To think there should be some sort of penalty for people who pull out of buying a house for crappy reasons?

[AngeloMysterioso]

DH and I live in a tiny (c. 700 sq ft) 2 bedroom flat. With our three DC- 4, 2 and 3 months. We first put the flat on the market early last summer, got a “cash buyer” pretty quickly and had an offer accepted on a house that was completely perfect for us. However, our buyer turned out to be more full of shit than a Glastonbury long drop and it all fell apart before we’d even got a memorandum of sale.

Meanwhile, prices continue to plummet, we end up taking £25k off our asking price. Eventually accepted an offer from a lovely elderly lady who came to view the place with her son, daughter and son in law. She was downsizing from a 2 up 2 down and didn’t have a buyer yet but we accepted the offer as by this point I was very heavily pregnant, and we didn’t want the hassle of viewings etc whilst trying to prepare for a baby/deal with a newborn. Plus we liked her and the flat is perfect for her- a good size, its own little patio, quiet neighbourhood, bus stop outside with a route to town centre and supermarket.

She eventually finds a buyer, we get a memo of sale and start looking. Found a place recently, made an offer, it’s accepted and we get the ball rolling. Hoping for a quick transaction as we’re desperate to get out of the home that’s way too small for us, and our vendors are in a hurry as they’re moving for a job promotion/relocation that’s in danger of being withdrawn if they can’t move.

Until today. Buyer asked to come and see the flat again last week, no real reason given, just to have another look. My spidey senses start tingling but DH said we had no real reason not to let her so we go through all the faff of getting it looking like it isn’t lived in by a family with a 4 and 2 year old and a newborn (this mostly involves using our cars for storage). It turns out this time she’s brought her other daughter with her who wasn’t here at the first viewing- and this daughter, according to the EA, spent the entire time being rude, slagging the place off, and said if her mum wanted to buy it they might as well put her in a home (EA later spoke to buyer’s son who said that sounded fairly typical of her). Apparently buyer was saying she liked it, she wanted to buy it, and she’d given us our word and wasn’t going to pull out for no reason.

Except today, that’s exactly what she’s done. She’s pulled out of buying our place and also of selling her own. By the sounds of it her daughter has spent the whole weekend working on her, saying she should just have her house adapted instead etc etc. The EA obviously did his best (buyer’s house was listed with them too so he’s lost two sales in one go) but it’s dead in the water, just like that. I cried, my DH cried, our vendors too were apparently devastated when the news reached them and our buyer’s buyer was also said to be mightily pissed off.

I just feel so angry, and sad, and worried. We need to get out of this flat. Our DC need to be able get more than a few feet away from each other - they fight and scream constantly and my and DH’s nerves are in shreds. And basically thanks to one stroppy bitch who clearly had more than half an eye on her inheritance, the plans of 3 families including at least 5 children have gone to crap, not to mention three months and thousands of pounds already wasted in the process. But our buyer just walks away scot free.

If she wanted to stay in her own house then she shouldn't have offered.

People can have valid reasons to not move, doesn't mean it's ok to mess other people around, causing stress, anguish and costing them financially.

The system isn't fit for purpose.

I think you had a lucky escape. I suspect Mr Lovely would have popped up when exchange was imminent and asked for the £25k reduction anyway.

Sounds as though it was more the daughter who wanted her to stay in her own house. And given the way in which she went all out to convince her mum, I’d bet the farm that there’s an ulterior motive.

The house buying process in England is so stupid. I have never understood why the process is so massively overcomplicated and drawn out, or why you have to wait a whole month just for 'searches' from the council. When me and DH bought this house, we waited five weeks for the searches to come back, just to tell me that there was an old landfill site 300m away that had been disused in 1936. Absolute waste of time for all parties involved.

I also think every house on the market should have their own surveys done, and that can be kept in some sort of centralised database and accessed by potential homeowners. That way, you won't have two or more separate surveys done in case buyers pull out, and no time wasted when people inevitably get scared of cases that flag up as red.

Buying this house, with mortgage in principal secured before I'd even made an offer, took five months to complete for what should have been extremely straightforward.

I mean, fgs, I spent more time test driving the car we have than looking around the house that we bought.

Edited to add: Sorry, went off in a tangent there. I think you're right, I think there should be a penalty for those that pull out. Maybe give it time, like a two-week no refund policy.

There is no process for house buying in England.

