To confront sellers who pulled out last minute

What do you want? Money or revenge? You could PM off back of their “joke” and tell them about your costs and situation and ask for money or that you’ll share what they’ve done in the community FB group. We recently pulled out of a purchase, but way earlier than this and I felt terrible and had the seller incurred costs I’d have happily covered. I do also feel embarrassed and wouldn’t want it widely known we did this.

I wouldn't do that and lower myself to their level. They would probably laugh at it anyway. People like that don't give a shit about anyone apart from if it affects them.

Since they’ve brought it to social media, I’d be replying to that comment with

“yeah it’s so funny that you’ve cost first time buyers £xxxx’s and potentially put them at risk of homelessness given they had to put notice to their landlord, since you were aggressively pushing for them to complete with 9 weeks of their offer being accepted. Hilarious (with a eye roll emoji)”

@bellabasset I don't quite understand - were they trying to sell the same house twice to 2 different buyers?

We made an offer on a house and went through tge process if buying, exchanged contracts and were due to move in a week. Thexowners moved into a house opposite my mother and left the keys with her. We moved in and our solicitor phoned up to check we'd moved in as he'd found out that they'd used an estate agent and had morecthan one contract on the house. We'd been lucky as we'd sold our house and had beencable to complete.

I don't think the obligations before and after contract exchange should be the same, otherwise what's the point of the delay between offer and contract exchange, you might as well be railraoded into signing contracts the moment you make an offer. If you pull out after contract exchange don't you lose your 10% deposit? So typically at least £25,000, often £50,000 or more That's a much bigger penalty and disproportionate to the size of the offense. A much lower amount - say £1,500 should be agreed on acceptance of an offer as due from either side in order to ensure people only enter into the process in good faith with full intention of proceeding.

Ahhhhhhhh
I understand your outrage OP but you have no recourse on this.
Sadly, you have no legal rights and this isn't unheard of.

There is no "system" in England.

It's sale by private contract. The "system" can be anything you want it to be. As a seller you can choose to impose a 10% refundable deposit on your buyer if you wish. Whether you can get a buyer who will accept that is another issue.

People complain about "the system" when it works against them. But not when it works for them.

It must always be remembered that before contracts are exchanged, a sale can fall through at any point. After contracts are exchanged then there is a significant penalty.

I would be surprised if a seller could pull out without penalty from an EA so late in the process if they were receiving an asking price offer, but obviously it would depend on the contract they signed with the EA. I don't know what typical EA contracts look like.

It would be hard to come up with any "system" that didn't bias the process in some way, either giving an advantage to the buyer or the seller depending on the particular terms that would be imposed.

Morally this is vile and I'm so sorry for you OP. Legally? No recourse.

Urgh, the conveyancing system in this country is a huge, steaming pile of bumholes, isn’t it?! You have my sympathies on this, OP. Our last house sale was painful.

However, please don’t act on impulse based on your current state of emotions. You won’t get anywhere with this, and you’ll only serve to make yourself look like you need a grippy sock vacation.

Scotland isn't quite as legally binding either as people think, you can still pull out penalty-free until the missives are concluded.
However it's a much quicker process to get to that point, and as everything goes via your solicitor from day one when you submit your offer, it feels a bit more official so people tend to mess about less.
I think having home reports done up front by the seller also helps. I'd imagine a lot of sales in England and Wales all through at the point that the buyers get the survey back.

You have no idea what happened to the sellers
Judgemental comments like yours don't help anyone

@Lemonyslice
"We need to leave our rented flat at the end of December as our tenancy is ending and our landlord wants to sell in the New Year."

Is your tenancy actually ending, or is it the fixed term that is ending? Have you given your landlord notice to end the tenancy? Has your landlord sent you a section 21 notice?

Your tenancy doesn't necessarily end just because the fixed term ends. If the tenancy is not ended or renewed, it automatically becomes periodic. The tenancy won't end until you give notice or until the landlord gets a possession order, which I assume they haven't done.

https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/private_renting/options_when_your_fixed_term_tenancy_ends

" if it was the other way round the buyer would have to pay the seller comp if they pulled out at this stage. "
No they wouldn't
Before exchange there are no contracts, no deposits, either side can pull out with no repercussions
Unless you're in Scotland

Phoned solicitors to confirm exchange and she said "i ve just put the phone down to their solicitor, they ve pulled the sale"

There is zero you can do, you can hardly expect them to continue with the purchase if they no longer want to sell the house? perhaps their chain fell through - not read all the thread.

Shit happens and if your tenancy agreement ends say 31st December, so long as you pay rent, there is little the LL can do, other than evict you via the courts... yes shitty but what else can you do?
So long as he knows its a very short term issue, he may well be understanding.

Pursue how? And on what grounds?

Not in England/Wales
Scotland has some mechanisms including enforced return of deposit plus interest
Although you could ask your solicitor to ask their solicitor for a contribution towards costs, don't get your hopes up
And you can't take them to small claims as before exchanging, they have not breached any contract
It's just tough luck, I'm afraid
In the past, we refused to proceed to exchange after some sellers were a nightmare

I would contact them to ask them how they feel about pulling out and costing you £x amount of money, This happened to us, we lost £2k. And I would pursue them for the money too.

I doubt the landlord would want to extend the lease. It's very difficult to sell with tenants in situ. You have no control over how the property is presented for a viewing and most buyers won't consider it as they worry that the tenants won't vacate. So you achieve a lower sale price.

When we sold a property in Spain the buyers had to put down a deposit of 20% of the value, if they pulled out we kept it and if we pulled out we had to give them double back!!!
Much better system

I've been in this exact situation and it's just awful. They pulled out the day of exchange with completion set to be 3 days later. We had packed up the house and given up our jobs. We were moving 250 miles away. It felt like the end of the world and we lost £7000.

I cannot tell you how much I am glad this happened. Its the best thing that ever happened to me. We live on the same road in a much better house and walk past that house every day. It suffered terrible structural problems only uncovered when the new owners started doing it up. It had to be demolished and rebuilt.

I wanted to stove the sellers heads in when they pulled out but honestly it was worth £7k not to buy that house. And either way, the house we bought is much much better in every way.

This. Focus your efforts on finding a new place to rent. It’s not a bad time of year to do this as lots of other renters don’t chose to move in December . So landlords with a vacancy will be keen to have you.

I had to do this to someone. Circumstances beyond my control. I did feel awful about it!

My buyer was horrible and harassed me with letters and emails. It made me not want to pay anything towards their costs (I also lost my onward costs so didn’t skip away free from it all!)

I would chalk it up to bad experience as legally without insurance you won’t get anywhere. I hope you find something else asap!

It's a shit situation, but as buyers you should always buy insurance protection even if the agreement is on a hand shake. Losing ££s is gut wrenching but you should always have the full protection just in case.
I don't trust anyone so am 100% wary of committing to anything that would mean I would potentially lose money that I'm not prepared to spend.

Yep. This. If you pull out after exchange you can be held responsible for the expenses of others involved. It should be the same once a sale has been agreed and is proceeding, unless there’s a valid reason.