Breaking chain - probate and mortgage offer expiring

ecb271

We are currently in the process of selling our flat to first time buyers. Their mortgage offer expires soon (end of November) and they cannot extend it due to a change in financial circumstances. We are in a chain with two other properties - the sellers of the house we are hoping to buy are purchasing a probate property. We have now passed the 16 week expected period for probate to be granted and although we are told it is 'imminent', there is of course no way of guaranteeing this / expediting it etc.

We are now in a position where we feel we either have to accept the chain will likely collapse or we agree to break the chain, at significant risk / cost / inconvenience. Any advice on how we make this decision would be much appreciated.

- We have the option to stay with family but feel like this is only a very temporary solution. We have a young child and have arranged for them to start at a new nursery which ties us to the area we are moving to. We expect if we rent somewhere we will have to commit to 6 months and there is not much available close to the new house / nursery.
- It took 2.5 months for us to find a buyer (mid 2024) and we had no other offers, despite many viewings. We are nervous to lose this buyer, even though they have been quite demanding (including recently asking for a price reduction).
- We've looked and there aren't any other comparable houses to the one we are purchasing on the market at the moment, it seems the market remains fairly quiet.
- The people we are buying from have said no to moving temporarily themselves. They are happy to move at the end of November and are just relying on probate being granted soon.

RAS

You might want to get your solicitor to ask the seller's solicitor find out the date probate was applied for and whether this was electronically or paper.

And whether the Probate Office have come back with any queries. 

Applications made electronically with no queries are moving reasonably fast now. There have been monthly analyses on the death and probate forum.

Ksw3

Definitely find out what the hold up is. We bought a house going through probate and it was to be issued any day now, turns out a long lost daughter lodged an appeal with the probate service and it took 6 months for it to be resolved!

ecb271

Thank you both, it's been difficult to get any information because we don't have any direct link to the solicitor for the probate property but we will try again with these specific questions and see what we learn.

eddddy

ecb271 said:

Their mortgage offer expires soon (end of November) and they cannot extend it due to a change in financial circumstances. 

As an aside, if their financial circumstances have changed (or are due to change), the t&cs of their mortgage offer probably say they need to tell their mortgage lender - who might reassess their application or even withdraw their mortgage offer.

And/or, if they mention the change in their financial circumstances to their solicitor, the solicitor is probably duty bound to tell the mortgage lender.


But I guess that's a matter for their conscience  rather than yours. Although if their mortgage lender does a final check and discovers the issue between exchange and completion, that could be tricky for everyone.

ecb271

eddddy said:

But I guess that's a matter for their conscience  rather than yours. Although if their mortgage lender does a final check and discovers the issue between exchange and completion, that could be tricky for everyone.

Thanks - it's good to be aware of this. We don't know the details of their change in circumstances (or who the lender is), so we just have to hope there's nothing significant enough to prevent the sale.

ecb271

An update - a few days after we exchanged on our flat, the seller of the house we are trying to buy pulled out of their purchase (probate property). They've found a new place but we are back to the beginning waiting on their new searches and survey.