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. I’m glad you say you won’t be messaging her. I was going to say she’ll be liable for everyone’s costs but notice you haven’t exchanged so I’m not sure she will. Your solicitor will obviously know what to do if it all goes wrong on Monday. Fingers crossed it will work out for you all.

My solicitor didn’t pay our stamp duty for a few months, so I hear you 😂

@zingally Funnily enough we exchanged contracts from the middle of Lake Garda as well! It had taken ten long months to get to that point and looked like it was all going to fall apart multiple times prior. Nearly capsized the boat in our excitement when it actually went through.

We had a four week gap between exchange and completion as we were on holiday and then our vendors were getting married and going on honeymoon.

Best of luck OP, moving is the most stressful thing ever.

You do this here, too. It’s called exchange. The issue is that the chain appears to have agreed to exchange and complete quite quickly - you can do it same day if you want to - and therefore nobody has had the legal protection that would have come from exchanging sooner. That means OP’s buyer can still pull out. If they were exchanged; she’d at least lose her deposit to do so, which would cover some of the expense and inconvenience to OP.

The advice to book movers before exchange was a bit crazy. If exchange failed on Thursday, completion was not going to be Monday or Tuesday. Movers are typically ready for this and I’m surprised any moving firm suggested packing over multiple days, usually for lots of stuff they just bring more people. Our sellers had 16 people packing for them when we completed, and were clear that completion would have to be pushed by at least a week if it was missed for any reason so the moving firm could rearrange. That doesn’t help OP now, though.

I’d be proceeding as if this sale had collapsed at this point, if the solicitors are clear that exchange won’t happen on Monday either. For whatever reason; she’s not proceedable.

No she won’t; everyone will be liable for their own costs until exchange.

what a mess, when i was selling my dads house after he died, his buyer was dead cocky , on day we signed her buyer puller out i could not believe it, she still acted like it didnt matter hers went back on market resold straight away but held us all up for several months, ,good luck i aged years during the house sale

Last time we moved, someone in our chain (top of it I think), failed to confirm with their solicitor that they were happy to exchange, 4 days in a row.

I have no idea what their problem was and it was so horribly stressful and rage inducing that I felt physically sick, but we did get there in the end.

The English horse buying system is shit.

I know it was a typo but the horse buying system being shit, made me laugh.

But seriously OP, I wish you luck.

I would say yes to messaging her. We had such a hassle with our house purchase, it only completed because I took matters into my own hands, found our seller on Facebook and our buyer on LinkedIn and messaged them and we sorted it out between us haha

@madroid

But they haven't exchanged. That's the whole point of the post.

What a nightmare! I really hope everything works out alright for you.

There's also the possibility that she didn't know she was due to complete on that day....
It actually happened to me the last time.... bottom of the chain was a cash buyer to.... but I was the person who didn't know.
I'd been told end October at the earliest and happened to contact my solicitor to check something and was told it was 2 days later.... I hadn't even packed up the house yet.... luckily I found out but had to request a delay to allow me the weekend to hastily pack up...
Complete nightmare

Unbelievably selfish

When you think what goes into moving...packing, logistics, annual leave

She's unbelievably moronic

Why didn't she transfer money before she left for her holiday?

Hopefully she's just totally embarrassed and ashamed and money will ping over tomorrow

Good luck tomorrow! I hope you manage to sleep

Removals firms need notice though

What else was OP supposed to do

Jeezzz, this is a nightmare. I hope the sale does go through next week OP!

We had a buyer disappear on the day of exchange. It was devastating but we hadn't packed anything and had arranged the movers to pack three days later with a week in between to completion. You can't undo that obviously and I really hope tmrw brings good news

I'm assuming you've heard nothing yet @AveAtqueVale ? Shamelessly place marking in the hopes of a positive update to say its all sorted and you're moving in the morning 🤞🏻

Hope you can exchange and complete soon. My solicitor insisted on a month in-between which we were grateful for. If the plan was to complete tomorrow then perhaps you'll end up exchanging and completing on the same day.

I wonder if she doesn't have the deposit independently of the mortgage.

This confirms (for the umteenth time) that the English house conveyancing system is bonkers. Here in NZ she would lose her (minimum 10%) deposit by doing that.

Fingers crossed Monday brings good news
We were in a similar place when we moved (although it was solicitors delays) and had the house all packed up in removal trucks. I remember the stress and worry well. In the end we exchanged and moved on the same day. It was a 5 chain and our solicitor was amazing!!
Good luck

Thinking of you this morning OP with everything crossed for progress!

That sounds so stressful, I can't imagine messing someone about like that with seemingly no reason whatsoever. I hope you get it sorted today op 💐

We had problems just before exchange some years ago when the buyer wanted to give us a part-exchange of a time share in Florida as her house had not sold. In our case the agent was a friend of the buyer and was encouraging us to do what she wanted, insane! Needless to say we didn't do this and she had to drop her price to sell her property.
Best of luck with your sale. I should add that we would never have started our removal before exchange and a definite, signed, date for completion. It's very common for things to be delayed.

I hope you haven't been back because you have been busy moving in.