WIBU to Facebook message this woman? House sale drama...

[AveAtqueVale]

Will try to keep this as brief as possible:

We're due to move house on Monday. We were supposed to exchange on Thursday, but our buyer never transferred her money. She is on holiday abroad and when the estate agent chased her up, she was drunk. Money was never transferred, exchange never happened. On Friday morning EA/ solicitors started chasing her again, and there was radio silence until early afternoon her solicitor emailed ours to say she's unwell and won't be completing on Monday. No further info as to whether this means 'but she can probably manage on Tuesday' or 'is pulling out entirely'. She's refusing to speak to EAs, and has only spoken to her solicitor, who told ours that she was in hospital (!) and not making much sense.
Meanwhile, almost all of our stuff has been packed up and taken off in two moving vans, and we're camping in our empty house for the weekend.

Obviously EAs/ solicitors not working today and tomorrow, so we are stuck waiting for Monday morning to see if we have any more idea what's going on. I'm mostly hoping she was just horrendously hungover yesterday and couldn't face/ manage the money side of things, and all will actually be fine. But no idea.

We've spent a significant amount of money on the removers as they packed too, and they need their vans back by Tuesday evening at the latest. So if we haven't completed by then we will have to have it all brought back, but obviously will still owe them their full fee. Not to mention the absolute hassle of having to unpack everything here and remarket the house etc if she is pulling out entirely 😫. There's a whole chain above us too in the same position - she's the bottom/ cash buyer so we're all kind of at her mercy.

Anyway - I've found her on Facebook and am contemplating messaging her directly to ask her (nicely!) what is actually going on. She might not even see it of course as we're not friends, so it might go into message requests. But I'm also worried that doing it at all is a bit stalkerish/ bordering on harassment! But at this stage would just welcome any kind of info even if it's bad news!

YANBU: Message her - you might get some info and it's perfectly ok in the circumstances!

YABU: Leave the poor woman alone - she's obviously got a lot going on and doesn't need you hounding her as well!

Also if anyone has any other words of wisdom/ ideas, I'd love to hear them 🤦🏻‍♀️.

Oh god what a nightmare! No real advice but sending sympathy. I suppose this is one reason why people often have a couple of weeks between exchange and completion, to allow time to pack and arrange removal once exchange has happened.

keeping fingers crossed for you that she genuinely is ill (sorry that sounds bad) and that there will just be a delay of a few days.

What a bloody nightmare. I would flipping message, keep it polite tell her to let you know straight if she is not exchanging as you are all packed up. People are selfish arses. I would have to unconscious in intensive care to let this happen. Hugs OP

I don't think messaging her will yield any good results
Either she's changed her mind or she's had something happen. Either way it will be resolved Tues or you put house back in market.
Unfortunately you took a massive risk by starting your house move without having exchanged. Leave it to EA and solicitor to progress

I am not voting as don’t agree either option other than don’t message let your solicitor deal with it.

I don’t think I would message, sounds like she’s a bit of an avoidant moron going on holiday at the point of completion. As the bottom of the chain she has the least to lose and may not appreciate being chased by you. I guarantee her solicitors will be exasperated by her and will be chasing even if it doesn’t seem like it

I would say hungover more than ill. Fancy going on holiday when you are due to move house could not think of anything worse.
someone is not telling the truth and a lot depends on her getting her arse into gear so yes I would message her, The official channels are shut until Monday so you need a clear picture what is happening.
least she can do is ignore you or tell you to sod off at best you may know more what is happening

Don't contact her it will make no difference.
What an awful situation.

Reminds me of it happening to someone some years ago.
They were rightly messed about.
They had intended to leave so many things that would have saved the new owners money as they couldn't use them.

Instead when they did eventually exchange they told their young new neighbours near them to look around and take what they wanted.
All garden pots, nice plants, garden furniture, extra tools in the shed, extra fridge, trampoline, swings, the lot were cleared.

I definitely wouldn’t message her so risk of her withdrawing entirely because she felt ‘hassled’

What a nightmare though OP, keeping everything crossed it all happens

I would need to message. Deep down I'd know it wasn't right, and ideally not what I'd have to do. But I'd also be thinking 'fuck her'.
Chances are she may not reply, and that's if she even sees it in the first place (likely to go into 'message requests' or spam).
Hope you get it sorted.

If she is in hospital I would question whether she was actually drunk when the EA spoke to her or if she was medically unwell.

Definitely don't message. Really, really bad idea.

Appreciate you've spent money but this is a harsh lesson in life, never actually start to move until after exchange because you've got no legal recourse if it goes wrong.

She's not going to buy the house. She is literally screaming that out loud by her actions. She's just trying to ghost you.

Cut your losses and get it back on the market ASAP.

Send a friend request but no message yet... See what ea comes back with Monday... If she pulls out let rip on sm....

Do not message her or send a friend request. She may feel you have crossed the line and are stalking her.

Let your solicitor deal with it.

Hope it all comes good for you.

the annoyance of the situation aside, it was a really bad idea to pack up your house and have the removal vans come in even before you’d exchanged.

Nothing is a done deal until you exchange, and as you’ve found out the hard way, people literally do pull out at the last minute.

Contacting her don't make any difference. Has she got a property to move out of? How will she do that if she's on holiday?

Obviously this is an awful situation, but you really shouldn’t have booked and confirmed movers if you hadn’t exchanged yet. Until you exchange, you don’t have a confirmed completion date and you aren’t ‘supposed’ to move on any particular date - it’s all just provisional. Very tough life lesson for you here. I’m especially confused about why you’d do this if you were paying for packing - surely part of the purpose of doing that is you don’t have to start at all far in advance and they can just turn up the day of or the day before you move. Did the movers not try to talk you out of doing this so prematurely?

So it took two days to pack up, they couldn't just come and do it on the day. We wanted to leave longer between exchange and completion but the rest of the chain (including her!!!) were pushing to complete on the 24th, so we agreed and were told it would happen this week. We had to book the removers or if completion had happened on the 24th we'd never have been out in time. We did repeatedly query with EAs/ solicitors whether we should go ahead with organising the removal and they all kept saying it was fine. She's been the one pushing things to go faster! I'm just completely bemused.

She's in rental and I think has a few weeks in hand, so no pressure for her to pack up her own stuff before holiday.

What money has to be transferred in order for the exchange to take place? I'm totally confused by this.

Presumably OP’s buyer is bottom of the chain and needs to pay a deposit on exchange.

You need to keep distance and let all the comms go via solicitors.
At this stage I would be saying to solicitors that if you do end up having to get everything returned to your current house then you will be looking for them to cover this as you had asked, and they essentially gave you poor advice. Hopefully via email because then you've got it in writing.
Fingers crossed that somehow it all comes together for you on Monday and you get moved.

How much stuff do you have?! We paid for packing when we moved and it took less than half a day to pack our 3-bed house.

I’m sorry, nobody should have encouraged you to book removals.

If you message her you risk scaring her off completely imo.

Very stressful but I would wait until Monday and let the solicitor deal with it.

Why on earth did you pack everything and move before you had exchanged?! That’s madness.

As frustrating as it is (I'd be going mad!) Don't message. Let the professionals you pay sort it. You could make it worse even with best intentions.