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?"

Why are they horrible?
You don't know the reason.

Never heard of home buying Insurance! How does that work?

Yes what sort of insurance would that be, and pay out what? Lost money, hurt feelings? Who do the insurance company claim off?

There is insurance for this very eventuality. Hurt feelings are of course not covered, but conveyancing costs, mortgage fees, surveys etc can be.

I realize you are trying to be clever, but who do you think insurance companies claim off when someone dies?

A lot of stick for the people who pulled out, without any knowledge of why (which is key). I agree it’s horrible conduct if they have just changed their mind but there might be a very good reason. You’re the victim of a bullshit system where this can happen without any consequences.

Don’t be silly. One visit wouldn’t be considered harassment 😂

Im not trying to be clever, what does that mean?

With something like car insurance for example, the other person is hopefully insured so if something goes wrong and you claim, they then claim from the other party, simples

In this case, there is no other party even though another party caused the issue, its not like a tree falling on your house

What is the insurance and where do you get it, I havent heard of it, I was agreeing with another poster that this isnt something Ive heard of, no need to be snarky.

Legally they've done nothing wrong. There is nothing preventing you from confronting them, they might apologise and pay you something, or they might sue you for harassment and quite rightly win.

Didn’t mean to be snarky - I thought I picked up a tone on your comment, maybe I was reading too much into your points and questions.

I was making the point that insurance doesn’t always cover things that can be claimed against a third party. For example accidental damage, ill health, death.

Examples of this insurance can be found in many places

https://hoa.org.uk/advice/guides-for-homeowners/i-am-buying/homebuyer-protection-insurance/

When we sold our house in the US we put a clause in that if either of us dropped out they had to pay the other person $2500. Our first buyer dropped out just as we'd paid $4,000 to rent a place to live in after the sale. At least we were only $1500 out of pocket. He tried to get out of paying but his realtor made him pay up.

There needs to be something like this in the UK. US house sales are processed in four weeks too, or at least the three we have done have been completed in four weeks.

Well it would have been more helpful to post this, because this information is helpful ot people like me that would never have thought or known about it

However, is the OPs specific issue covered here, so it talks of the house being taken off the market and the sellers accepting a higher offer, how would you know or prove what has happened for the sellers to pull out

I am untrusting of insurance companies and their myriad of ways to limit your ability to claim/payout

I read your original comment as questioning if this insurance exists, with a tone of incredulity and mocking the person who raised it. I am sorry if I was wrong about that.

but these policies are easily found through google.

Read the thread. Read the posters responses and updates.

Nice people give reasons for pulling out before exchange, they apologise and they don't post silly jokes after messing up someone's move at short notice just before Christmas, after they insisted on a very quick process.

I hope they are messed about next time just like they messed the op around, see what it's like. As I said horrible people.

OP, this has happened for a reason and you will be thankful sometime later in the future. You can't see it now but you will feel better if you keep a positive attitude.
I fell in love with a house and I remember howling at work when I got the call that they were pulling out. I ended up with a much better house and on reflection a far better area.
House buying is a pressure cooker, it's intense. It's horrible!
Hope you work things out.

This is the problem with our house selling / buying system .

It's just happened to me and sucks but no re course ! 🙄🙄

It's not typical to have a survey done in France. The seller has to provide various reports (and they have to be less than 24 months old) on electrics, presence of asbestos, lead paint, etc.
I'm not 100% certain but I very much doubt the price can be renegotiated after the promesse d'achat (promise to buy, the first contract) has been signed. Once you've signed the promesse d'achat you have a 10-day period during which you can back out without penalty but if you back out after the 10 days, you lose your (usually 10%) deposit.

There never existed any contract
Small Claims will reject any attempts to enforce non-existent claims, and that's another £85 plus time lost
You have no idea why they pulled out, could be anything up to and including a death
Nasty vindictive petty actions like yours help no one

@snowmichael if it was a death then that's sad. Even so, why should I lose out. Why should I lose money for other peoples misfortunes. Yes I would be vindictive in this situation. You will never be buying a house from me so you don't have to worry about it

What a vile individual you are

You can't confront them legally I'm afraid. Our system is a terrible one.

We once had purchasers pull out on the afternoon of the day of completion. Our solicitors had to phone their solicitors to enquire what was holding up the chain. Only then were we informed that our purchasers were backing 2 house purchases simultaneously just in case one of the chains fell through. Apparently our house / chain was their backup option and they had just completed on their preferred option that afternoon. We had no inkling of what they intended to do, they appeared to be model purchasers and had behaved impeccably until that point. The rest of the people in our chain were furious with us.

It's terrible for you but I'm afraid you just have to roll with it.

@snowmichael why thank you !

Of course you can’t go around and say that. Surely they would just tell you to leave and if you persisted, they would be absolutely reasonable to call the Police due to you harassing them. House sales can and do fall through at all stages until completion. It’s a bugger, but a) you don’t know what is going on for them and b) you have no recourse. Just move on.

OMG I feel you. englad is ridiculous, my husband almost had a heart attack buying last time, my hair felt off. We had to pay a 1,5 month in a hotel as the BS of our buyers couldn't move dates as they had a holiday. My revenge was leaving the property filthy, normally I would pay for an end of tenancy company to clean so the next person feels at home but NO this time, I even took every single nail I had in the walls for them to plaster, they were awfully selfish. We were honestly financially broken , on top of that paying a private school we were getting my kid into and the bloody Hotel plus meals, transport, my husband leaving in London on the week and me & my kid on a hotel in Kent. Plus paying a doggy day care as none of us could take dogs out. I cursed them every day. hope everything broken 4 months in. You have all my sympathy.
Next time, insurance and trust your instincts when a buyer/seller is a nightmare at the beginning is nooooo good.

Yes the system is truly shite! A similar thing happened to us. I still walk past "my" house and growl. However we managed to make an offer on another a few months later and have been here for three years. Of course I know this isn't the point. As much as I would have liked to have posted something unpleasant through their door and was bitter about the money we had spent on fees (no we didn't take insurance out either) we quickly realised that this was the nature of the beast and some people do this. I'm sure their reasons were valid but it meant we had to prolong our stay in an inappropriate rental for a bit longer. I hope it works out for you. No need to confront them but I feel you know this already. Good luck with your new house 💐

it cost around 70 -100
depending on what level you get
normally in places for six months or to the end of completion
cover can vary but normally surveys legal fees removal cost - if you have got that far
the top level can cover you if you have to store stuff for I think up to 3 months

my son had it through his solicitors and at one point the chain almost fell apart and his solicitors confirmed that’s his legal fees and survey would be covered so around 2.5k
luckily the sale went ahead so no need to claim