Advice regarding some issues during exchange/completion of purchasing first property

Eako

New to the forum, first post - I apologise if its formatted incorrectly or lacks certain information, I'm by no means clued up on the legal side of things here.

First time buyer, using an 'old style' help to buy 1 (200p/m, government adds 0.25x when purchasing property, not sure of the offical name) and property is something we would consider a 'forever home' purchased by my partner and I.

We're in a bit of a situation at the moment, we recently had our survey finished around the start of August and came back acceptable to us, we arranged a completion date of the 19th August through solicitors, then had it pushed forward to the 16th August, which was agreed upon by both parties. Fast forward to Wednesday just gone (10th August), I was requested to close my ISA and to provide a closing statement (was also sent a load of documents to sign). Thursday (11th August), we still had no indication that anything was wrong with that date, signed all our relevant documents as requested, dropped them off in-branch. At this point I was provided a completion statement, requesting the full deposit and solicitors fees (minus the bonus). This was promptly paid and I rang on the Friday (12th August) to confirm it had gone through and been received, which it had.

Friday afternoon/night, we received an email telling us that we could no longer complete on the 16th. As our completion date was the 16th, we had arranged for all relevant bills to cancel on the 21st, ended our tenancy, had taken a week off work and had arranged with family and a company to move a large amount of things. Companies were rang to arrange utilities for the property and other providers such as Internet providers were contacted also. The date we were then given was the 25th. Which would be the Thursday after the planned week off to sort everything. Our solicitors appeared under the impression that this was an agreed date, but said that since no exchange was done, nothing could be done. The seller's solicitors appeared adamant that it was provisional.

I understand this is a vague block of text and being honest, I'm just a little swamped with everything that has gone on. I feel like my money should not have yet been taken and I feel like we've been messed around a little bit, being given 2 working days notice that our completion date is no longer valid. Is this standard and is there (as I expect) nothing we can do?

My biggest fear is the purchase falling through, which would mean (presumably) I lose the solicitors deposit, search deposit and other financial agreements we have in place for the move, we potentially could end up temporarily homeless or without utilities as the tenancy was ended and there's also the fact that I've wasted a full week of time off that is now essentially useless.

I do feel like we've done things a bit messily, I feel like the solicitors haven't exactly done us an injustice but we've somewhat had the rug pulled out from under us and I'm left with worries about the property and what we're going to do.

I'm really just seeking advice at this point. Is it worth panicking over? Am I really going to lose this house or should I just hold my breath, grit my teeth and agree to the 25th?

Thank you so much also, for taking the time to read this and any help is very, very appreciated.

[Deleted User]

Why do you believe you're going to lose the property?

Unless you want to pull out, you should work towards completion, but don't make any irreversible decisions until you've exchanged.

macman

Neither party is legally bound to anything until exchange has taken place.
If you incur losses before that time, no one else is liable.

Eako

[Deleted User] said:

Why do you believe you're going to lose the property?

Unless you want to pull out, you should work towards completion, but don't make any irreversible decisions until you've exchanged.

I feel like my partner and I both want the exchange to take place this week. The last thing I want is for the other party to just pull out as they're not happy doing it this week. 

I'm not really happy with the solicitor for advising us that this was the completion date, when in actuality it wasn't ever agreed on by both solicitors. 

SusieT

It is a bit inconvenient to have made all the arrangements, but I would just say that you are not happy as you had been told it would be this week, but 25th will be ok. It is a stressful time when it comes towards completion, but try to relax and remember no dates are actually set until exchange of contracts. You could ask to exchange this week with a completion date of 25th 

user1977

Eako said:

My biggest fear is the purchase falling through, which would mean (presumably) I lose the solicitors deposit, search deposit and other financial agreements we have in place for the move, we potentially could end up temporarily homeless or without utilities as the tenancy was ended and there's also the fact that I've wasted a full week of time off that is now essentially useless.

You're presuming, in part, wrongly if you mean falling apart prior to exchange - your deposit is still your money (albeit sitting in your solicitor's account), you get it back if exchange doesn't happen.

You shouldn't give notice to end your tenancy until exchange happens - did anyone advise you to give notice?

You don't really need to give notice to end your utilities until you've actually moved out and can provide final meter readings.

donutandbeer

As long as you have not exchanged, the completion date can be moved last minute. That’s why most people only book moving company AFTER exchange. The moving company we used only takes payment after exchange. The general advice on this forum is also to NOT give notice on your rental until exchange. 
 
It doesn’t matter that much that you have already paid the solicitor at this point, because even if you haven’t and your vendor pulls out, you will still have to pay your solicitor for all the work they’ve done, unless you specifically use a no sale no fee solicitor. 
 
It’s annoying when your provisionally expected completion date has changed and therefore your arrangement are all messed up. Unfortunately that is very common before exchange (when we sold our place the completion date was changed many times until the day before exchange). Not sure if there’s anything you can do about this, do you know why the original date doesn’t suit your vendor? 

