My vendor is now tying in his onward purchase

[chinchillin]

Hiya!!

Currently going through a house move, and the whole process was going way too smoothly for it to be true.

FTB are buying my home and we were buying a house advertised as no chain (due to a break up, nothing too messy they wasn’t marriage and no children). My estate agent kept confirming over the last 3 months he 100% isn’t tying in his onward if he finds one. Morning of exchange comes and he drops the bomb that he isn’t exchanging as his solicitors said he hasn’t got much longer to go until his purchase is ready, he said a week.

Of course I am understanding that a week isn’t long and I’m happy to wait (my buyers aren’t so happy seeing as they were pressed to send deposit very all of a sudden and now it’s delayed) my buyers have also stressed they do not want to wait any later than two Fridays time for completion and I’m petrified the sale will fall through.

His solicitors have said they are working towards a Friday week exchange in hope their last enquiries are answered by the end of this week (!!). It doesn’t seem very long at all to get final enquiries back to exchange. I’m really on the estate agents case and as lovely as she is I don’t want to p!ss her off but my nerves are through the roof, AIBU to chase every day for updates, in the morning and afternoon for any updates at all?!

Yes. But not your estate agent, the guy you are buying from

The same thing happened to us. We were told there was no upward chain (and we were FTB so simple our end) and that they were going to move in with family. Just before planned exchange they said they’d found a house to buy so were now going to wait for the onward purchase. It really pissed me off. It caused us about a 4 week delay in the end.

Unfortunately I have no way of getting in touch with the man, it’s all been done via the estate agent even both the viewings, I’ve never met him! I’d love to knock on the door but I think that’ll be past the mark 😩

@ItsAlrightDarling it’s so frustrating isn’t it! I just wish people could stick to their word.

I’m worried we might be the ones to break the chain if it’s much longer, which means me my partner and our 2 under 2 would have to move in with family, something our solo vendor said he’d do and is now back tracking! It’s not fair xx

You could just push for an early exchange anyway (as that part has no bearing on his onward purchase- he can exchange those contracts separately) and push the completion date out slightly to accommodate his purchase. You’d have some for peace of mind then

I changed my mind as renting wasn't possible so I bought instead; you have no rights until exchange so I'd keep things amicable.

@Flossyts the estate agent I am selling through mention this, I think they were giving them the benefit of the doubt and seeing how far in they actually were with the sale. I’m definitely going to mention this now 😊

@kiwiane I understand things change, but not much did in this case, I will always keep things amicable as I want the sale! I’m just worried about getting on peoples nerves with expecting daily updates but from the poll I think most people would the frequent updates 😊

I would be pressing the estate agent as to why he couldn't exchange today and complete on the date he wants. When I bought my house this kind of stuff was communicated through solicitors, can you contact yours and get them to propose your solution?

I would ask everyone - everyone: vendors, buyers, EA, solicitors, etc - what holidays they have booked in the next few weeks.

Estate agents - in my experience - lie through their teeth to make a sale. When we were selling a house a few years ago, they continued to claim buyers whose offer we accepted had a mortgage offer long after our solicitor informed us this was a complete and utter falsehood. It cost us another buyer and we ended up selling for less than we might have got.

This happened to us too. The seller had been horrible throughout the process, frequently accusing us of delays and threatening to walk away from the transaction if we didn’t hurry up, etc. We were then ready to exchange on the date they had demanded - only for them to come up with a different excuse each day as to why it couldn’t happen. On the third day they revealed their onward purchase wasn’t ready. They were supposed to be chain free.

My husband was absolutely furious and told them if exchange didn’t happen within 24 hours we would walk away. It happened.

He regrets not knocking a significant chunk of money off our offer, but I am glad we didn’t do that. The seller would probably have walked away and we wouldn’t have our house today! I suspect it’s also not possible to change the purchase price AND exchange within 24 hours, if you have a mortgage at least…

It staggers me the length of the house buying process. I bought my first 35 years ago when nothing was done electronically and most correspondence was via post. The process was about 8 weeks. Why on earth does it take so long in this day & age. It’s such a stressful time. Sorry OP, hope all goes well

Hold onto the thought that your buyers aren't going to realistically pull out for a week or two's delay. It will take them another 3-6 months to move if they do. They'd be cutting their nose off to spite their face if they do, or they're just looking for an excuse to pull out anyway.

