In the middle of selling a house before COVID-19

[Chocolate50]

We had sold our house subject to contract exchange & were looking for a house to move into when covid-19 hit. Anyone else in the middle of moving?

We were just about to exchange on a purchase and sale. I suspect our buyer will pull out after all do this.

Yes me. We were very close to exchange on our sale and purchase.

Whole thing out the window now by the looks of it. This will be the second time my chain has fallen through

Same here. Our buyer was a prick and dropped his offer by over 100k “due to the current market”... but our sellers are desperate to still move so have managed to lower their price a bit to keep the chain going.

Too stressful.

Yep... our buyers seem to still be going ahead but with the house we were buying, the owners have asked we give them a month to see what happens with their jobs.

Yes. Emigrating too. We've got to vacate our house pretty sharpish but can't move to our new country due to the restrictions - nightmare.

Exchanged months ago and 6 weeks from completing on a new build house that has already been delayed twice. Building has now stopped.

@furling which country are you planning on emigrating to? out of interest,

Me too! I'm not as far down the road as some pp's, we'd had surveys etc.done but completion was 8 weeks away. Obviously everything's on hold now until further notice so when we are able to resume everything we'll be around 8 weeks away from completion.

Our buyer was a prick and dropped his offer by over 100k “due to the current market”

If they pulled it off, that sounds like a very shrewd move. Buying and selling houses isn't a polite tea party, it's dog eat dog. Saving over £100K is huge, and if that's on a mortgage, that could translate into about a £300K saving over 25 years.

@1555CC they managed to get 80k off in the end and we ended up getting 60 off our sellers and they got 35 off their sellers so we spread the loss across the chain. However it was the letter that he sent with the offer drop that was the twat move. Saying his money was better spent in the bottoming out stock market. I spoke to a friend who works at the stock exchange and apparently he was trying to play a mugs game. And the way the letter was worded, a week before exchange was due to take place was just properly twatty.

They're not pricks for not wanting to pay more than what the house is worth and things are developing very fast. They'd be mugs if they paid the price agreed before the crisis. The letter was meant to drive the message take it or leave it probably.

We are in the middle of it all too, but thankfully no issues. We aren’t in a chain (first time buyers) and sellers are moving to a new area and want to rent for 6 months. They can’t look for a rental but are moving for work, which starts in July so will live with family if necessary as they want to be out of the house (no job there so currently paying mortgage out of their savings). Only delay so far is they can’t do our mortgage valuation until lockdown is lifted, so waiting for that, but then hoping all will fall into place as we’re all very keen to get it done but it’s also fine if it takes a couple extra months. We want to live in this house for the next 20 years or so, so we can be patient.