The process is whatever the buyer and seller agree to. Sometimes buyers will have to comply with additional processes to get a mortgage, but these are imposed by the bank and are not imposed in law. If for example you are a cash buyer you can normally proceed very quickly by forgoing all the checks and inspections that are normally performed before buying by someone requireing a mortgage. There is a consequence of this of course, that you may end up with a house that is worth considerably less than what you pay for it or has serious issues.

You can choose to sell your house quickly and to an agreed timescale by auction if you wish. Of course there is a price to pay for this - that the price achieved may well not be as high as it would be otherwise. So there is a price to be paid for timescale and certainty. This can be offset to some degree by selecting a minimum reserve price.

Part of the problem is people believing they have sold a house, when in fact they haven't. You have not sold your house until you exchange (and even then it is not a certainty, it's just at that point pulling out will cost the party pulling out quite a large sum of money under most contracts). So believing you have sold it before exchange takes place can lead to disappointment when it falls through. It's never a good idea to believe a house is sold before exchange takes place.

The probability that a house sale negotiation will fall through before exchange I think is about 30%. So there is a good chance that a house sale will fall through at some point, this figure can be informed by extra information such as complexities in the deeds which are pretty easy to obtain and review in advance these days.

I don't think renting is as easy an option as it used to be.

In my city (and from what I hear through most of the country) trying to find somewhere to rent is an impossibility - hundreds of people bidding for the same place as soon as the listing goes up. If you've been owning then you don't have recent rental references so you're back of the queue.

Plus renting usually involves at least a six month commitment, stress of setting up bills, getting Internet installed, redirecting everything, unpacking, then doing it all again a month or two later,
also paying for 2 sets of movers/storage costs...

Really not a stress free option, you can see why people try to go straight from one to another if at all possible

Not sure what people think is different in Scotland? Sale isn't actually final till the money is in place.

Totally agree with you OP. It’s shit. Having similar issues selling my late mother’s house over the past last year. Had 4 drop out buyers for 1 understandable reason and 3 completely flakey ones. Utter time wasters the last ones, and in the meantime the price has dropped £50k. My only comfort is we don’t live there so aren’t desperate for somewhere else to live, so I feel for you and others in that situation. There ought to be a simple system of a deposit of say £1k or £2k when you put have an offer accepted to stop absolute time wasters. The 5% deposit at exchange is too late in the process to stop hundreds of pounds wasted in legal fees and time when people pull out with no good reason before that stage.

YANBU. Both of the last properties we sold we had buyers pull out and had to accept a lower offer both times.

The English system is totally broken. I don't understand why the political parties don't commit to sorting it out. I for one would vote for someone who had a plan for making it simpler, faster and less stressful.

For a start, why haven't sellers filled in all the property information forms and got all the searches done before the house goes on the market? Waiting for those adds weeks to the process. And why aren't the forms digital? Again, waiting for paper to be sent adds yet more weeks.

YANBU The wholes system is a pile of crap primarily designed to protect Lawyer's incomes.

I always make my offer conditional on no further viewings. If a seller won't agree I don't think they are serious about selling the property to me.

Massive inertia from Lawyers - many MPs are former or current lawyers.

I completely agree with you, readingmakesmehappy. It's incredibly frustrating to deal with a selling system that's so slow, stressful, and seems rigged in favor of lawyers. Having two buyers pull out and accept lower offers sounds incredibly disheartening.

We might live in the same place as this sounds very like the system here! We have bought houses in the UK as well and it's amazing how much stress and drama is baked into the system.

The English system is completely idiotic. But you knew this so presumably knew the risks too. You could have chosen to sell to a cash buyer only or a chain free buyer . You’d lose money but would protect your mental health until the English system catches up with the rest of the world.

The only people who benefit from our system is solicitors. Funny how that is so often the case in England.

Our first house, the sellers actually showed us the survey from when they bought the house. The survey flagged up a risk of flooding from a river, which was confusing as this was in the Welsh valleys, and while there was a river at the bottom of the valley it was considerably below us - the pavement outside our house was above the roof level of the next street down, river was lower again.

On closer inspection it appeared that someone (work experience kid?) had just used a compass and drawn a circle - house was within the circle therefore at risk of flooding.

People don't understand how it works.

That's why you get so many arguing the "system in England is broken" when there is no system.

The "system" can be anything you want it to be (or more often what your mortgage providers impose).

No more or less than that.

When both parties agree a contract and sign on the dotted line the sale is complete. There is no more to "the system" than that.

