To think there should be a fine for vendors pulling out of a property buy/sell process last minute?

[BrokenCookies]

Just had this happen. Pregnant, strung along for months, collapsed a sizable chain because a couple of immature children think it's acceptable to pull out the day of exchange. I'm broken hearted, wasted all my money and savings and I have never felt so much hatred for two strangers. From speaking to the agent they have no genuine reason, just playing a bit of a game with us all I guess. How is this legal? It is the cruelest thing anyone has ever done to my family and I don't want to start it all again but now I have to with way less money. We had spent months getting our house ready for them as their first home, deep cleaning, painting, repairing.. turns out they never deserved any of it. It's really knocked me and I have no faith in anything now or people but I have to just get on with it :(

Yanbu - there should be a fine to stop this from being possible after a certain point.
Yabu - it's okay for people to do this.

and the shortfall if house ends up selling for a lower amount

what if it sells for more? Does the buyer who pulled out benefit?

Agree it is mad, Scottish system much better and was also much more straightforward when I bought and sold when living abroad

Completely agree, should become binding after an initial 'cooling off' for the buyer and chance to find out more about the property. The system we have really allows unserious people to run amok and it has such horrible consequences for others in the process.

Really sorry, hope you have better luck next time you try

Happened to us, no reason given, we had to sell the house at a loss of 6 figures because of them (had to sell quick as we had to move and get a new place)

Yes sorry should have stayed am in Yorkshire

I agree. The whole process takes far too long and this means more chance of situations changing, people's minds wandering.
Any one sale is never the priority of an agent or solicitor - who ime seem too delight in dragging out simple exchanges of and requests for information for months.

I dread the day we ever go through this again!

There is no system in England. Your house is not sold until you exchange contracts and you should prepare yourself for the eventuality that the sale can fall through up to that point at any time.

The law doesn't impose any constraints on either side up to that point, so sellers benefit from it as well as buyers for a whole range of reasons.

You are absolutely free as a seller to try to impose reservation fees and prepare homebuyers packs on your buyers. There is nothing to stop you. Whether the buyer will accept that or not is another issue.

If you don't want to sell your house in the conventional way, there is the process of auction, which allows you to sell your house very quickly to an agreed schedule if being able to move on a specific date is important to you.

I've seen threads on here from buyers asking should we pull out at a late stage when we've found something better ? The answer is always do what's right for you. House purchases are big and expensive and people often stretch themselves to the maximum to afford mortgages. It's not a burden people are going to take on without serious consideration.

If people want house buying to be smoother, let's lower house prices to 2x wages. This will make the financial decision of buyers a lot less ruinous if they get it wrong and therefore the decision will be easier.

Same happened to us. Days before. Everything packed and paid for. And they just never really gave a reason! Just got their solicitor to email at 4pm Friday the week before.

The system is ridiculous and takes ages. Seller should have to get searches up front and once a survey is done exchange should take place and completion agreed later. There's no need for it to take so long, be so complex and allow people to be messed around emotionally and financially.

Gosh I'm so sorry. The more I read on this thread the more saddening it is- I could never imagine playing with someone's life in that way let alone imagine that it's this common. Absolutely bizarre to me but so awful. I can't believe you were getting abusive messages from your buyer! Horrific, and not your fault at all. I hope you're okay and settled somewhere nice now?

The English system is ludicrous. There have been calls to reform it for 30 years or more. I don't understand why no government looks at this properly.

Dh's ex wife did this to the buyers of their former marital home. (Being sold 5 years after their divorce). She basically hadnt bothered to to look for somewhere else to live, because she didn't want to move, and expected dh to continue to pay for the massive mortgage, which he couldn't and woudnt). She pulled out the day before exchange leaving the buyers thousands out of pocket, with devastated kids who had enrolled in schools to start the following month etc etc). It was awful. Dh tried to reason with her but she wasn't having it and there was nothing he could do.
They wrote to him (and her) via the estate agent a few weeks later saying how upset they were but also how broke they now were, and would they consider at least paying them back for the survey. Dh agreed and paid his half as he felt so bad. His ex wife didn't even acknowledge the letter.
Some people are just incredibly selfish. I don't know how they sleep at night having done this to people.

This is a classic example - almost a paradigm if you will - of a situation that doesn't have to be if people didn't want it.

We can ban disposable vapes, but not fix this ? I call bollocks.

