To be very annoyed and upset about this RE: house sale?

[b1uebells]

Maybe IABU and am too emotionally involved in it all to see the situation clearly. We are having to move house ( not my personal choice but due to financial issues ( some of which I didn't know about till some months ago).

We had an offer on ours we accepted ( cash buyers - no chain. This was great for us as we need to move in august due to my job and the mortgage - it will affect the no. of years we can get 1 for due to DH's age etc). The guy made one offer, had a surveyor round the next day and then upped his offer a little bit. We found one ( no chain either) and had our offer accepted. This was back in june. We had all our surveys done etc and filled out all the paperwork for the family buying this ( what we are leaving etc).

Had all our mortgage accepted etc and we thought things were moving along fine.

Last week, we had heard nothing from the people buying this, so we got the solicitor to chase it and they said they had sent everything back to the family a month ago and they'd heard nothing either. I am assuming they contacted them as 2 days later we got a letter through the post with 20 ridiculous questions on it.

Answered all those, sent it back. Had a phone call yesterday from estate agents saying that since they want to extend, they were going to apply for a small mortgage to cover the costs of it and could someone pop round to do an evaluation etc. Even though we were a bit surprised this is all coming out so late we of course said yes.

Someone turns up today and tells me he is doing a valuation of the house, full home buyers survey etc. I've spoken to Dh and he thinks the buyer is going to try and drop the price. Not only does this delay everything, but we can't afford to sell for less ( we already are selling for less than we put it on for).

I am feeling really and :( about all this now. Why leave it so late to do all these things now. We had expected to exchange before now!!

AIBU to feel annoyed and upset? I know these things take time but this guy seems to be taking the p*ss tbh.

Sorry for the long and garbled post, tried to write it all down rather than drip feed over a few posts.

[LadyThumb]

Sounds like normal 'buying/selling' to me. This is the problem with chains, I'm afraid. Buyers are notorious for trying to drop prices at the last minute and then you accept it or pull out of the whole thing. The English system really is a lot of angst and waiting!

[scurryfunge]

It sounds like they told you they were cash buyers but are not (and probably never were). Give them a deadline to complete and start advertising the property again.

[thursday]

no, YANBU to be upset, selling houses is a nightmare. he has, of course, left it this late so that you're under pressure and will accept the inevitable drop in offer price. you dont want to lose the sale now and lose the house you're buying etc. it's shitty behaviour but all part of the game sadly.

[IWantWine]

What everybody else said. I doubt they are cash buyers also. I would contact your agent and see if he has anyone else that would be interested in your house. Anyone else... in a position to buy that is!

[wannaBe]

I think you were unreasonable to have expected to move by august having only accepted an offer in June tbh. The average house sale/purchase takes sixteen weeks to complete in the UK, and a 3rd of sales falls through.

You are not unreasonable to be annoyed at the buyer, but to be honest he hasn't yet dropped the offer, has he? I agree that he probably wasn't a cash buyer from the start, but there's really no way of knowing that.

I would just wait and see.

Fwiw I accepted an offer on my house on the 19th of March, we are moving on Friday. And our buyer really did mess us about.

[Northernlurker]

YOur estate agent should have asked to see proof of funds when the offer was accepted. We had a cash buyer and our agent did that. Have you asked yours about that?

Just hold your nerve - it isn't all over yet and at least you know your buyer has sunk some cash in to the sale - they will have had to pay for these surveys.

Wannabe - I don't think the op was being unrealistic. We moved in 7 weeks and I have heard of it being done even quicker.

[Imnotaslimjim]

you must be stressed to the hilt! I would just hang fire for now though and see what happens

And as to wanting to move so quickly - when we bought our house 9 years ago, we made the offer in the last week of May and we're living there by the 2nd week of July, so it can be done if you're solicitors are on the ball

[LineRunner]

Your estate agent sounds useless. Some, I am convinced, collude with buyers and sellers to drop and raise prices.

