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 ok, is this a first-time buyer thing then? It's been 14 years since we bought a house & moved (I have much more recently bought a property too, but that was buying a family member out of an inheritance share, and I didn't sell my original house), and it's been a lot longer since I was a first time buyer.

Another vote for DO NOT MESSAGE HER

Do not do this, it could be considered harassment and could come back and bite you.

Too. Much. Stuff. 😭

Leave it to the EA and solicitors. I would stop chasing and walk away if it wasn’t sorted by Monday 5pm which doesn’t look possible.

I'd say yes contact her. We moved last year and the solicitor for the house we were buying kept delaying and blaming their client not having instructed them.

Dh had been communicating with them directly as he had personally carried out the survey on the property so had their contact details. Turned out they had instructed the solicitor but the solicitors were trying to delay the exchange as it was more convenient for them to do it on the day we completed.

Caused an awful lot of stress for us and our buyers, who had already moved out of their rented property.

But yes thanks all, definitely not going to message her! Didn't really think I should but wanted a sense-check from people not emotionally involved!

Good choice.

Moving house is so unnecessary stressful, hope you find a better buyer soon.

It’s a bottom of the chain thing - the person who is buying but not selling needs to pay a deposit on exchange, usually 10%. They might not be an FTB, our buyer was bottom of the chain and was moving from rented but was not an FTB.

I'd be tempted to get the EA to put the house back up on Rightmove today tbh. Might scare her into getting her act in gear. If not, well it'll have to go back up on RM in a few days anyway...

OP Id message her.

But im the WORST for knee jerk reactions that I regret.

so maybe listen to the others!

Thank you for this.

Thing is, even if everyone had been all ready to go things can still go wrong - sometimes there are issues with banking systems for example. So I’m very surprised your solicitors and EA gave you such bad advice.

I've been in this position and I would message and explain about the movers etc

The person I was buying from pulled out on the day of exchange, which was 3 days before completion. We had given up our jobs, the house was packed up. It was hell and we lost a lot of money.

A week before the seller pulled out our Estate Agent said they were on holiday and hadn't started packing yet. I really wish I'd beeb able to contact them as they were obviously thinking they were going to pull out.

I would message her in a friendly way. You can never assume that EAs and solicitors are doing their jobs properly and that communicatuon is effective. I'd message her saying hi it's me from X house, I'm just messaging in case solicitors and EAs are being rubbish, hope you're ok and happy to just speak to you direct about the house if that's easier.

She might be taking the mick and just withdrawing, but she might also be having a nightmare and feel that she now can't go through with the house. Letting her know you can wait a few days might save the sale.

Aww that’s awful I really hope it all goes ahead. So sorry you’re having to deal with this.

I wouldn’t message her

You usually exchange and then complete a few weeks later for exactly this reason so I don't really understand why you're all packed, but this sounds like it has fallen through, so get your stuff back in the house.

Don't message. She's either still buying or she's not - messaging will make no difference. Let the EA/solicitors do the job you pay them for and instead focus on developing a plan B.

I’ve moved three times and your description doesn’t match my experience at all. First move exchange and completion same day, second time exchanged Friday (should have been Thursday) moved Tuesday, third time, exchanged and moved 6 days apart. This is similar time frames to all my friends too.

IDK why so many people are getting fixated on OP packing her stuff to move. It doesn't move us forward. Obviously, she was given a date and accepted it as moving day in good faith, what's she supposed to do, start packing on Monday morning once the cleared funds hit? Book a mover on the same day? Go on try that one and see how well it goes! 🤣 Then the same posters would probably be complaining that she was squatting in her old house and that the new seller had every right to throw her stuff in the gutter, I'd wager. 🙄

OP don't message her, she's a timewaster and it just sounds like one bad excuse after another. I'd bet she isn't even really in hospital. I'm really sorry but I don't think this sale is going through. But I don't think messaging her will change anything.

I wouldn’t message. People are properly bonkers and someone behaving like this isn’t likely to respond in a normal way.

Generally people don't arrange movers to come until the day the house sale is due to Complete. Until your sale has completed, you don't own the property and have no rights to enter it. Don't contact this woman directly. You need to leave this to your solicitor to deal with. As you haven't Exchanged, then yes, it's entirely possible this woman could pull out of the sale completely. The solicitors will need to arrange another date to Exchange, and then usually a week later, you Complete. You can't Complete on Tuesday, because you haven't Exchanged! At best by Monday/Tuesday you may know more information. Bring your furniture back to your property, and then arrange for the removers to come back on the day you're due to Complete, not Exchange.

If she's currently in hospital, then I'd think there was a good chance that when your solicitors phoned she was actually doped up on (legal) medication and thought she was on holiday abroad. I remember when my Gran thought she was in an episode of Eastenders Live...

If you can look at her FB profile that may tell you the situation.

Or, of course, both

Thank goodness was about to join the chorus saying this - I understand the urge but it won't have any positive impact and could have a negative one. I completely understand the urge though - it's horrifying when something so huge in your life is completely at the mercy of some random person who is behaving so poorly. Just bitch about her anonymously on here and to your friends and family to get out the frustration.

I wish I had any advice - we had a stressful move last year and felt helpless at times, it did eventually work out with a bit of extra expense and a lot of extra stress. I hope the same for you.