TBagpuss

As above, nothing (including the completion date) is final until you have exchanged contracts. 

Generally speaking the advice is not to give notice on your tenancy or to cancel anything until you have exchanged , and not to firmly book removals. - when you are going from rental to owning this often means you may have some overlap which has pros and cons - it means that you don't have to move in a huge rush on completion date but it does mean you have higher costs.

I'd suggest hat you speak to your conveyancer about getting the exchange done ASAP as this then locks in the completion date and binds eveyone to complete.

What are your options in terms of housing? If you can exchange before the date your notice expires, can you stay with friends or family for a few days until completion? Do you know what the landlord's palns are for the proeprty - they may be open to agreeing to push the move out date back .

If the purchase did fall through then yes, anything you have paid for searches, survey, legal fees etc is lost. Howeve, there doesn't appear to be any reason to think that's happeneing , it's quite common for there to be some to-ing and fro-ing to try to agree a completion date that suits everyone.

Eako

user1977 said:

Eako said:

My biggest fear is the purchase falling through, which would mean (presumably) I lose the solicitors deposit, search deposit and other financial agreements we have in place for the move, we potentially could end up temporarily homeless or without utilities as the tenancy was ended and there's also the fact that I've wasted a full week of time off that is now essentially useless.

You're presuming, in part, wrongly if you mean falling apart prior to exchange - your deposit is still your money (albeit sitting in your solicitor's account), you get it back if exchange doesn't happen.

You shouldn't give notice to end your tenancy until exchange happens - did anyone advise you to give notice?

You don't really need to give notice to end your utilities until you've actually moved out and can provide final meter readings.

The reason my partner gave notice was because of something to do with owing an extra month's rent or something and it would work out cheaper this way. I'm not entirely sure (moved in with her a short while ago but she has lived here a few years). 

It's (fingers crossed) something we can extend. 

donutandbeer said:

As long as you have not exchanged, the completion date can be moved last minute. That’s why most people only book moving company AFTER exchange. The moving company we used only takes payment after exchange. The general advice on this forum is also to NOT give notice on your rental until exchange. 
 
It doesn’t matter that much that you have already paid the solicitor at this point, because even if you haven’t and your vendor pulls out, you will still have to pay your solicitor for all the work they’ve done, unless you specifically use a no sale no fee solicitor. 
 
It’s annoying when your provisionally expected completion date has changed and therefore your arrangement are all messed up. Unfortunately that is very common before exchange (when we sold our place the completion date was changed many times until the day before exchange). Not sure if there’s anything you can do about this, do you know why the original date doesn’t suit your vendor? 

So, our seller's seller (he's in a chain) apparently can't complete until the 19th at the very least, but refuses to complete any earlier than the 25th all of a sudden. Our solicitor was advising that our seller could break the chain and move the limited amount of things in the house into storage temporarily. I'm not entirely sure what will happen, but I presume it'll be the 25th now.

TBagpuss said:

As above, nothing (including the completion date) is final until you have exchanged contracts. 

Generally speaking the advice is not to give notice on your tenancy or to cancel anything until you have exchanged , and not to firmly book removals. - when you are going from rental to owning this often means you may have some overlap which has pros and cons - it means that you don't have to move in a huge rush on completion date but it does mean you have higher costs.

I'd suggest hat you speak to your conveyancer about getting the exchange done ASAP as this then locks in the completion date and binds eveyone to complete.

What are your options in terms of housing? If you can exchange before the date your notice expires, can you stay with friends or family for a few days until completion? Do you know what the landlord's palns are for the proeprty - they may be open to agreeing to push the move out date back .

If the purchase did fall through then yes, anything you have paid for searches, survey, legal fees etc is lost. Howeve, there doesn't appear to be any reason to think that's happeneing , it's quite common for there to be some to-ing and fro-ing to try to agree a completion date that suits everyone.

If worst comes to worst and we can't extend, I have a car and some money for storage. 😆

In all seriousness, we have family and friends. I'm sure we could surf couches for a few days but it's not really ideal when I'm going to be working at the same time.

macman

Even if the conveyancers had agreed a date, nothing is fixed until exchange. anyone can withdraw. Don't blame your solicitor, it's entirely your own error to give tenancy notice before exchange, and to cancel the utilities. Utilities can be closed off on the day you complete, you can't give final reads until then anyway.
You might well have had to pay an extra month's rent, but you'd have somewhere to live.

Eako

macman said:

Even if the conveyancers had agreed a date, nothing is fixed until exchange. anyone can withdraw. Don't blame your solicitor, it's entirely your own error to give tenancy notice before exchange, and to cancel the utilities. Utilities can be closed off on the day you complete, you can't give final reads until then anyway.
You might well have had to pay an extra month's rent, but you'd have somewhere to live.

Okay, I appreciate the advice. It's definitely a lesson for us and it's very relieving to know that everything everyone has said is normal/legal and the issues we have are just down to us. Thank you to everyone that's commented, I really appreciate it.