Seller’s EA - help!

never_moving_again

Hi All

Any advice/thoughts greatly appreciated.

We’re in a small chain:  our buyer (private sale to relative), us, our seller (who is buying a new build,

our offer accepted in mid August and at time we were not relying on sale of current property - although financially extremely tight.  Two weeks later relative offers to buy our current property.  We hadn’t applied for mortgage so able to change to higher deposit.  I called seller’s EA with the update who asked if our sale and purchase were not tied into each other and I confirmed they were. EA asked for our buyers details as they are now beginning of chain.

New build (our seller’s purchase) expected to be ready end of November.

Over the weeks seller’s EA has asked verbally and over email for updates on our sale.

end of October we were told new build delayed to December but likely to be January.

end of November I emailed seller’s EA for any updates on new build and again told likely to be January.  Two days later EA calls to say developers what exchange that day or new build will go back on market.  EA said we had told them we were chain free and as we are no longer chain free we should exchange on our purchase immediately and exchange on sale later.  I committed to nothing and said would be speaking to our solicitor.

three days later another call from EA now saying that when I had called in early September I had informed them that selling to relative and reconfirmed that did not need to sell in order to buy.  EA now emailing our solicitor with same.  Absolutely not true and why would they ask for details of our buyer and updates of sale if not tied into our purchase?

According to EA I did not inform them in September that we were in a chain but they were able to use being in a chain against us in early December - so when and how did they find out about the chain?

It takes a lot to get me stressed but stress levels are through the roof!

Any thoughts/comment? Have we been unreasonable? 

is it wise to stop all communication with EA and ask them to go through solicitors?

Many thanks

Alter_ego

Calm down, house buying is stressful. Better to communicate via solicitors once a chain is complete ( My opinion of course) Remember the EA's main objective is to get commission asap

TripleH

It might be worth putting a bullet point email outlining position to the estate agent, clarifying exact situation.

Estate agent is representing your seller so will no doubt do all they can to make their client to good guy in all this.

This is something with new builds that puzzles me, unless you're chain free buying, it doesn't make sense to exchange on a property with a vague completion date. I'd want to exchange and complete with a maximum of a month's gap between the 2. I'd be miffed to have to part with funds for a non new-build house (exchange) and then spend weeks waiting because someone I have no contract with hasn't finished work. I suspect in many 'non-covid' instances a delay is because the developer has pulled work off site to start on their new project and lost interest in the finishing of the current project.

eddddy

It sounds like you're just having a few 'disagreements' with an estate agent about who said what and when.

You know what you said and when - so just ignore the estate agent's version of events.



But is there actually a real issue underneath all this?

For example,

• is it that the builder is pushing for exchange of contracts, but you and/or your buyer aren't ready to exchange contracts?

• or is it that you don't want a long gap between exchange and completion?

• or is it that you and/or your buyer are not prepared to 'complete on notice'?

• or something else?

Snookie12cat

Best to ignore the EA at this point. Tell them you are now in a chain it doesn't matter when it happened and therefore you are not ready.
I would say that all further correspondence is to go through the solicitors. 
Is your seller really going to start from scratch at this point? Only if they really did lose the property would they. 

Surrey_EA

Given that we are now the middle of December, and you have been selling your existing property to your relative since early September, is there an issue of some kind that is causing a delay?

it would normally be expected that a transaction should be ready to exchange in that period of time.