Purchaser failed to complete.

Shineyhappy

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone could please give me some advice.

My partner exchanged on his house in November 2007 and completion was supposed to have been on the 12th of that month. The purchaser is Canadian/English (joint nationality) and has since been unable to complete. My partner agreed to let him have until today to complete as he thought he would be getting the extra interest he was entitled to and with the market being unstable thought it best to wait for this buyer.

But it looks like this man will not be able to ever complete as he is still waiting for his American bonds to sell:mad: .

Originally it was supposed to be a very quick sale and my OH agreed that he would accept only a £2k deposit instead of the £23k which would have been 10%. His solicitor seems unsure as to how we procede as he has never dealt with a failure to complete and the fact he could run back to Canada at any time is very worrying.

If anyone has any ideas, suggestions or advice we would both be very grateful.

Thanks for reading.

notisis

The solicitor would have drawn up the original contract which states what the situation is concerning non completion i.e. deposit forfeited. Usually a contract will state (but not always) the penalty for non completion and even where a deposit of less than 10% is paid usually the full 10% is forfeited. There are prescribed forms on issuing a notice to complete and a number of legal textbooks which tell a solicitor what to do next. I'm sure a solicitor here could tell you what generally happens in England & Wales for non-completion but the terms of the original contract should contain the info required.

Although in essence if the buyer hasn't got the money and skips the country it is going to be hard to recover the money. Go back to the conveyancing solicitor and ask him to refer this to someone more senior in the firm if he/she doesn't know what to do. It may also be wrong advice was given in allowing completion to continue to be delayed until now and possibly you have a claim against the solicitor/firm although obviously I don't know the situation and if you were advised against giving the buyer more time to complete but chose to ignore it. Once you've spoken again with the solicitor/firm and depending on the information you receive I would take a trip to the local CAB for further impartial advice or even another solicitor on fixed fee or free half hour advice.

Good luck.

clutton_2

i would put the house back on the market asap - good luck

Shineyhappy

Thanks guys, the contract did say that he would forfeit the balance of the 10%, but I have no idea how hard that would be if it was through the Canadian courts. I think its supposed to be very straight forward to sue for breach of contract if the buyer was from the UK, but from abroad???

The house will be going on the market tomorrow as we just want this whole nightmare over and done with!

therealdelboy

How much of a deposit has he paid already? Surely you can just keep that

Shineyhappy

therealdelboy wrote: »

How much of a deposit has he paid already? Surely you can just keep that

As I posted, my OH took a 2k deposit as exchange and completition were so close. This does not really cover his expenses (solicitors fees, survey on the property we were going to buy that has since fallen through, bank fees) not to mention the fact his property has been vacant since November and he is still paying a mortgage on it.

He is entitled to 10% of the property price under UK law from what I understand and I was just wondering if anyone had been any ideas because of the possible implications of him running to Canada.