Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Pressure from house sellers

58 replies

Roadtrippingroundgreece · 04/11/2025 15:27

For context, I put an offer on a house bank holiday weekend August. I then found out that it had an estate management and rent charge attached and naturally wanted to review the pack before committing to searches (this definitely would have affected my offer).

The pack only came back last week and my solicitor hasn’t had a chance to review it yet. I am now being asked to complete by first week of December or the purchase will fall through. Apparently the sellers onward chain are developers and putting pressure on them.

Am I being slow/unreasonable or is this a bit unreasonable? I didn’t expect it to have turned around in three months to be honest!

OP posts:
Praying4Peace · 04/11/2025 16:25

Goodadvice1980 · 04/11/2025 16:14

Don’t be pushed around, this is a well known tactic from those above in the chain.

Is the property leasehold or freehold? Will the charges rise by an unspecified percentage each year? Be interesting to look at previous years charges.

This, I had similar experience with my sale and purchase earlier this year.
You 100pc need to know about the additional maintenance /rent charges before you proceed as would any other buyer

Anonomoso · 04/11/2025 16:23

Again....can see both sides.

But the seller has the right to keep the house on the market until they've found a buyer that they feel is fully committed, which is something that they should have done.

FuzzyWolf · 04/11/2025 16:17

I can see both sides here but think three months without a big chain on either side is reasonable. If I was the seller, I wouldn’t think you were taking things seriously given you haven’t instigated searches. I would be giving you a deadline as well.

Goodadvice1980 · 04/11/2025 16:14

Don’t be pushed around, this is a well known tactic from those above in the chain.

Is the property leasehold or freehold? Will the charges rise by an unspecified percentage each year? Be interesting to look at previous years charges.

Original poster
Roadtrippingroundgreece · 04/11/2025 15:54

@LuigiGhostDog to be clear, I have chased across the last month - including multiple phone calls with the estate agent. The sellers weren’t even aware they needed to provide a pack, only once I called their estate agent to ask.

In terms of completing, a more realistic timeline I assumed was end of December to move in January. I am flexible. The sellers it seemed had put an offer in on a house with developers before having things fully in order themselves - I would have thought they would have things like the management pack sorted as they are all part of the management company (it is a very small road).

OP posts:
LuigiGhostDog · 04/11/2025 15:52

Yanbu to review it first, you should review absolutely everything. but Yabu to have messed the sellers around by seemingly not chasing things up before now.

I’ll be blunt you’ve absolutely no chance of completing by the 1st week of December, probably not even the last week of December and with the apparent hidden charges with the property, I’d just back out now.

Original poster
Roadtrippingroundgreece · 04/11/2025 15:40

Hello - it only came to light when they sent across forms like the land registry, fittings and contents etc. that there even was an estate management and that’s only because I stuck it in chatGPT - this was beginning of October. It’s then taken them a month to send over the pack.

I’ve had my mortgage offer and engaged the solicitor within the first month, but obviously have been waiting to review the pack. I was annoyed as obviously that would have affected my offer as it does increase the costs firstly and also I wanted a freehold for a reason.

my main ask though is whether it’s reasonable for me to review the pack prior to undertaking searches.

OP posts:
Fountofwisdom · 04/11/2025 15:34

How has it taken 2 months to obtain the pack? That is ridiculous and someone has taken their off the ball. If you haven’t done anything at all since making your offer, there is no way you’re going to complete by the first week of December. You have to get your survey done, and there is a big backlog for surveyors in many parts of the country, and then there are all the searches, questionnaire for the sellers, and all the back and forth that entails after all that, depending on what comes back.

Were you just sitting back for 2 months and not asking the solicitor or EA what was happening?