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Ethical EA behaviour?

7 replies

princeismagic · 27/06/2016 18:26

Ok, that's probably a rhetorical question, but I'll persevere.
We accepted an offer on our property 3 months ago from a couple who had sold their property and we're now in a complete chain of 5 (we're number 3), waiting on an exchange of contract date. Just been informed by our EA that our buyer's buyer has today missed a deadline to submit a mortgage in principal offer. As our buyer's sale was in place before they even viewed our property, this must be at least 4 months on from them accepting their buyers offer! This is the first we have heard of this.
Our buyer's are selling an expensive (for these parts) property and are using a high-end EA who supposedly vet viewers and, potential buyers to weed out time wasters and so charge 4x as much for their services. Our sellers are using a bog-standard EA and they wouldn't formally accept our offer until we presented a mortgage in principle offer. We did that 3 months ago. I don't understand a) how we're this far along without the offer being in place and b) why we haven't heard about it until this point. Not sure if our EA, their EA or both are at fault in this. Feel we've been misled into selling our property to people whose sale wasn't solid, (we were told they're cash buyer's - downsizing - who had an agreed sale). We've been asked to give them a week's grace to contact people who also made offers on their open house day. Whether those people are still in the market to buy, or would wish to buy post-Brexit, is a whole other issue. I fear our chain is about to fall through and want to know if I can legitimately go ballistic at the EAs. Any opinions, advice, similar horror stories are welcome!

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wowfudge · 27/06/2016 19:11

Your buyers may well be cash buyers, but cash buyers who don't want to buy what would effectively be a second property until theirs was sold?

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CotswoldStrife · 27/06/2016 19:19

Your buyers probably need to sell their house - cash buyer means they don't need a mortgage, not that they have all the funds sitting in a bank account already. They sound as if they are downsizing so will have enough after the sale of their house to buy yours.

The buyer's buyer's mortgage offer could have run out - they are valid for 6 months usually so if you've been waiting for 3 or 4 already time is ticking on.

Hope the chain holds up OK - it is incredibly stressful!

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eurochick · 27/06/2016 19:19

Cash buyers can be in a chain. It just means they don't need a mortgage themselves.

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princeismagic · 27/06/2016 20:00

Thanks for quick replies. Yes, my understanding is that they need to sell their property to be a cash buyer. I mentioned it in the sense that we didn't have to see their mortgage offer to accept their offer - we were just told they were sold STC and would be paying cash. I'm struggling to understand how they could be sold STC when their buyer apparently doesn't have a mortgage offer in place, when we had to provide that proof to our vendors right at the start of the process, and our buyer's are with a supposedly very strict EA for this sort of thing. I hadn't considered that the mortgage offer could have expired, which may be the reason for this. Hopefully they'll get an alternative buyer in place soon.

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princeismagic · 27/06/2016 20:14

Just spoke more with DH about it, as he took the call from the EA. Apparently it's a family purchase (parents and adult children). The son has been turned down for the mortgage, so the daughter was applying and her getting back to our buyer's EA was today's deadline. So seems that no mortgage offer was in place, despite our EA and our vendors EA being in touch with our buyer's EA to ensure their buyer's offer was sound. Sorry for the drip feed!

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bilbodog · 27/06/2016 20:34

You are sold subject to contract as soon as an offer has been accepted and the property is taken off the market - doesnt mean any more than that. EAs can qualify as much as possible but even with a mortgage in principal that is not the formal mortgage offer which is required to complete the sale.

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princeismagic · 27/06/2016 20:48

Thanks bilbodog. That would make perfect sense - they had the offer in principal but didn't get it in practice, so the EAs have done all they could. Sorry to be so dense! Have bought properties before but directly from developers, so dealing with chains is completely new to us and so stressed at the moment I can't think straight. How anyone ever actually moves house is beyond me.