It might help if you make the estate agent understand [even if it is not the case] that you are prepared to sell the house through other means.

DON'T ever say to the estate agent 'But what will we do if it all goes tits up?! Aaaagh!'. Instead, say things casually like, 'It's so comforting knowing that we have my mother's little cottage to live in when we sell, while we carry on looking to buy.' [Or other assorted bullshit].

Like Northernlurker says, hold your nerve.

[wannaBe]

no it is not unheard of but it is definitely not the norm since the average completion time is sixteen weeks, which implies that some completion times are a lot longer than that

[b1uebells]

Apologies, I think I must have misled you about estate agent - our estate agent has been totally fab :) and he did check out the guy and his finances etc and he is indeed a cash buyer. He needs an extra £60,000 to add a 2 storey extension to the house.

[paddypoopants]

Why do you think they are going to drop the price? If they want any sort of mortgage the lender is going to want a survey done on the house. The delay could just be because the mortgage lender hasn't got their arse in gear to get their surveyor out- we had to chase up our mortgage lender for everything as they were so busy. Don't panic yet - it might all still happen.

[LIZS]

Sounds about par for the course I'm afraid, be wary of your "cash" buyer though. The mortgage will be against the property as it stands , not any future development, which would need pp etc although he presumably wants to know how much it might add to current valuation. Have others nearby been similarly extended ?

[b1uebells]

We've discussed it and have decided that if he asks to drop we'll pull out all together. Not sure if that is best decision but financially if he dropped anything more than £1000 it would be impossible for us to accept and we'll sell to someone else or stay here a bit longer ( not sure how we'd manage but we would have to find a way)

[LineRunner]

Does your house have planning permission for a two-storey extension?

[b1uebells]

No idea - we haven't applied for any and don't suppose he could till he's actually moved in!

[valiumredhead]

It's stressful but try not to worry. We did similar when we bought and had to apply for a small mortgage to cover the cost of doing up the house.

[LIZS]

You can apply for pp on a property you don't own - takes a while though.

[Chandon]

they are effing you around.

Some people see this as "clever".

Start getting viewers in again.

if you have the guts, tell your estate agent to tell this buyer you have had an offer from someone else for the same amount they offered, and you need them to make up their mind asap. It's all a hardball game, sadly...

[Chandon]

Tell the estate agent it is "friends of friends". the estate agent will then push the other people, as that's the only way he'd get his commission.

[b1uebells]

Would we be allowed to Market again so far down the line? I don't know if the estate agent has much, if anything to do with it now we're heading towards exchange. I haven't spoken to the estate agent we're buying a house from since offer was accepted and it all got handed to the solicitors.

[MerylStrop]

Call their bluff - if you possibly can
They have misled you or are trying it on

[ZonkedOut]

It's all part of the mess that is house buying in this country, I'm afraid.

We had something similar, we were cash buyers and needed to move by a certain date due to needing to be out of our rented house. It dragged on and on, and we were afraid the sellers were going to ask for more money at the last minute. It turned out, it was their solicitors holding things up for no apparent reason. In the end, it all came together in a rush - they phoned on a Wednesday asking if we could complete (not just exchange) on that Friday - we actually did it a week after.

[Markandkark]

We had a very similar thing happen, our buyers kept delaying exchange, when they knew we had reserved a new-build and had to exchange on that by a certain date. We became very suspicious, as did our estate agent, and were right to be so, as they came back with a offer £20, 000 lower! I told them the deal was off, and went and took the "sale agreed" sign down. The estate agent aggressively marketed it, and we got another offer within2 weeks. The newbuild fortunately gave us some leeway.
The estate agent said the family who gazundered us contacted him just after he had secured the new arrangement, wanting to see if we had reconsidered their offer. It gave him great pleasure to tell them that we we were back under offer, for £5,000 more than their original offer!
The sale went through fine eventually, but I was very stressed about the original buyers. Cheeky sods.