Buyers arranging survey 10 weeks after offer accepted

kirtondm

Can I ask why you put your home on the market when you hadn't found anywhere?

Because thats the way it normally works? How can you offer on a property until you know you have sold yours and for how much. 

Whilst I keep an eye on the market I have never made an offer until mine has sold.

user1977

SunsetLover08 said:

Can I ask why you put your home on the market when you hadn't found anywhere? 

Because that's pretty normal practice?

SunsetLover08

CardiffCrank said:

SunsetLover08 said:

Can I ask why you put your home on the market when you hadn't found anywhere? (No judgement, purely curious!)

Its a difficult situation and I feel for both of you. Personally if I was your buyer I may have delayed because I knew you hadn't found anywhere, I may have then booked a survey when you had offered. They may still cancel it. Yes 10 weeks is a long time, but why risk paying for it when you haven't found anywhere yet, and you could easily decide not to sell, leaving them out of pocket. Bearing in mind they are FTBs and probably saved for their deposit and fees for a fair amount of time, so they will be penny pinching where they can, i'd imagine anyway!

Really they shouldn't have offered on your house if they were in somewhat of a rush, but then equally, perhaps it would have made the most sense for you to market your home once you had found an onward purchase. 

You'd find it hard to get in the door most places if you weren't proceedable, ie, chain free or accepted an offer.

Catch 22 then. I wouldn't want to wait forever as a buyer though, even if I knew the vendor hadn't found anywhere. Took us 2 years to have an offer accepted this time around. 

t1redmonkey

Maybe the order they've done things is a bit unusual, but I don't think it's strange to wait this long to do a proper survey, considering the chain isn't complete yet.  If anything, it's a bit strange they've now decided to do a survey when the chain still isn't complete.

I'm in a similar position to your buyers at the moment (have had an offer accepted for a property but the vendor hasn't found anywhere herself yet and isn't willing to break her end of the chain) so I'm certainly not paying for searches/surveys til she at least confirms she's had an offer accepted.

niceguyed

Hi thanks everyone, yes, we quickly found there were many properties we could not view unless proceedable.  Even ones we could view we would also not be in a strong position.  Like a lot of places, where we live anything decent gets snapped up at asking or above.  Unfortunately, we've also found a significant slow down on new properties entering the market, no doubt economic headwinds having an impact.  The same applies to rentals (in fact it's worse), which is why we wouldn't break chain. 

It's hard all round I feel and I can certainly emphasise with our buyers.  They want to get moved in but our problem is the market has slowed significantly in the last two months.  We know it also took them 6 months to get to the point of getting their offer accepted.  It would seem it is entirely normal to wait for the chain to complete and then pay for the survey.  I can't say I would follow that practice but that's why I seek and value other perspectives to check against my own assumptions.  

movilogo

Can I ask why you put your home on the market when you hadn't found anywhere? (No judgement, purely curious!)

Because that's what most EAs will ask you to do. This brings an interesting scenarios though. Lot of SOLD STC are actually relying on other properties to get sold in order for these sales to proceed. If vendors can't find properties to move into, then many SOLD STC properties will come back to market again. This is why EAs show their status as SOLD STC rather than entirely pulling out the ads. 

simon_or

niceguyed said:

I'm wondering how many vendors would accept a buyer unwilling to progress the purchase or spend a penny in fees until a chain was complete?  Equally, is the vendor not also in such an invidious position should they take their house off the market whilst the buyers continue to look elsewhere? Or is the solution you are proposing that for all parties to ameliorate any losses, that in the case of an incomplete chain buyers spend nothing, leave their offer in place, and continued looking whilst the vendor continues to allow viewings and seeks better offers?  

Tbf with most high-street lenders a buyer can get to a mortgage offer without spending a penny. After that point, personally, I would only incur sunk costs on the legal work (searches mainly) after the chain is complete. It's not like my delaying the searches will make any difference to the chain.

Richiem1987

If they are buying via a Mortgage, then a Homebuyers Survey is often not instructed until they have received their Mortgage offer, as happened to me. 

Schwarzwald

Waiting for the thread “Seller still hasn’t found a house 10 weeks after offer accepted” …

 I think it is quite one-sided to be surprised that the Buyer only scheduled their survey after 10 weeks, while you only found an onward purchase after 10 weeks, and now even pulled out, starting afresh.

 As you said you kept your agent informed, most likely your agent called up the Buyer with “some good news” informing them about the fact that you agreed an offer on a property, and the Buyer subsequently called their surveyor - which they lined up in the last 10 weeks - to now schedule the survey, only to find out you pulled out of the purchase already …

 If I were them, I would call the surveyor again and pause them asap. Why spend money on a property of an apparently flaking seller?

 If I were you, I would be rather happy as they seem to be patient and quite organized (FTB) buyers. And yes they will most likely use the survey to rediscuss the price

niceguyed

Schwarzwald said:

Waiting for the thread “Seller still hasn’t found a house 10 weeks after offer accepted” …

 I think it is quite one-sided to be surprised that the Buyer only scheduled their survey after 10 weeks, while you only found an onward purchase after 10 weeks, and now even pulled out, starting afresh.

 As you said you kept your agent informed, most likely your agent called up the Buyer with “some good news” informing them about the fact that you agreed an offer on a property, and the Buyer subsequently called their surveyor - which they lined up in the last 10 weeks - to now schedule the survey, only to find out you pulled out of the purchase already …

 If I were them, I would call the surveyor again and pause them asap. Why spend money on a property of an apparently flaking seller?

 If I were you, I would be rather happy as they seem to be patient and quite organized (FTB) buyers. And yes they will most likely use the survey to rediscuss the price

Yes, that new titled thread may appear! I do wish to see things from more than one side, hence the reason for my post, all opinions are welcome and a lesson.  However, it's rather an assumption and puzzling to assume a seller is "flaky" just because like any competent buyer I have withdrawn an offer when a new material fact becomes known (that's another story and I did share this with my agent). Perhaps the alternative is to continue to waste everyone's time and money for risk of appearing "flaky"? I of course accept it will be disappointing for them.