Lack of Information about Vendors Onward Purchase

Snow_Phoenix

I am not sure if this is the norm now or not. We have completed all our outstanding enquires and are now at the point of waiting to exchange, however we do not seem to be able to get any information about where our vendor is with their onward purchase. We were advised a few months ago they have found a onward purchase and that will be the end of the chain, but when we have asked for any update on how their purchase is going the response we get from the estate agents is the purchase is not through them so they are unable to provide any information. 

We have now be told by the estate agents they will stop communicating with us until the vendor is ready to exchange, but where unable to give any idea when this may be explaining it may be some weeks before we hear from them. It just concerns us we do not know where they are within the process or even if that sale has fallen through and they have had to start the process again. We do not need to know anything which would breach GDPR, just get an idea where they are with things so we know what is going on. 

We would have thought the estate agents would just be able to ask the vendor for an update as to what is happening? It is just disappointing as up until we reached this point we had the estate agents chasing us a few times a week trying to work out what we had outstanding and make sure we had reached the point we are now. 

Are others in this situation or is this estate agent just being difficult?

eddddy

It sounds to me like the estate agent is being incompetent.

Of course they should be contacting your seller to find out how their onward purchase is progressing. 

Normally an estate agent does this because they want to push the chain along to make sure they get their fee on exchange / completion asap. (Or is it an estate agent who was paid a fee up-front?)


TBH, with that kind of attitude from the estate agent, I might even start to worry that there was some kind of a problem that the estate agent is trying to hide from me - so they want to avoid talking to me. (But perhaps I'm just too cynical!)

anselld

It is more likely to be the Vendor being difficult or in a position to say nothing psitive therfore say nothing.

Look for alternative properties and tell the agents that is what you are doing.

Ramouth

You could ask your solicitor to ask their solicitor for an update.  It is generally considerably slower than getting the agents to communicate but it sounds like you have one who doesn’t want to do that part of the job (we also experienced this with our vendors agent).

housebuyer143

As above, ask your solicitor to confirm details on the onward and where they are with it. Solicitors I don't believe can lie to you, so you should get either no response or an honest one. 

trakky14

This would fill me with dread in all honesty!! I've always found the estate agents are the only ones who actually tell you what is happening, solicitors are far less use especially at the end as they don't chase anyone...so if you're not getting anything from them now I'd walk away as you sure as anything won't find them useful in the latter stages! 

Snow_Phoenix

Thank you all for your replies. 

We are aware from indirect interactions with our vendor via 3rd parties, in the way of contractors to quote for works which need addressing having been highlighted in the survey, that they can be difficult to work with. The vendor followed one of them around debating the points on all the areas they highlighted needed addressing when they provided us with feedback. We are also aware from trying to ask about their circumstance in the past they are not keen to pass on any information so it may just be the estate agents relenting and feeling its more hard work than it is worth it to try to ask for an update. 

We have already asked our solicitors for an update but have not heard anything yet. We are aware the vendors solicitors are not the most efficient from information provided from our enquires contradicting their response with the vendor then providing answers to the questions in the form of documents which are clearly dated before we had requested further information as they had not addressed the questions. 

The vendor has been actioning points from our enquires which is a positive. I am also aware from reading other forum posts today that some vendors do not see why they need to keep their buyer updated and feel this is unnecessary information so I do see both sides. It would just reassure us to know where they are in the process. 

We still have plenty of time left on our mortgage offer so can wait it out a little longer before acting and would prefer to follow through with the purchase if possible. We are lucky to be in a position where we have not gone up to the maximum of our budget so if we needed to renew the rate we could also afford this. 

eddddy

So it sounds like you might have difficult sellers who won't tell their estate agent what's going on.

It would have been better if the estate agent had told you that was the issue. (With one of my purchases, the estate agent essentially told me that.)

I guess there's still the question of why the sellers won't talk to the estate agent - is it because they are 'up to something'? (In my case, I later found out that the sellers were also talking with a letting agent about renting out the property, instead of selling it to me. They hadn't told the estate agent.)

pinkteapot

Just to add to the chorus: Nope, not normal. As others have said, either (1) you're buying through a rubbish estate agent who's doing a bad job of progressing the sale and can't be bothered talking to the vendor, or (2) your vendor isn't answering questions. Or both!

I would also see if my solicitor can find anything out. If not, I'd say to the estate agent you're buying through something like "We're highly concerned at the lack of information about the status of the chain above us. We're not withdrawing our offer and will proceed if the vendor reaches a point where they can exchange, but we are going to start viewing other properties to see if there's one out there that's proceedable." 

If they're a decent agent they'll then do what they can to get things moving. If not, it won't help at all. But you've got nothing to lose by trying it. 

tooldle

Another option, the onward purchase is a private transaction with no estate agent. Our last move was a private purchase and we did not provide details of the vendor to our estate agent. When there is no estate agent involved, it is not necessarily a good thing to have the last agent in the chain, chasing the private vendor. We didn't disclose the address of our onward purchase to anyone other than our solicitor as we did not want it becoming common knowledge the property was for sale. Our agent spoke to our solicitor when absolutely necessary. In addition we had promised to move as soon as the two buyers below us were ready, regardless of the state of our purchase and, this is exactly what we did, meaning there was no need to be asking for updates on how our purchase was progressing. 

Snow_Phoenix

I thought I would provide you with an interesting development which has occurred since my last post. We have unexpectedly been contacted by the estate agents to update us on the stage of our vendors onward sale and they have advised they will now try to update us weekly as they find out more information. 

We have not made any contact with them since before placing my initial post, but we are now more reassured by where we are in the process and the timeline of things. We are not sure if the estate agents have just gone away and thought about it, realising it was in their interest to keep us update or something else....