It's bloody annoying though. YADNBU to chase daily (solicitors and/or estate agents) to get it over the line.

Someone certainly lied to us. We’re not sure whether it was the agent, our solicitor, their agent, their solicitor, all of them, some of them or whatever, but I don’t trust anyone to do or say the right thing and to do or say what they say they will.

We had buyers in what was described as the best position- due to exchange on their property mid May and complete the following week, moving in with family until completion of our sale. We reserved a new build small house on that basis. Pretty straightforward you’d think. Ten weeks later with proposed dates moving further and further away, we discover that, not only have they not sold and moved out, but their buyer has pulled out, so they’re in no position to offer on our house.

So almost three months later, all we have to show is a £2000 hole in the finances and no comeback on anyone.

You don't need to be too amicable, he's not your friend. I would push.

We moved during Covid, and we were working towards a date to accommodate our buyers with us moving in with relatives until our purchase was completed. At the time exchange was being done a couple of days before completion. We were due to complete on Friday, on Monday buyers came round and we both were going to chase our respective solicitors the following day. We had arranged for all our furniture to go into storage on Thursday to give us time to give the house a good clean. After chasing constantly for two days we found out last thing on Wednesday their solicitor wasn’t in a position to exchange.

It all worked out eventually but it was a stressful few weeks

Thank you for all your replies!

It’s such a stressful time isn’t it, everything completely out your control! My buyers have said they’re happy with any August date, but would like to exchange asap - which makes me hopeful of them sticking by us!

@Bluevelvetsofa gosh that is awful!! Sounds like that info fell through the cracks somewhere, I hope it all works out for you in the end 💐

They don't get paid until you complete, a bad sale that doesn't proceed is no good to them.

On my first house but our estate agent was a lying toe rag who told us it was chain free. Absolute lie and took 6 months to complete after several collapsed sales in a 9 person chain! My second house I made it a condo on of sale that it was done within 13 weeks. I was heavily pregnant at the time. Your lawyer should be advising you of your options and what’s best for you, I if your lawyer was recommended by your estate agent I would look at swapping to someone with out the conflict of interest. You don’t have to accept any condition that your buyer proposes.if your not comfortable just say no, call the deal off and find another estate agent and buyer. Start again sound like you are getting shafted

@chinchillin someone clearly didn’t do due diligence. I think that estate agents are supposed to check that prospective purchasers have the funds and/or mortgage offer they say they have. Whether that always happens, I don’t know.

The system needs a thorough overhaul and estate agents, solicitors and conveyancers need to be more firmly regulated and held accountable.

I can’t even go through the story here it’s so long and complex but we were in a chain of 4, not awful not great. We were the bottom property, under offer from first time buyers, under huge pressure from said buyers to complete pre Xmas. Afew days before proposed exchange, and 4 months after the searches were completed, their solicitor advises them not to go ahead with the sale as the land was contaminated and that if they wished to proceed they should ask us to buy indemnity insurance…!
At the time I was in hospital with a very sick baby, we were a flat in a large block and no one had had issue with contamination before so it was odd, but I made a call to the search company and to the local council environment office (don’t know why the solicitor couldn’t have done this). Very quickly found out the solicitor had mis read the search report! It did not say contaminated but taht it was a history of (old car works) but had been cleaned and therefore no issue! The toing and froing of this though caused top of the chain to loose the rental they had put a deposit on (they weren’t happy…) and therefore completion was delayed a further two months. If that was my solicitor they wouldn’t be getting paid…

Welcome to house buying! Anything can happen. Don’t be on your Estate agents case, she has no more power to do anything you’ll only annoy her. It’s a waiting game now.

Annoying but- house buying in England is terrible.

Your post is a little tricky to understand but your aibu seems to be aibu unreasonable to keep hassling MY estate agents (ie. the ones handling the sale of your property, not his) every morning and every afternoon for a week?

In that case I would say YABU and you risk pissing them off. It's a tense week for you but nothing you'd do by getting on the phone and hassling is going to resolve anything. How would you think it would?

crossed posts with @andfinallyhereweare just before me.