To confront sellers who pulled out last minute

[Lemonyslice]

We were meant to exchange tomorrow, completing next Friday 6th, but the sellers pulled out last minute. "Changed their minds" apparently. The full story of this purchase is long and pretty wild, the sellers have been chaos from the day we put in our offer.

We need to leave our rented flat at the end of December as our tenancy is ending and our landlord wants to sell in the New Year. So we now have nowhere to live, and have wasted a ton of money on surveys and a solicitor.

Can I go round to theirs and ask for some contribution towards the costs of their "changed minds?"

This happened to me 3 years ago...the couple whose house i was buying had split up and were going their seperate ways...a few months down the line and they decide to stay together and take the house off the market...I was devastated and forced to keep the chain going as I didn't want to lose my buyers.
It meant i had to move in with a friend for 6 weeks and put all my stuff in storage...It was an utter nightmare.
The only good thing is my solicitor only charged me £300 ish for the work she had done on the house.

Sorry, op
They sound like absolute shits.

Welcome to house buying. Of course you can’t go around to theirs - what a ridiculous thing to say. You might be frustrated and angry but they haven’t done anything wrong. We have totally been there and I understand your frustration but getting angry and wanting to go around and get money is a bit mafiaesque. Those are the rules - they didn’t break them. Move on.

I would assume something like this and try to accept it as graciously as possible, and focus on sorting out my living situation.

However - OP says they’ve Jones about it on Facebook. If I saw such a post, the grace would disappear and I would respond to that post pointing out what it has cost me and that I don’t take kindly to them joking about. I’d follow that with a warning to anyone reading that post never to put an offer in on their house in the future unless they’re willing to pour money down the drain.

Just add a comment on Facebook saying this is not a joke for us

Joked not Jones!

I really feel for you. This happened to us. Just before Christmas too. Someone came in at the last minute and offered more money than us. I was absolutely gutted. I know it is a cliché but it just wasn't meant to be. We spent six months in a grotty rental - including Christmas - but bought something so much better.

Definitely don’t confront them it will make things a lot worse . Awful behaviour from them but I am hoping you will find a better property without all this nonsense from sellers .

The minute they joked about it on Facebook they certainly did do something wrong.

No of course not, you don't know their situation- maybe they're going through a tough time too, something unexpected happened maybe.
I'm sorry for your situation because it's so stressful but you are better off using your time and energy to find a temporary place to live or asking your landlord if they would consider giving you a few months longer

Sorry OP - it’s absolutely infuriating. You aren’t in Dumfries are you?

I only ask as my MIL had the same with the house she was selling, it was a 3 house chain with MIL at the top and her buyer suddenly pulled out also completing on the 6th December! They kept wanting more and more money off for ridiculous reasons and trying to renegotiate and then pulled out over not being given an additional £1k. She only chose them as they promised they would complete before the end of the year.

Speak to your rental and see if there is any possibility to have longer? I would write something on Facebook under their ‘joke’ 🤭

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

The system never changes because no one lobbies their MP about this and there isn't a concerted campaign. We all just cross our fingers and hope for better luck next time.

We had a very similar thread quite recently - within the last few months, I think. It's driving me mad that I can't find it!

Everybody talking about the joke they posted on Facebook: OP didn't say it was specifically about the house sale, did they?
@Lemonyslice what was said joke about?

Been there, wanted to go straight round to them immediately. 2 years later sat here in the beautiful home we ended up with instead, I'm so glad I didn't. I would have felt so awful afterwards for going round and having it out with them, I kept my dignity no matter how tempting it was at the time. Onwards and upwards for you. It's shit right now but I hope in two years you'll also be sat in your dream home

Quietly hoping this isn't part of my chain as I'm due to exchange and complete on those dates 😱🤮 And it has been a rocky two year ride!

This is the system OP, welcome to it !! It’s shit but what they did is allowed and you have no comeback - confronting them will only get you into trouble. You might get a bit of comfort knowing that the silly sods will still have to pay their own solicitors and estate agent fees, with nothing to show for it.

Turning up on their doorstep demanding money is a terrible idea - please don't do it.

I would almost certainly go round in the middle of the night and smash a few windows though 😇

So sorry to read this OP. My best friend had the same happen to her. Luckily, new buyers came along really quickly and bought the searches off the previous buyers so they didn't have to do conveyancing again - they moved very quickly after that!

Horrible for you OP, but I dont agree with other posts here, personally I would always want the option to pull out before purchase on such a significant and expensive purchase

How do you know where they live by the way?

Yeah again that was really crappy and they shouldn’t have done it but legally haven’t done anything wrong. There are loads of very stupid things on Facebook but it isn’t its own law.

Sadly not. Nothing is set in stone until exchange happens and anyone can pull out without penalty. What an awful situation for you. Fingers crossed for you.

We've just sold and bought a house. It's taken 6 months for a 2 house chain because we had a tricky vendor. Our buyers were moving from rented and eventually they put their stuff in storage and moved in with family. They were moving to get their daughter into a school in the catchment area and had to be in by December.

We took out insurance and hoped for the best but if our vendor had pulled out we 100% would have pulled out of our sale as well (nothing else suitable on the market at the time). Of course we would have felt terrible for our buyers but not so bad as to sell a house we loved (just had outgrown but could have done loft conversion).

Ultimately you don't know why the sellers pulled out and there could be a very good reason for it. You just need to let it go.

Whilst other posters are correct to say they haven't done anything legally wrong, they have nevertheless been extremely impolite and disrespectful (to say the least) on a purely social level, and there is nothing in English law to say you can't complain to people who have treated you badly.

It's the vendor of the place they were trying to purchase that have pulled out - assuming the vendors live in the property she was trying to buy.