Selling 100% owned house. 2 cash buyers. Solicitors fees

captrico

I'm selling my house which was left to me by my late parents.  I have a solicitor and the house has 2 potential buyers who are offering cash at the agreed price.  Is there anything I can do to prevent the buyer changing their mind after the solicitor has already started the conveyance and is billing me accordingly?  This happened once and now I'm £600 out of pocket because their lender didn't ask about a PRC for the house, which it doesn't have as its a Lilleshall non traditional build.  So the lender could of asked about that BEFORE the solicitor was even required at that stage, and their lack of checking off boxes cost me £600.  Now I have 2 buyers, both cash in hand who want the place after viewing it 1 time with the agent.   I would like some sort of assurance the buyer isn't going to get cold feet later on after the conveyance is started again and I'm left with another solicitor bill for wasted time.   I suggested a non refundable deposit but the agent thinks it would be complicated and require yet more solicitor fees to draw it up.     What can I do to weed out any idiot buyers who think they want a place, and then decide halfway through they don't like something or think it's worth less and try haggling a new deal ?   It's not an expensive home, £170k and big mature garden on a big lot. 1/4 acre.    Potentially every buyer could be a pull out and the solicitor fees will just keep piling up.  

Any thoughts  appreciated.   

Slinky

Have you made the potential purchasers aware it's non standard construction?  

We had a couple of things which may have put people off our house, boiler with no Corgi certificate, and a buildover agreement for our extension, which we made our estate agent tell all viewers about so there was no danger of them getting cold feet about them.

lfc321

If they are cash buyers then at least there isn't a lender to object to non-standard construction.

But I don't think there is a lot you can do to mitigate your risks here: things may come up during the process (e.g. from the survey, local searches, land registry records etc etc) that might make your buyers back out. That's a risk with all house sales. I personally wouldn't be keen to hand over a non-returnable deposit prior to survey and conveyancing - I might even think you asking for one indicates that there is something problematic that is going to turn up.

Like Slinky, I think I would make sure they are aware of the non-standard construction so that this doesn't become an issue later.

The good news is that you have two cash buyers interested, so the house is obviously desirable at the price you are asking. If one falls through, the other may still be interested.

captrico

Yeah, they are all aw are of the build construction.  No hidden surprises.   But im not keen on solicitors being involved until the buyer has looked the place over thoroughly and/or a survey is done.  Cash buyers don't need a survey but if it was me I'd ask to look at the place again, get in the loft, ask questions.   Boilers new and serviced, etc.   Seems the buyers are just jumping in with cash after 1 viewing and that concerns me for potential hiccups later on.  The "oh I didn't realise it was so windy around here" sort of things, and then they pull out and I'm !!!!!! away more £. 

jbrassy

When you sell a house, you are going to need to engage a solicitor straight away once a sale price is agreed. This is because you will need to complete legal society forms (like TA6). Theoretically you could just not fill out those forms, but that would be a red flag to a pot of buyers. Further, when you correspond with the sellers, it's also worth running it past a solicitor to ensure you're not mistakenly saying something misleading.

Also, just because someone is a cash buyer, it doesn't mean they won't get a survey. Ultimately they are paying £170,000 for the house. Most people will want to ensure it's all maintained as they expect. 

Buyers can pull out at any time before exchange and you always run the risk of having to fork out legal costs in this case. You could get a no sale no fee solicitor, but I personally wouldn't use them as they're incentives aren't necessarily aligned with yours. You can also get insurance to cover legal fees if sales fall through, but again this costs money.

At the end of the day, you lost £600, but you stand to gain £170,000 for basically doing nothing. You're pretty lucky.

ThisIsWeird

Are there any conveyancers who'll not charge if it falls through, thro' no fault of your own?
We had one a few years back, recommended by the EA (I know...), when the one we wanted to use turned out to taken by the vendor. We suspected summat fishy with the sale in any case, and so it turned out to be - we were being played in order to get another buyer to move on the house.
At least we had no conveyancer fees...

GDB2222

jbrassy said:

When you sell a house, you are going to need to engage a solicitor straight away once a sale price is agreed. This is because you will need to complete legal society forms (like TA6). Theoretically you could just not fill out those forms, but that would be a red flag to a pot of buyers. Further, when you correspond with the sellers, it's also worth running it past a solicitor to ensure you're not mistakenly saying something misleading.

Also, just because someone is a cash buyer, it doesn't mean they won't get a survey. Ultimately they are paying £170,000 for the house. Most people will want to ensure it's all maintained as they expect. 

Buyers can pull out at any time before exchange and you always run the risk of having to fork out legal costs in this case. You could get a no sale no fee solicitor, but I personally wouldn't use them as they're incentives aren't necessarily aligned with yours. You can also get insurance to cover legal fees if sales fall through, but again this costs money.

At the end of the day, you lost £600, but you stand to gain £170,000 for basically doing nothing. You're pretty lucky.

You can just download the forms and get started. They will form part of the contract, so if you want advice on filling them in you will need a solicitor on board.

Maybe, a reasonable course is to instruct the solicitor to do the minimum amount of work until the buyer has completed any surveys. Or, indeed, to ask the buyers to get their survey done before you instruct you accept their offer. 

If you have two buyers, how about an old fashioned contract race?!

Albermarle

If they are cash buyers then at least there isn't a lender to object to non-standard construction.

'If' being a key word here. You see situations on this forum where a cash buyer turns out to be not one in reality.
Are they also both really able to move quickly ( and not just saying so ) .
I would get the EA to double check again the credentials of both buyers, before going with one or the other.

Mr.Generous

Just be careful trying to impose conditions or demands on the buyer, the only time I've pulled out when buying to renovate is when the seller did exactly this. The agent wanted proof of funds before I could view. Did that, viewed, offered, and accepted. Then the vendor started stating various conditions of what they would or wouldn't do until I completed each stage - like suggested above, they won't appoint a solicitor until ... etc. As a cash buyer with no survey, no mortgage to arrange what did they think I'd be doing apart from instructing a solicitor? During the enevitable delay where the agent was back and too between myself and the vendor a similar property came on the market and I bought that instead. About a month later the agent came back and said the seller will relax the conditions - too late.

horsewithnoname

I would have put it being of non standard construction in the initial ad, saves everyone wasting their time then. 

chanz4

cash buyers can be pains down the line, as think hold all the cards and gazump