In fact there is no reason as a seller why you couldn't sell your house in England exactly the same way people do in Scotland, completely voluntarily. Whether your buyer would agree to that process or not is another issue.

We have a similar issue with water and insurance. They ask if we are within 400m of river/sea. We are both! We overlook a river running out to sea! But the valley side we live on is so, so, steep, its like Mount Ararat!

We could, one day, get flooded. However, if we were, it would be - like the average property risk - rainwater or burst plumbing!

The whole process in the UK needs to be overhauled. We've bought and sold houses in England, Wales and Scotland over the years due to moving with work.
English and Welsh systems are the same, system in Scotland is different and supposed to be better but in our experience was just as bad.

Worst experience was selling a house in Scotland where two different sets of buyers strung us along for weeks and then withdrew just before contracts (missives) were due to be signed. When we finally sold our house on the day of completion our solicitor confirmed receipt of funds from the buyer in the form of a solicitors cheque which would take several days to clear. This was despite us advising our solicitor that we wouldn't accept this form of settlement only cleared funds particularly as our buyer was getting a 90% mortgage so majority of funding would have sat with the solicitor earning them interest. We refused to hand over the keys on uncleared funds and miraculously they managed to then transfer us the funds within an hour or two!

There is a lot of good advice on this thread about how you can speed up the process and prepare yourself as well as you can both for buying and selling.

My advice would be get yourself a good solicitor and estate agent. Be clear in your boundaries and don't be afraid to lay out your conditions and chase up progress. Don't accept an offer unless the buyer is proceedable and ask for proof. Don't get into too long of a chain, that just increases your risk of the chain breaking down. Get ahead with the paperwork and don't let things drift.
If we can when we next move we will try and sell first and go into a rental so that we can go ahead without a property to sell but I appreciate that's not always possible.

YABU to expect a handshake to hold water with such a huge purchase.

I’m utterly confused by the British system - it sounds like Mavis said she’d buy your house, so you told Arthur you’d buy his - but nobody put anything in writing with clear agreements and conditions. But hey - someone said they’d buy it, so you counted it a done deal, and even after that fell through one you decided well - she said she wants to buy it so obviously she will.

I’m in a place where you sign contracts quickly (like 48hours) if an offer is accepted. Once the contract is signed you lose your deposit if you pull out for reasons other than as stipulated in the contract, easily a 10k+ loss in a hot area.

In a buyer’s market you might have a small deposit, and make purchases conditional on sale of your own place. Right now it’s a seller’s market - you pretty much agree terms from seller or walk. I agreed a longer settlement (i basically had to take what was offered), but I was still moving in less than 2 months after seeing the ad.

I’m sorry your sale fell through - this sounds horribly stressful. I think you need to keep advertising until you have someone willing to sign on the bottom line to purchase!

Do you? @AngeloMysterioso is selling so she and her buyer can put any constraints they like. Id stop viewings if buyers were prompt, but no way on earth would I sit waiting for a buyer to huff and puff before they put down a deposit.

Who exactly are you trying to blame for having yet another child in a tiny flat?

We had a downsize buyers from hell. Put offer in on first day and then came multiple times with sons, daughters, builders, milkmen etc. The wife was so rude and offended everyone involved in the process. Used some woeful £300 'online' lawyers who delayed and made mistakes every step of the way. Hired a cowboy surveyor who looked at the place for 4 mins (no joke) and wrote a fictional cut and paste report of all the problems to get £20k off price. Our house was recently gutted and renovated so it was all fiction and he accidently left details of another house on report! Went on for months until the day before exchange when they came around again to 'measure up' for 2hrs and then pulled out the day of exchange because she 'didn't like the front door'!

Learnt so much from this and made a cheat sheet for EA to whittle out time wasters and made it clear we wouldn't entertain any buyers who uses these cheap and cheerful bulk conveyancing firms etc. Found they were the biggest bottleneck in the process, giving buyers wrong info or delaying to the point where some Jonny come lately appears and talks them out of it. Relisted and sold almost instantly to the most lovely young couple who were a dream to work with and so pleased our beautiful little home went to such genuinely nice people!

To all those pointing out that it’s our fault we have 3 DC in a small flat… well yes, no shit Sherlock(s). We had a struggle conceiving DC1 and 2 and thought we had fertility issues, DC3 was very much an unplanned surprise. But that’s a separate issue tbh.