First time buyers pushing for early completion

ruslara

Our house buyers are first time buyers, they want to take advantage of the property tax discount which expires on 1 April. We accepted this condition when agreed the sale, and were planning to complete no later than 31 March.
Due to the cold winter and illnesses we did not manage to find a suitable house to move into, so decided to rent for the time being.

All of a sudden our buyers now insist on completion date 5 March. The FTB are renting at the moment, and saying they need to give a notice to their landlord. We explained that we need to exchange contracts ASAP to secure a rental property, and they replied that they will if we agree to complete on 21st March. There was nothing suitable available on the rental sites until the 28th March, and this afternoon even those got sold. The rest are available from April.

Whilst we understand that the buyers may want a buffer, that extra 7-10 days might make a big difference to us as we need time to find and secure a suitable rented property. Due to OH’s health condition it has to be a bungalow, and they are very rare in our area. Besides, they get snapped very quickly.

We are hoping to find a house and complete the sale by the end of March or face moving temporarily into storage and an extreme upheaval at our nearly retirement age.

The buyers have been very pushy all the way and asking an awful lot of questions, but not communicating with their solicitor, who has been very slow. This left us little time for our arrangements. Should we agree to the date of 21 March or insist on a week later? Or state it as a loose date, say a week between X and Y dates to be clarified later pending availability of a rental property? How binding is the agreement on the moving date that far ahead? Can it be moved nearer the time to suit us?

Since it is our buyers who are saving a lot of money, should it be them who finds a solution with moving dates? For example, complete on one day and move on another later? Or move into storage etc.

Any ideas how to get around deadlines and moving twice? The removals have quoted an extra 3K for moving into storage before moving into a property, which we cannot afford. We are not in good health but desperately need to move, so cancelling the sale is out of question as we need to be on the ground floor (we currently live on the second). And no, we do not have anybody with a spare room or a spare garage for our belongings, we would need a triple garage for that.

Flugelhorn

you are never going to find the right place and complete by the end of March. 

how much extra stamp duty will they pay? maybe split it with them.

ruslara

Flugelhorn said:

you are never going to find the right place and complete by the end of March. 

how much extra stamp duty will they pay? maybe split it with them.

6.25K more if not completed by the end of March

gazfocus

The only issue I see with you trying to find a rental, is the rental market is crazy at the moment and a landlord is not going to choose a ‘temporary tenant’ over someone that wants to live in the house long term so finding a rental was always going to be difficult but similarly, you’re not going to find a bungalow to purchase and be able to complete by the end of March unless you’re 100% cash and have very motivated sellers and very good solicitors on both sides. Honestly though, seems highly unlikely. 

Storage wise, you could try and find a self storage place and see if your removal guys could quote to take your belongings there instead of storing it themselves…might be cheaper in the short term but then you’d still have to pay for a removal company to move your belongings to a house once you find one. 

Regarding the buyers, they cannot complete on one day and have you move out on a later date. Completing on the purchase needs to be with ‘vacant possession’ meaning you must be out of the house. The only way around this is if the buyers, solicitors AND their mortgage lender agree for you to rent the property for a couple of weeks but given the situation, your buyers don’t seem likely to agree to that and I’m not sure the solicitors or lender would like it either. 

Personally, I think you need to prepare yourselves for the sale falling through BUT try to negotiate a deal with the buyers. I would working out how much extra expense I would have in meeting the buyers deadline and asking for them to cover the costs as ultimately it’s to save them on stamp duty so why should you be out of pocket. Think of things like paying for storage for your possessions and having to stay in temporary accommodation until you find somewhere to rent or buy. If they refuse, simply say you cannot agree a completion date until you have somewhere to move to, but as I say, be prepared for the buyers pulling out. 

newsgroupmonkey_

Their Solicitor needs to explain to them, it's not happening. Stop letting the tail wag the dog.

We were in a similar position. We told the FTB that they would have to wait, as we were waiting for our onwards purchase. There were only the 3 of us in the chain.

[Deleted User]

ruslara said:

Flugelhorn said:

you are never going to find the right place and complete by the end of March. 

how much extra stamp duty will they pay? maybe split it with them.

10K more if not completed by the end of March

£10k extra stamp duty? Are you sure?

ruslara

[Deleted User] said:

ruslara said:

Flugelhorn said:

you are never going to find the right place and complete by the end of March. 

how much extra stamp duty will they pay? maybe split it with them.

10K more if not completed by the end of March

£10k extra stamp duty? Are you sure?

Yep. This is Surrey, and ours is only an apartment. The FTB can't afford a house for 800K down here.

[Deleted User]

ruslara said:

[Deleted User] said:

ruslara said:

Flugelhorn said:

you are never going to find the right place and complete by the end of March. 

how much extra stamp duty will they pay? maybe split it with them.

10K more if not completed by the end of March

£10k extra stamp duty? Are you sure?

Yep. This is Surrey, and ours is only an apartment. The FTB can't afford a house for 800K down here.

I guess I don't understand. Are you talking about the stamp duty increase in April?

[Deleted User]

Basically the stamp duty increase will not add more than £2.5k onto a property. Maybe you're talking about something else?

Hoenir

ruslara said:

The buyers have been very pushy all the way and asking an awful lot of questions, but not communicating with their solicitor, who has been very slow.

If they aren't communicating it's no great surprise ! FTB's rarely understand the full process. Be fair but play hardball. Don't be pushed around. Your own lives are equally as important as their's. 

grumpy_codger

[Deleted User] said:

Basically the stamp duty increase will not add more than £2.5k onto a property.

FTB:

up to 31 March 2025
    no SDLT up to £425,000
    5% SDLT on the portion from £425,001 to £625,000

from 1 April 2025
    no SDLT up to £300,000
    5% SDLT on the portion from £300,001 to £500,000

If the house is  £425K-£500K, the increase is (425-300)*5%=£6.25K, isn't it?

More if the house is more expensive.