To want to send an angry email to our house buyer after he pulled out days before exchange

I'm looking at the minute and saw one like that the other day. Scrolled straight past

No he shouldn’t. That happens on exchange of contracts.

People don't just pull out for no reason. Circumstances change and it's not a decision he will have taken lightly. With all due respect, the inconvenience it has caused you is none of his concern. For all you know he may have had similar happen to him, and therefore now can't proceed. If you lose your dream house, you'll probably be causing inconvenience to someone else. That wouldn't be your fault, and hopefully for you you won't receive a snotty email guilt tripping you if it does. Life does not revolve around you and what is convenient for your family.

You are not unreasonable to be feeling upset and annoyed at the sale falling through. You would be very unreasonable to let the buyer know how much they have inconvenienced you, without a second thought to what might be going on in their life to have made the sale fall through.

Welcome to the stressful world of buying and selling. It sucks, but what you are experiencing can and does happen for all manner of reasons. Your annoyance at the buyer is is completely misplaced.

But it all seems to take such a long time, whereas in other countries it happens much more quickly.

As for exchanging and completing on the same day - that's just insane.

The house we are in now took 13 months. We were renting, the people we were buying off were buying from people who were dragging thier feet finding somewhere, but they made it very clear that they wanted that house so if we didn’t want to wait, we could bugger off. Then they held up solicitors with stupid things like they “couldn’t remember” if they had built the extention.

We didn’t have a choice as it was the only house of the right size we could afford in a 25 mile radius (having already moved 150 miles here a year prior as we were priced out of renting in the SE), and it was cheaper than the others as it was a dump that needed work. It turned out well for us in the end though as the market went crazy here in that year and the value rose 30k in those 13 months (and obviously, we paid the agreed price,I have to point this out as the amount of people who thought we would have had to have paid more money is staggering!).

if we hadn’t held on for this house, we would have been entirely priced out of the market here so we had no choice but to wait. 4 years later and we are in the position that we would never have been able to afford our own house if we’d been buying now, prices here have risen so much, so we were lucky, even though it was a ballache.

Why can't a deposit be made so that nobody can back out as and when they like???

get over yourself. It’s one of the most expensive purchases someone may make, of course they should be able to pull out if they have concerns. They haven’t done anything wrong.

I don't blame them. You could have exchanged while out of town. They must have thought you are not taking this seriously.
Maybe you should write an email to yourself.

So let's say you send your angry email. Then you find out that his mother died or his wife had a terminal diagnosis or he'd been made redundant.
How would you feel?
By all means ask the estate agent and if it turns out it was because the solicitors took too long or something then turn your anger on them.

@CallItLoneliness so buyers pay for a survey, find there is an issue, pull out and are out of pocket?

Why on earth didn’t you exchange and complete as soon as you were back? That’s just weird.

Normal timescale but once queries are done, then a completion date is agreed and exchange can take place. Normal gap between exchange and completion is 2 weeks ish to give people time to do the admin of finalising removals etc.

Exchange is the clear promise of the transaction and 10% deposit paid, completion finalises the transfer of ownership and all monies are paid.

until exchange has taken place anyone can pull out of the process.

Sounds like you were less than helpful and your buyer got fed up and cut their losses.

And there is no "system" for buying/selling houses. It's sale by private contract, which can be anything you wish, but normally is based on a fairly standard template.

If you want to sell your house to a specific schedule date you can always auction it.

We accepted an offer from a cash buyer in Feb, we have no chain and even with both sides pushing we only completed last week!

The process is just SO slow here. If we had an onward purchase or they weren’t a cash buyer, I dread to think how long it would take. If more complicated sales are taking several months or more, it’s easy to see how it goes wrong. Life carries on.

Sorry to hear it OP, it’s really disheartening.

You didn't do what he wanted, so he didn't do what you wanted.

Houses are not sold until contracts are exchanged - even then buyers can pull out but there are normally severe financial penalties for doing so.

Our estate agent did take a £2,000 deposit from the buyer when we accepted their offer. So some companies do take a deposit to ensure they are serious.

Jesus! I would run a mile from that, anything can happen!

Nice little earner for the estate agent - taking deposits and then presumably keeping the interest!

Write the email for your own catharsis but don't send it.

This system is so broken. Why can't a deposit be made so that nobody can back out as and when they like???

Well that would have happened at exchange.

It happened to me back in the Nineties. Unfortunately it’s really shitty but it happens. Hopefully you can find a new buyer. Statistics show that a third of house sales fall through. We have a horrible long drawn out process in the UK and it’s awful for everyone involved. I guess he must be feeling bad about letting you down and understandably you want to vent your frustration but it changes nothing. Onwards and upwards x

No wonder you're fed up with it all. It's so stressful, we've discussed that we are out growing ours but that fills me with dread especially if you find a house you love.

We've bought a few properties but never been in a chain (we've never been selling anything and we have always bought probate properties). I always think how incredibly stressful it sounds. Hopefully you find a new buyer soon.

Why are people still berating the OP for "not understanding" the difference between exchange and completion? She made it very clear the buyer asked to do both on the same day and it was impossible for them, as many sellers, particularly with small children, would also find.

(In my experience, it's also a common request from a buyer who intends to gazunder at the last minute, so I stand by my original comment that this buyer may well have been a timewaster anyway.)

Hope your viewing goes well @Parkingbird and that you manage to salvage your onward move.

Our house now was leasehold so I get you completely it takes bloody ages to sort out!!

I agree, it is a shit system. So far, we have accepted 5 "offers" on our house. All pulled out for one reason or another. One didn't actually have the money (so why offer? Makes no sense to me!) one decided instead to move abroad, one just...vanished. Currently have another buyer but have zero faith it will actually happen. Fucked off with the whole thing.

Sorry op some people are being horrible on here. Like they wouldn’t be annoyed if it happened to them 🙄.
yes you can’t send an email, but our property procedures are absolute bonkers. You can see why they say house selling is the most stressful thing you can do!!! Hopefully your next viewing is successful.