Is this normal when making an offer on House?

Interesting conversation with the manager - perhaps the seller has been kidnapped and held to ransom by another member of the family!

It's nothing to regret that you've withdrawn: You've strengthened your position and you can still be in the game if you want, but with a stronger hand price wise, if not in respect of getting them to move more quickly.

The problem I see with your timetable to move quickly - within weeks - is that it puts massive pressure on you - hence the almost panicking thinking talking to the manager could conjure up something to bring it about - which may be unrealistic with the family situation as far as it appears - and costly; it would give away your power and advantage and put you on the back foot again. You could be strung along for months while the family wrangles and still not get the quick move you are desperate for.

Normally buying a house takes a few months, not weeks, and trying to force it, though sometimes achievable, may make you make a hasty and ultimately not the right decision for you. That's the bigger danger. It's the most important purchase of your life. Can you instead consider a temporary solution, such as extending your existing tenancy or getting a new short-term month by month rental or staying with family or friend temporarily so that you are not making this important purchase under time pressure and have time to find a suitable property and straightforward sale by someone who isn't messing about and doing a disappearing act?

Walk away from this one and find another

It looks like at least one owner/seller isn't motivated to sell. They might be trying to raise a mortgage to buy it themselves or trying to bully a sibling to give them their share or let them live there. One owner might want to rent it out/buy it as buy to let. Someone might be challenging the will.

Just because you are a very motivated buyer you can't change an unmotivated seller. Stop romanticising this house as if its meant to ge and move on to looking at others.

Go on right move before you miss out on something else. We tried to buy a house in probate, cost us a lot in surveys and one of the siblings then pulled the plug again. The EA barred him.

They had a nice savings pot from renting out their house and living rent free which annoyed him no end. Ain't karma great 😂

It is possible to get the courts to force a sale to complete the estate distribution.

It'll be family squabbles/greed. Someone I met had been left half her mother's bungalow. Her brother put every block in the way to stop it being sold. They eventually moved in, letting their own house out. Which annoyed him no end. It was two years before he finally agreed to put it on the market.

It sounds like they’d be messing you about for months so I would look for something else seeing as you are in a rush.

either party can pull out up to the point contracts are exchanged (and even after that point but they will lose their deposit).

keep all your options open.

My advice is keep looking! When you get people who mess around like this they will mess you around with everything. They can't be that motivated to sell if they are doing this.

When I was looking 7 years ago we found one we liked but they wanted way too much money. I made a fair offer and explained why I was making that offer and backed it up with similar sold prices in the area. They declined. Fair enough. 3 months later they called me back and told me they would accept my offer now. I had already found a better house. They ended up selling for less than I offered.

The right house will come along soon enough, buying a house is a game to play with your head not heart.

Probate sales can be a nightmare.

We offered £5k under asking price on one (because the rear parking area doesn’t have a dropped kerb so isn’t actually extra parking as advertised) and it took them three weeks to come back to us to reject it. Apparently there was rounds and rounds of discussions between the multiple executors about accepting or not.

Then they came back to us four months later to say “actually, we’ll take that” and seemed genuinely surprised that we had bought something else some then!

I would always avoid probate sales now

Agree with others OP, you need to look elsewhere. There might be somewhere you love even more just about to come on the market (with more straight forward sellers!).

They might still come back to you, but you'll have to make peace with it either way.
Good luck in your search!

Yes it's kind of crazy on the sellers part! They were lucky that we were at the start of our search so we were still looking when they came back to us. Especially since we'd actually offered on 2 other houses in the meantime!

We offered below asking on a house that was being rented, they just rejected and said that they wouldn't take below asking which we couldn't afford. They came back to us 3 months later when the tenancy had finished and they still hadn't had any offers, to ask if we were still interested. We re-viewed and ended up buying it for around £10k more than our original offer but still around £30k less than their asking price!

PS
The housing market is very wobbly at the moment. in their shoes I wouldn’t delay. Houses around us are down about 15% on 2 years ago and as more mortgages come up for renewal and families face triple or quadruple the borrowing rate compared with a few years ago, the need to sell will be urgent. It’s a buyer’s market.

It sounds like your offer is on a probate sale. If there is IHT due, they will have to pay IHT to get probate before they can distribute the estate, so unless they have a lot of cash of their own, they will have to borrow from the bank to pay inheritance tax, then reimburse themselves later.

Well I guess it’s after 4, did you hear back?

My thought exactly. And there will be other houses. We had an offer rejected before finding our house. We ended up looking in a completely different area that I much prefer, so it worked out really well. And the other house took a further six months to find a buyer and sold for what we offered!