I'm having a rant.... We've been waiting since 1st of July since our buyer said that he was happy to pay market price for our house and conveyancing began. This is our first house sale but we've jumped through hoops to arrange for things to be done - viewings and builders to pop over... given him all the white goods in the house so he could move in without needing anything. Neither of us are in a chain.. he rents and we'll be moving to my parents momentarily. He's now received contracts (should have had them week and a half ago) and he hasn't passed these back to his solicitor. Today we started asking questions/chasing and he has now asked the estate agents if he can view the house again with his parents on Friday.. since the plumber he sent over (at the last minute) advised that the house was dirty and cluttered. The house was reasonable - we're packing boxes ready to move out so it was no show home but not anything to shout home about. Do you think we're being unreasonable by considering putting it back on the market? Is this usual? Are we being Gazundered? What is the opinion of Bit-tech? At the moment the estate agent is trying to contact the buyer to find out what is going on. The solicitors are waiting on the buyer. Survey etc has all been completed now. Just the contract and move date to be set
I'll start out saying I've no experience with houses, sales etc.... How come he had a plumber come over in the first place? Was this just to do a general check of the plumbing in the house? Personally I don't think you're being unreasonable at all if everything was agreed verbally and the contact was just the last bit to sort. Wouldn't surprise me at all if he comes out with his parents to vie w again, the parents will suggest he needs to offer less and find a few niggles they want to use against you for price - I know that's the kind of thing my parents would do lol.
Well that's what we don't understand. The house doesn't need any plumbing work. Infact in the last few weeks we've had builders, carper layers and a gas engineer turn up... normally with a days notice to let them in. We presumed he's pricing up for works to be done. Just seems he has his priorities out of check.
Why does he need to pass the contract on to his solicitor, why didn't your solicitor send it directly to his? A strong offer is backed by a solicitor under instruction, cash buyer or a mortgage offer in principal, if he wants a survey or homebuyers he should have booked these by now. If your agent has not informed you at the time of offer whether these things are in place he has a lot to answer for, this type of offer is more likely to be lengthy or trouble. If you think he is a joker you could just tell him to forget it. Fortunately a plumber is not qualified to value the property, I would insist the buyer get serious and instruct a solicitor and arrange a mortgage and survey before discussing the price.
Sorry should have mentioned - we've had his mortgage surveyor round to look who has said the house is worth the value and an assessor for his home buyer report done (took 2 weeks for him to book this) We then heard back from the estate agent that he has been accepted for the mortgage before the solicitor told us. Looks as though he is using a solicitor who is a fair trek from him so he is doing all the paperwork by post. So he is instructing them to do the business - its just taking forever.
Prices are rising at the moment, so I wouldn't worry too much. The seller has the power. If he does start causing trouble, you can threaten to put it back on the market and I'd be surprised if they backed out. Don't forget, they've invested a lot of time and money as well.
As someone who is in the process of buying a house at the moment... believe me it is difficult for the buyer too! I'm just praying that the house I'm trying to buy with my GF isn't suddenly taken away from us after spending so much on surveys! Bear in mind that surveys take ages to book at the moment as the surveying companies are all pretty busy.
We're going to take the majority vote from friends and family.... Prep the house ready for friday but it's going back on the market Monday. If he wants to sign the paperwork and take it further he can.. otherwise we'll look for a new buyer who has the money ready Fortunately for us houses around this area are sought after for young families
Let him know what will happen first, that it's his decision now. Nothing worse than having a surprise with no notice. The current house we are living in was bought earlier this year. Offer agreed in late January, but only after countless solicitor chasing we had the contract exchanged. Near the end, the seller gave us 1 week's notice to exchange, or the house is put back on the market. We pushed our solicitor with strongly worded Emails implying if this doesn't happen by Friday, they should cover any additional fees or rise in house price. Of course they replied imminently denying responsibility but moved quickly afterwards. Your case is different from ours, it’s the buyers that’s dragging this out. What I’d do is to let the estate agent know what will happen, who will forward this onto the buyers. Also get across that you have no intention of lowering the agreed offer price.
Much better position for you to be in, if you started in July and finished now I would say completion in 2 months is actually pretty decent. The buyer has invested time and more importantly money if he has actually done those things which hopefully means he is less likely to just drop it and you should be able to refuse unreasonable demands. Completion tends to roll up on you unexpected and once it goes through you often wonder what you were worried about. Totally agree, if you are not getting any love from your solicitor then tell the agent. Agents are incredibly good at motivating both parties to complete the deal and quickly (in particular an agent will get the willies if a deal is falling through as it usually means not getting paid so they are very persuasive when it comes to moving deals along, conversely a solicitor gets paid either way and are mostly meh), make it clear that you need to know what is going on and you want a timescale for completion, this will go back through official channels to the buyer and hopefully allow him to act promptly.
Spoke to the estate agent who has adviced us to wait and see what tomorrow brings. The EA hes got the impression that guy is bringing his dad to get the final reassurance. Proactively the EA has also said hes put together a folder with things regarding the reservations that the guy is talking about. He's also noted at this point that the buyer has an issue that two of the bedrooms dont have radiators. (its an old house - and nothing has changed over night..) He will call me tomorrow once the buyer has gone. He thinks saying to the guy that we are putting the house back.on the market will be the straw that breaks the camels back and to take a softer approach for now. Guys we'll just see what happens
My parents are going through a bit of a nightmare with a house sale, and it isn't even their house. Last year my grandmother was put into a care home as it was clear she could no longer manage to look after herself after several falls and other issues, she lived alone as my grandfather had passed away the year before. In order to pay for her care she had to sell her house, or more to the point as my Mum and Aunty had power of attorney they had to sort it out. It had an offer on the first viewing, which after a bit of bartering an offer was finally accepted. The buyers made quite a fuss about having stuff done, which my mother and aunt agreed to do in order to sell the house. Then out of the blue the contract needed to be redrawn up as nobody told us that the couple buying the house had split up and it was just a single man then at the point buying the house so he had to make a new mortgage application in his name as opposed to joint names all this happened last month. Currently, earlier this month my grandmother passed away, her funeral was last week, as it stands now the whole estate has gone into probate which has put a freeze on the sale, so at the moment it's a bit of big get stuffed to the buyer who messed my family about at this moment in time. They don't want to loose the sale but it is looking likely I've heard probate can take upto 6 weeks or longer ! I remember when Donna and myself bought our place, if anything it was pretty smooth sailing - there was only one real issue and that was more jitters on the part of Donna, the house had a water meter which the estate agent didn't tell us about. I'm not too bothered by it but she's still not so keen even though we are always in credit. Buying and selling property is probably one of the most stressful things ever to encounter and I feel sorry for anyone who is stuck in the middle of something.