This is terrifying. To think that we have to do it all again pains me so much. I know someone mentioned that if this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me I've had a blessed life above on the thread- it isn't and I haven't, but I think these responses just show how devastating this can be for people. Nobodys equating it to a death etc but it's absolute hell to live through and the stress it puts people under is awful. I have felt for months, especially in the later weeks like I haven't a single moment to just sit and relax and was telling myself it'll be worth it in the end all for nothing:(

It has to be a 2 way street though OP.

My exh and i were buying a house in the early 90's, we scraped a deposit together and we were buying a small terraced house as it was all we could afford. I was on maternity leave, we saved every penny to have the survey done and pay for the searches with the solicitor.

The house failed the survey as the kitchen wall was single brick. Our mortgage company refused to lend on the house. We were gutted as we put every penny we had into the survey and solictior.

Found out after that we were not the first, second, third or fourth people that this happened to on this house. The vendor was hoping a surveyor wouldnt pick up on the kitchen wall.

Personally i think she should have refunded our fees as she KNEW we would never get a mortgage on the house.

I was getting confused. you don't mean vendors, you mean buyers??

But anyway yes, either shouldn't be allowed to pull out at last minute

Are they a couple? My suspicion is that the relationship has ended. The two weeks of ghosting then a big commitment reminds me a bit of my nephew and his (now ex) partner when the relationship was heading towards the end. Weeks of “on and off and on and off” and then deciding they were definitely all in. In their case they decided to try for another baby. 😱 And then not that long later it was all over.

That still wouldn't be anything to do with the vender, so the finacial responbiilty should still fall to the buyer who is pulling out.

Likewise if the vender pulls out they should be responisble for costs already incurred by the buyer

You've deliberatly picked cancer as it's such an emotive subject, but it still falls under the umberalla of personal circumstances - why should your problems cost a stranger money?

I'm so sorry. I can see why she's an ex wife, morals absolutely in the gutter. Those poor kids too. People don't realise how experiences like this stick:( it's not just the accepting it for yourself, it's letting all the family and friends know around you too. I have had the same conversation about 20 times over and everyone is giving positive advice which is lovely but it's just gutting.

Yes sorry buyers, wrote my Op in a bit of a rush to vent somewhere.

Yes,I do to think there should be consequences unless it's sheer bad luck, like redundancy, life changing diagnosis, marriage breakdown etc. But people shouldn't be able to pull out on a whim or because they got cold feet like they can in England.

We've been lucky and only lost one buyer in 2 sales but it was so frustrating they wouldn't tell us why they dropped out in case it was something we could address.

My parents experienced a buyer pulling out on exchange day.

Agree. this has just recently happened to us. 9 months in, All the legal stuff done and trying to set an exchange/completion date and just pulled out with absolutely no reason given. They will have lost money on fees etc. so I just don't get it. We have another buying now but it's early stages so not holding our breath.

I think what bugs me is that I would never do this to someone with out a very good reason and I would also tell them why and be very apologetic.

What would make it appropriate? If another sale fell through them presumably they would get compensation from that sale which they could then pass on to the next vendor
Change in circumstance they would just have to suck it up as the op has had to.

How do you define "sheer bad luck" at a personal level, either in statutory law or contract law ?

It's the sort of stuff lawyers spend years and gain ££££s arguing about.

@BrokenCookies If you had to pull out of a sale would you be prepared to pay a fine?

Buying and selling a property is a business transaction first and foremost, it is too easy to become emotionally attached to a house sale or purchase, as we are talking about peoples homes but the more you become emotional about it the more problems will occur as emotions cloud judgements.

As others have said, exchane of contracts is the time when everyone is committed and it is very rare for problems to happen post exchange and if they do there are quite severe financial penalities.

I am a believer in, what used to be 28 days between exchange and completion, that is the point emotions can come into play, to get excited about moving to a new home etc.

I'm so extremely sorry, people are just the worst. I've spent the whole time being positive and feeling nervous but having faith and I'm sure you were the same. I pray and hope, genuinely that this time it all works out for you and you can ( and I hate this saying but it fits at the moment ) chalk it up to experience I guess. When we move and I'm not sure if it's the same for you, but we will never move again unless we really have to as the process is so horrific so I do hope that the memory of all of this eases over time with that in mind. It will just eventually be a story one day for both of us, rather than reality.