. My solicitors have been chasing his, Purple Bricks have been chasing, and no response from the buyer.

We had each other's contact details via Purple Bricks (mobile number and email), but i'd had no reason to use them prior to now.
I tried Whatsapp to reach him... it says he has not been online since August. I have tried calling twice, and it goes straight to voicemail.

I needed to complete 2 months ago, but due to his solicitors dragging their feet I accepted this would not happen.  I also believed the buyer was as frustrated with the delays as me.

My mind has now jumped to the worst conclusions (has the buyer passed away??) and to the mundane (has he just changed his number?).
Given he was previously as anxious as me to complete, him suddenly dropping off all communication makes zero sense.

Honestly, I don't know if anything CAN be done, but if anyone does have any advice I would be very very grateful!!

[Deleted User]

Assume he's out of the picture and remarket.

If his solicitors haven't heard from him in two months and you've not exchanged, he's either dead, in prison or changed his mind.  

TBG01

Actions speak louder than words.

Assuming the worst hasn't happen, you've got another buyer that's keen to get things done and is just as frustrated as you are with their Solicitor "dragging their feet", but when it comes to actually actioning things they're no where to be found.

But hey, it's easier to blame the Solicitor for the hold up than accept any personal responsibility.

PadreM

I hope it's not just sudden loss of interest: how hard would a 'So sorry, I'm no longer able to complete' or something?  But it seems it's going nowhere, thus I presume your solicitor issues, say, 5 days' deadline by why to hear or the deal's off.

canaldumidi

Re-market. No question.

eddddy

Charlotte1404 said:

Buyers' solicitors have messed around, passed the case around the firm, at one point went 2 months with no work done at all, much to my annoyance and my buyers'.

It's worth bearing in mind that the solicitors might have been following the buyer's instructions to do nothing for 2 months...

... or doing nothing because the buyer wasn't giving them any instructions.

A buyer that's stalling for whatever reason, will often blame their solicitor for the delay.


An experienced "full-service" estate agent would have been phoning the buyer every few days - to quiz them on progress, to hurry them along etc, and might have noticed earlier on, if the buyer was behaving suspiciously.

Unfortunately,  Purple Bricks don't do that.


(As an example, I accepted an offer on a house - and after a couple of weeks the estate agent phoned me to say that the buyer had stopped returning their calls, and they suspected that there was a problem, and advised me to re-market. Which I did.)

JosephK

Sadly not uncommon for buyer to disappear rather than tell anyone they've changed their mind. A pain but that's some people.

Tell your solicitor to put further work on hold and contact EA to remarket

Mutton_Geoff

"Purple Bricks" - as soon as I read that I realise where the source of the problem might be. Sadly buyers are not vetted in the same way and as much as I dislike estate agents, they have a role to play. Time to get updated valuations from a local agents and try a different approach? Your buyer has gone, nothing to do with the delays else they would have been more keen.

eidand

re-,market immediately, should have done it ages ago.

Slinky

PadreM said:

I hope it's not just sudden loss of interest: how hard would a 'So sorry, I'm no longer able to complete' or something?  But it seems it's going nowhere, thus I presume your solicitor issues, say, 5 days' deadline by why to hear or the deal's off.

People can be incredibly rude. We had a 'purchaser' come round on a Sunday to measure up, said they'd be sending their deposit to their solicitors the following day for an exchange on the Friday. We only found out when chasing up on Friday that the deposit hadn't been received. It took until the end of the following week to discover the purchaser had changed her mind but couldn't be bothered to tell us. Apparently she had visited her mother in Cornwall. Presumably they don't have telephones in Cornwall.

We sold to somebody else a few weeks later for more money.

PadreM

Slinky said:

PadreM said:

I hope it's not just sudden loss of interest: how hard would a 'So sorry, I'm no longer able to complete' or something?  But it seems it's going nowhere, thus I presume your solicitor issues, say, 5 days' deadline by why to hear or the deal's off.

People can be incredibly rude. We had a 'purchaser' come round on a Sunday to measure up, said they'd be sending their deposit to their solicitors the following day for an exchange on the Friday. We only found out when chasing up on Friday that the deposit hadn't been received. It took until the end of the following week to discover the purchaser had changed her mind but couldn't be bothered to tell us. Apparently she had visited her mother in Cornwall. Presumably they don't have telephones in Cornwall.

We sold to somebody else a few weeks later for more money.

I wish it didn't feel like a game...  Slightly digressing from the issue in hand, as a cash buyer in no chain I offered on a house a few weeks ago - 9% under asking price of £250k, my research suggesting that it should've been marketed at £240k for offers of £230k+, given too that it'd been on the market for several months.  EA told me three offers had fallen through, vendors were sick of it all, and they'd just had a fourth but waited a day to see what my offer would be (if I did).  Evidently it was less than that fourth as I was told next day they sold to the other.  Lo and behold it's just appeared on the market again (at £250k), so it's fallen through the fourth time.

As the agent's not contacted me it would seem the offer I made is deemed inadequate, but I'm mildly surprised EA hasn't contacted me to try to get me to increase a bit.  The house has been empty all this time so is vulnerable, and I expect council Tax is being paid on it, so it's costing vendors not to sell, and they lost my definite purchase...