to expect house sellers to have a moral compass? absolutely fuming

[Itsonthestairs]

We sold our house earlier this year and bought another, our buyer are fabulous and we've had great communication with them throughout the process, the house we purchased fell through after spending around £2000 on solicitors fees and a survey, this was because the vendor didn't have the right planning permissions and refused to rectify it, therefore unmortgagable according to our solicitor (this was 3 months down the line). Obviously we were really upset at not getting the house but also the vendors attitude (its gone straight back onto the market and I suspect some other poor person is going to end up in the same position). Anyway onwards and upwards, our buyers are really understanding an said they will wait so we have been scouring the market.
We viewed one this morning - almost perfect, rang up to ask a couple of questions to be told the property has had an offer excepted already! ok why didn't they cancel our viewing then after me a DH arranged the morning off work to view it? their response was 'the vendors accepting viewing until the survey is done next week' this tells me that an offer must have been accepted weeks ago (its around a 3 week wait at the moment locally to get a survey). I'm fuming not only for us but for the person who has actually bought that house and is paying hundreds on a survey. I would never treat people or buyers of our property in such a shitty way. I know the market is hot right now but come on - AIBU expecting vendors to have some morals?

I could cry reading this. Sold our house on day 4 of it on the market, found a lovely home to move into. We are the only link in the chain. A potential structural issue has arisen in our house- we are getting our own survey done for speed on Tuesday. It will make or break the entire move and keeps us here in a house we hate in a location that's rubbish. I have cried several times this week!

Me and DH are very close to just selling up and jacking in house buying for the foreseeable. We have a lot of cash in the house and we earn well enough to rent a decent house.

The system is sh*t, the laws are crap and I am as fed up as you OP. You don't need to to far to find someone who has had enough with the buying process in England.

It's not just vendors OP, house buying and selling just seem to bring out the worst in many people. We will be looking to downsize a little in due course, and frankly I am dreading it.

£8500 down so far in legal, mortgage and survey fees in 15 months.
Three houses no sale. First withdrawn from the market, second sold to competing tenants, third sold to new cash buyer as process was taking too long. I have also been refused viewings as I am a mortgage buyer and not totally cash! So bad in our town we are thinking of re location to get a fair chance of purchasing.

There's another side to this. We had two buyers pull out of buying our house despite good surveys showing no problems. They just got cold feet. Last time we were selling (2020) our estate agent wanted to continue to show the house until exchange as he said that one in three sales came to nothing, sometimes because the buyers' sale fell through but often for no apparent reason. Personally I would did not allow more viewings and fortunately everything went through.
My DS's sale earlier this year fell through when the buyer tried to get the price reduced for no good reason.
Buyers can be a pain too and I can understand why someone who is desperate to sell might continue to allow viewings, though I would not.

(Sorry about the mis-type: "Personally I would not allow more viewings ....")

And yes, people.often like to talk about never trusting a lawyer but estate agents are equally morally repugnant in my experience

I’m in the process of buying a property and due to my sellers taking a few months to find, plus a probate issue at the top of the chain, I’ve been waiting nearly a year.

The sellers’ estate agent cheerfully told me that if a sale is taking longer than about six months, estate agents tend to advise the sellers to “ditch the buyer” (his wording) and put the property back on the market, as its value is likely to have increased. This estate agent is very friendly and personable, but that was a little reminder that I can’t trust estate agents, sadly.

The vendor is just making sure he has three or four seriously interested parties. There's nothing wrong with that.

When my survey came back, it was full of stuff that needed doing but that wasn't a reason to pull out, just to negotiate the price down to cover the additional costs. I still went ahead.

My purchaser tried to sue me for leaving a stack of logs in the wood shed. What else did she expect in October ? Thankfully there was a clause that said all fuel must be left so she didn't have a leg to stand on, but what a weird thing to do. You don't wave a somicitor's letter at anyone for something so trivial.

People obviously have very different expectations. I can't get too excited about this stuff. Every house I've bought has been dirty. My plan is always to spend the first week cleaning, filling holes, freshening paintwork, replacing curtain rods etc. That's normal.

It isn't a matter of being "allowed" to do a survey. If a buyer has an offer accepted and then finds problems in the survey that cannot be resolved with the buyer, they are perfectly within their rights to pull out.

It's crap. Happened to us 3 times last year, cost us absolutely thousands as the prices were rising and our place was already sold. It took us 9 months to finally find a house that went through and the last place fell through the day before exchange!! We were living with my parents and my baby. Very stressful and there really ought to be more regulation to protect buyers. Hope you find somewhere lovely soon.

It is a nightmare. I've bought and sold two houses and never had anything really bad happen, but the stress of worrying alone, knowing all the ways it could go wrong, was horrendous.

I hate our system. Sometimes I almost can't blame people for acting like twats because the system can reward you for doing it and nobody wants to get fucked over on such a huge purchase.

Even if you "managed" each part of the process, you cannot control how a seller or a buyer behaves.

We were very lucky with our purchase. The vendors had 2 sales fall through (mortgage offers pulled at the last minute). They accepted our offer in principle but wouldn't take it off the market until DH had accepted an offer on his flat. The day he accepted an offer, their house was off the market and viewings were cancelled. We got the survey back a few weeks later, some issues came up but nothing alarming for a house of its age so we didn't bother trying to change our offer. They had some serious issues on the survey for the house they were buying and pulled out. The estate agent told us the same day but reassured us that they were happy to proceed and would move in with a family member then buy to avoid losing the sale. They quickly found a probate property so it wasn't necessary in the end. They left us spare paint in the garage, a bottle of champagne and two pages of details about the house (where to find fuse boxes, the days the bins went, what was planted where in the garden etc). All around it was very respectful exchange. We're dreading our next sale though, what are the chances of being so lucky twice?

I think the system is completely ridiculous.

The buyers will have known the property was being marketed.

The vendor accepted the offer but would have stipulated remains being marketed. Probably because vendor hadn’t got there on the market yet or had an offer. I’d do the same 🤷‍♀️

how come you have been charged mortgage fees?

You only bought 4 months ago? 😐

The system is poor. If buying and selling had tighter constraints - for example, vendors making a "buying pack" and legal requirements on timings - it would benefit everybody

I had a buyer who nearly gave me a breakdown with unreasonable delays and attempts to gazunder though, so there are people who difficult to deal with buying and selling.

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