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?"

My sympathies, and I guess you're unloading.
Shit system here.

My neighbours have twice sold their house then pulled out. Things happen but to do it twice is awful.

I have pulled out of buying a house recently but I'm doing everything I can so my buyers can still purchase mine.

This exact thing happened to me once. Seller pulled out day before exchange. I had 3 weeks to find somewhere to live.

It's heartbreaking and maddening. The seller has behaved thoughtlessly and badly. Unfortunately, you have no recourse.

In the end, I paid my bill, prioritised finding somewhere to live and hoped that karma would take care of the seller. I asked for a break clause in my new rental contract. In reality, I didn't find somewhere else to buy for quite a while. If you think you will find somewhere soonish, can you move in with family or friends for a short while until you secure a new house?

Sorry this happened. It really sucks. Once you are finally in a home of your own, it will be a dinner party tale you will completely forget about until someone on the internet shares a similar tale that reminds you. Home buying is just a deeply stressful process. I hope it goes smoother next time.

I think this bears out the fact that a house is only worth what people are prepared to pay.

Depends on how they behave during that visit though doesn’t it ?

I’d be tempted to reply to the post on Facebook

This is really bad, but legal I'm afraid.

What should happen, is their behaviour is officially on record, so future buyers are aware.

No. For the offence of harassment to be committed there needs to be a "course of conduct", which means that there must be a minimum of two separate acts of harassment.

I'm SO tempted!

DO NOT DO IT.

simply put no, yes its annoying and frustrating when this happens but sadly not much to be done thats why a lot of people like to buy new builds or chain free which this problem doesnt tend to arise

No

My DD had the buyer from hell
Messed her about. Got to the point of exchange a number of times and then backed off and asked for spurious reductions etc etc. She was keen to move and agreed to more than she should have. Eventually she was so fed up she decided that she was going to put the house back on the market and to hell with them. Suddenly they were all keen to go ahead and did so. After completion we had dreadful storms and for the first time ever the whole property was totally flooded.

If a survey or whatever funds something you do not like, that should happen before you pay a deposit. If you waited, that was your choice.

If you are buying a property yourself, you will have a deposit from the seller. If you are selling but have not found a property to buy yet, you should not proceed to the phase you bind yourself to sell yet. That means that your buyers might find other options while you find something for yourself of course.
Which is exactly what happens anyway right now, with the difference that people will pull off at the last minute.

There is nothing wrong with deposits, they just move decision time earlier on.

Life can happen even earlier on. But sometimes, maybe often, people will not pull off even if life happened, because who knows, maybe things will change, or because they are engaging in wishful thinking.

And let's be honest, most times life happens right at the time of sales because of the system. It allows people not to commit until the luggage is at the door, so people will leave a lot of decisions to the last minute.
Give them an obligation to pay 5 to 10% months ahead, instead, and if they are not sure, if the want more cash, if they want to pay less, they will address that concern earlier.

It is a demented system right now. A bunch of people window shopping and stretching really thin, due to an overinflated market.

It’s crap. I was just over 8 months pregnant, our house was packed up and we were two weeks from moving into our new house. I already started maternity leave and had changed hospitals to the one closer to the new house. We negotiated to buy a sideboard from them that fit perfectly in the dining room from the sellers and it was all on track.

Next day DH came home from work white as a sheet to say the sellers pulled out.

It was awful.

Thankfully our buyers were amazing and allowed us to stay an extra 3 months. I’m a firm believer in karma.

While it was gutting at the time, we found a much better home that we have been in over 16 years (that was able to be extended and now worth so much more than the house we lost). I happened to drive past the house we lost and realised that we were far better off having it fall through. It’s hard at the time but try to let it go.

And if it helps, we live in a relatively small town and everyone knows what they did and it slightly tarnished their reputation in the community.

And again a orine reason why they need to reform the process in this country. I had to forbid six weeks in three airbnbs last time I moved due to two different sellers pulling out last minute. Lost out on the stamp duty break too.
Make offers legally binding (with contingencies if needed). Set out schedule for when survey/mortgage/rxchange/completion whatever needs doing. Penalties if either side drops out.

I want to know what was on that Post!!!! What did they say.

This happened to us. We pulled out of buying a property and were due to exchange the next week. My father died and my mother did not want to live alone so we pulled out to get a house that she could have a downstairs bedroom and wet room. The owner of the house turned up and started shouting at me. I told them the reason he didn't really change his tune. They had paid for surveys on their purchase. They found another buyer. The people buying our house would not wait for us so we had to find temporary living accomodation for 3 weeks until our property completed. It was so hard to find somewhere to stay for short term as rentals want 6 months rent and deposit. Luckily we found friends with a flat we paid to stay in. Before we got to move in to the flat I had to have a hysterectomy. That didn't help as I couldn't do much moving things and couldn't drive for a month. There may be a good reason behind them pulling out as well ? 🤔

If you were buying through an agent you could ask them at least to find out why. It may make you feel better if it's for something like a bad illness. Maybe the house they're buying fell through.

Yeah this is what I'd like to see. The way it works now is shit. So many people put their house on the market because they "fancy moving" but they're just not serious. Then they pull out last minute.

Yeah probably not though if they were joking about it on FB. In your position I'd have apologised profusely and asked the agent to pass on the fact that it was due to a family bereavement. Not just say I'd changed my mind and make a joke out of it. Twats.

It's always in times of need you find out how much family cares or will help out. No one would help us when we had nowhere to go until we found a Christian family praying for someone to help that day and my hubby walked in and told them we needed somewhere and they offered their flat.

People can change their minds for pretty much any reason. It sucks but that’s that 🤷‍♀️ How would you react if you were in their position and people came over demanding a contribution towards their costs? Would you give it? Somehow I doubt it as we’ve all got the right to change our minds.

When I tried to buy in Scotland many years ago, you had to have a survey done before you could put an offer in. There were 14 offers went in for the house, every one of those having had to pay for their own surveys - crazy! I think it's changed slightly in that you buy into the home buyer's report that the seller has to have done by law rather than pay for a survey. You have to put your best offer in, as they have sealed bids. After paying for 2 surveys and losing out, we decided not to buy in Scotland.

I think it's changed slightly in that you buy into the home buyer's report that the seller has to have done by law rather than pay for a survey.

Yes there's a home report that the seller pays for now. You don't need to buy into it, the estate agent just emails it to you if you ask so you can see it before the viewing.