Ready for exchange but now seller needs to find a house

limepanda

Situation:

• We’re FTB and had an offer accepted on a house in June, told at the viewing the vendor might move in with family or might buy an onward purchase.
• A few weeks later the EA confirmed the vendor had put an offer on a property. 
• Everything proceeds as normal. 
• Two weeks ago we’re at the point of being ready for exchange and all that’s left is negotiating a completion date. We suggest a completion date and vendor asks for a few weeks later because they need to organise their things, but with no exact date. 
• I call EA who says they will contact vendor and see if they can speed things up and help set a date. 
• Vendor goes awol for 2 weeks not answering EA or their solicitor. 
• Finally got an update yesterday from our solicitor - apparently vendor had planned to move with family which has fallen through and now needs to find a house to buy and has a second viewing booked.

Obviously we’re incredibly frustrated - I feel like since the offer was accepted the vendor has made no progress in finding a place to live. I see we have two options

• play hardball and threaten to withdraw offer if they don’t commit to exchange (what our solicitor recommends)
• keep looking in the background for other houses and see what happens with this one

Unfortunately as FTB we weren’t aware that we should have waited to incur any costs until the vendors position was confirmed and proceedable. This wasn’t advised to us and is a lesson we’re now learning the hard way. If it had been offered as chain free all along I feel we’d be in a much stronger position to threaten but as it has been murky I’m unsure (another lesson learnt).

Other considerations

• we don’t mind waiting to an extent but it sounds like the vendor is just messing us around and we’ve heard completely different stories of whether they are buying or moving in with family which is casting doubts as to whether they actually want to  sell (hence why we’ve been recommended to threaten to pull out)
• if we wait another 3 months (or potentially longer) for this onward purchase to complete (our solicitor thinks it will unlikely be before Christmas), our mortgage offer will expire and it wouldn’t give us enough time to find a new property and complete before stamp duty changes on 1 April which would affect us as FTB with currently no stamp duty. This is my bigger concern
• We love this house and haven’t seen anything we like come on the market since we offered on this one - we’d be willing to wait but I have serious concerns about the flakiness of the vendor after all this which could leave us in a terrible position at the start of 2025 if we have to start again
• the house was quite desirable and went off market in less than a week, potentially weakening our threat as they could find another buyer quickly?
• Sunk costs about £3k at this point of solicitor fees and surveys

Advice please? Unsure whether to threaten to pull out which might jog the vendor into action or just start looking elsewhere and keep this ticking along in case it works out, potentially being strung along for several more months. EA agent is useless and seems to have no idea of the vendors current position, what happened to the house they had offered on in July or whether they were aware vendor was planning on moving in with family instead.

molerat

Start making enquiries about other properties with the current estate agent - they may then have a word with the vendor.

propertyrental

This is not unusual. Often happens. As you've identified, you can

* wait patiently

* Walk away

* quietly start looking at other properties

* start looking at other properties and let the EA/vendors know what you are doing

limepanda

thanks both - problem is vendor is still not answering the agents calls, seems another red flag to me at this point 

propertyrental

limepanda said:

thanks both - problem is vendor is still not answering the agents calls, seems another red flag to me at this point 

Only you can decide if this red flag warrants walking away. How much do you like the property? How unique is it? How much of a rush are you in?

limepanda

propertyrental said:

limepanda said:

thanks both - problem is vendor is still not answering the agents calls, seems another red flag to me at this point 

Only you can decide if this red flag warrants walking away. How much do you like the property? How unique is it? How much of a rush are you in?

We love the property and haven’t seen anything nice or similar since we offered. We’re living in temporary accommodation whilst waiting for this to go through and have most of our belongings in storage. We don’t have any pressures to move immediately from landlords etc but we also want to get a move on because the current living situation is not ideal and costing us money. but as said, if this all falls apart in three months time we won’t have time to find and complete on a new place before stamp duty changes come into effect next year. 

silvercar

My son was in the exact same position. There was nothing else that caught his eye so he had no option but to wait. In the end his mortgage offer expired, so he had to get a new mortgage offer on the same property. He lost out on a decent rate and is now paying more per month than he would have done if the sellers had moved out when they originally said. Unfortunately, that is risk with the current house buying process in England.

Albermarle

Welcome to the stressful world of buying ( and selling) houses.
Unfortunately as FTB we weren’t aware that we should have waited to incur any costs until the vendors position was confirmed and proceedable. This wasn’t advised to us and is a lesson we’re now learning the hard way.
Even when everything seems confirmed and proceedable, the deal still quite often falls through ( about a third of the time I think).
Also vendors and buyers being a bit evasive and hard to contact, is not that unusual. People can behave strangely and/or may have other problems on their plate ( divorce, illness etc )

As suggested just leave the offer on the table, but do not spend any more money. Make sure the agent knows you are looking around at other properties.

twopenny

Yes look at other properties with the current EA. You can also explain that you are doing this because you don't want your mortgage offer to expire at the current rates and before the Stamp Duty changes.

Frankly that's a fair bit even without your living expenses so I'd stick to that.

Be a little sorrowful and reasonable and the info should get back to the vendor and encourage him to get moving.

You may also feel better by doing something positive.

End of the year is when a lot of properties on the market reduce their price if they haven't sold quickly enough and actually looking around a property is much better than browsing pictures.

silvercar

twopenny said:

Yes look at other properties with the current EA. You can also explain that you are doing this because you don't want your mortgage offer to expire at the current rates and before the Stamp Duty changes.

Frankly that's a fair bit even without your living expenses so I'd stick to that.

Be a little sorrowful and reasonable and the info should get back to the vendor and encourage him to get moving.

You may also feel better by doing something positive.

End of the year is when a lot of properties on the market reduce their price if they haven't sold quickly enough and actually looking around a property is much better than browsing pictures.

Mortgage offers are dependant on the property. So if you find another property it will be a new application that may depend on what is available at the moment.

Myci85

Can completely empathise. FTB here too, and from the point at which we decided we were finally ready to buy in January, it's felt like we're never actually going to get there. Missed out on a house we'd seen and loved by a few days whilst waiting for our rubbish mortgage broker to put through a MIP. Offered on house no 2 in March but due to issues with single skin brick wall on the kitchen, added to my partner's work being fixed term contracts, we couldn't find a lender who would lend on it so had to pull out in April. Offered on house no 3 in May, vendors v keen to move, and they offered the following week on a place. They ended up pulling out of 2 properties and they're now on property 3 and *fingers crossed* it looks like we might complete end of September. 

I think in your position I would definitely start looking at other properties without pulling out. If you find something you think you could go for, that's the time to make the decision. In the meantime if you can pass on to the vendor that you can't wait around much longer for them to decide what they're doing, due to the reasons you've mentioned, and that may show how keen they are for the sale to not fall through.