Cut our losses?

LDR_2

Running_Horse wrote: »

Why would you care who buys your house?

Just get the damned thing sold and get on with your life..

That's what we are trying to do now.

We get on very well with our neighbours and wanted to see another family in our house rather than see it rented out. However, I now know that's being naive and overly sentimental.

Davesnave

We get on very well with our neighbours and wanted to see another family in our house rather than see it rented out. However, I now know that's being naive and overly sentimental.

No, it's called having principles. Some people on here would sell their granny!

LDR_2

We'll it's now close to the end of the month and we still haven't had any movement.

I spoke to my solicitor who said that the estate agent's behaviour was disgraceful in regard to the avoiding stamp duty issue. He suggested we change estates agents. However, we know the buyer wants our property badly and the offer we have accepted from her is much higher than anything we would get in today's climate. In theory, we should be exchanging as soon as the lender approves her mortgage offer.

My solicitor also hasn't had any replies to any of his letters to the buyer's solicitor. The estate agent could only give him the buyer's solicitor fax number and of course, there have been no replies to my solicitor's faxes either. In fact, no contact at all between the solicitors.

To recap we accepted an offer before Christmas from a buyer with no chain. She still hasn't had her mortgage offer approved and there doesn't appear to be anything we can do. This whole situation is incredibly stressful and has had my Good Lady Wife in tears.

Arghh!!! :mad:

clutton_2

""She still hasn't had her mortgage offer approved" - no mortgage offer takes 4 months !!!!!!!!


""My solicitor also hasn't had any replies to any of his letters to the buyer's solicitor. The estate agent could only give him the buyer's solicitor fax number and of course, there have been no replies to my solicitor's faxes either. In fact, no contact at all between the solicitors.""

i suspect all this is very simple - this buyer simply does not have the credit history nor the deposit money - there is no other reason that a solicitor will not respondto another solicitors letters - i suspect the buyer has instructed her solicitor to not respond as it will cost her money if letters get written on her behalf.

she has had long enough. Sack the estate agents; employ another agent, start again; if your current EA is a member of an organisation - complain if you have the energy, but, move on with this sale.

May to nearly April (next week) is a ridiculous amount of time to still not have a sale.

i would get 3 other EAs to value the house now (it may well have gone down in value in the last 11 months) and choose teh one with the middle figure.

i know this may not be what you want to read - but this EA is NOT helping.

bw

JimmyTheWig

Is the house still on the market? I.e. if someone with an agreed mortgage made you an offer tomorrow would you accept it?
If so, I believe that you can change to a different estate agent for future marketing but keep the existing agent for the existing offer.

That sort of happened to us. We put an offer on a house that was accepted but as we didn't yet have an offer on ours they kept it on the market. Because the estate agent already had our offer they didn't market it aggressively and after a while of us still not getting an offer [took us a long time to get the house tidy enough for anyone to want it!] the owners changed agents. if we had found a buyer for ours then our original offer would have gone through with the original agent. [As it happens they got a new buyer, we got a buyer eventually and we decided to move out of the area for family reasons - so all worked out well in the end.]

I don't see why you can't do the same and get a new agent without jepodising the existing offer. Might also make the original agent more pushy with the other side if they risk loosing their commission!

My concern would be are you paying your solicitor for the work they are currently doing? At what point do you instruct them to stop flogging a dead horse?
If they haven't got a mortgage offer by now then I can't see them getting one. If all they can do iss suggest illegal alternatives I'd be tempted to walk away anyway.
Can you report the estate agent to anyone for passing on this illegal suggestion? Can you get the illegal offer in writing first?

Good luck with it all. It's a very stressful time, especially when things don't seem to go to plan...

tbs624

You're being far too kind to other people, at the expense of your own happiness and a new home.... I've been there, done that, and learnt the lesson. Ditch the Agent, and report them to Trading Standards, Office of Fair Trading whatever. Look at your house afresh, does the paint need tarting up etc, make it look as good as possible and then get the house back on the market - yes, you'll need to get a HIP done. Your solicitor should really have told you that this buyer is a waste of time.

Although it helps smooth the path if you hit it off with your buyer, you're not going to be living next door or sharing your life with them ( are you??) so my suggestion would be to concentrate on who has the money and is able to proceed pronto.IMO Estate Agents make a great deal money out of doing very little - it's up to all of us as paying punters to show them that we expect them to work for their hefty commissions.

LDR_2

Thanks to everyone for your advice. we've decided to take it. We're going to tidy the house up a bit and then try and sell it ourselves. I'm sure I can do just a good a job as an estate agent. All the offers we had were from people we had shown around anyway, not the estate agent.

I spoke to the estate agent yesterday and there was still no update so I told him they have to the end of the week and if there has been no movement we're pulling out.

His exact words were "If you want to blow them out, that's up to you."

I also spoke to our solicitor who despite sending a number of letters and faxes still hasn't heard from the buyer's solicitor so we think it's a lost cause anyway.

Frustrated doesn't even come close to describe this whole experience.

WTF?_2

LDR wrote: »

That's what we are trying to do now.

We get on very well with our neighbours and wanted to see another family in our house rather than see it rented out. However, I now know that's being naive and overly sentimental.

Families don't rent houses then?

LDR_2

!!!!!!? wrote: »

Families don't rent houses then?

The developer was talking about renting the house by room which suggests to me that he wasn't looking to rent to a family.

However, a family could have brought the house and then rented it out the same way too.

Which is why I admitted that I was being naive.

Conrad

LDR

The real issue here is greed. If you priced the property correctly you would have had 'ready to go' buyers snapping at your heals long ago.

You say developers offered 10% less, does'nt that give you a clue?

You obviously consider yourself to be morally superior to the agent, yet you insist on squeezing people for every penny you can get.

I always avoid potential clients comming to me with checklists - a sure sign of a troublesome. finnicky personality type.

I dont mean to be mean, but a bit of reflection might be in order.

And why refer to your Wife as a Good Lady Wife?
What is Bad Lady Wife?