To want to send an angry email to our house buyer after he pulled out days before exchange

[Parkingbird]

We sold our house in late Feb and we were so close to getting a date to exchange - we were looking at early June. Buyer wanted an earlier date in late May, but we were out of town so it wasn't possible. Then we received news that he pulled out yesterday. I'm devastated as it took us a long while to sell and also we may now lose our dream house - no word if our seller is willing to wait for us.

We have never communicated with our buyer but a quick Google search turns his company profile up and I'm this close to sending him an angry email asking why he chose to pull out and how he has wasted our time and money, and all the effort involved to change my toddler's preschool and activities etc, not to mention the risk of losing our new home!!! I know this changes nothing but I want him to know what his actions have done to us.

This system is so broken. Why can't a deposit be made so that nobody can back out as and when they like???

Why can't a deposit be made so that nobody can back out as and when they like???

Here it's called earnest money. Although here, once an offer is accepted you usually have about 30 days to move out of the house. Our seller wanted 60 and our attorney negotiated 45.

A deposit is paid, but only at exchange which is when the sale is protected. This is why it was foolish of the OP to delay exchange.

OP - on a practical advice note: have you considered those companies that buy properties for cash very quickly? You won't get the full market value (about 85%) but the sale can be completed within a few weeks hassle free and they pay all the solicitors and other fees.

It sounds like you're confused over what exchange actually is. You don't move on exchange day, you move on competition day. You can choose for them to be the same day, but traditionally there's a couple of weeks in between, with the competition date being set in stone on the day of exchsnge. So it's all fixed and arranged, and people are working to a known date. If you've refused to exchange, or are trying to do it all on the same day you might well end up losing further buyers. At least make sure you understand the process. It might well be that its you who gave him cold feet and reason to back out.

Sometimes people pull out of purchases for very good reasons.

We once did when a survey revealed that proper planning permission for a garage and outbuildings hadn't been sought.

The sellers were furious and tried to force us to complete that day with a discount. In the end we had to tell the agent to stop contacting us about it.

You do all your checks, make an offer (which might be conditionalon a few things, ie selling your house), the offer is accepted, you pay a deposit and you agree on a date to complete. If you pull out before then (which you can) you lose your deposit which is usually 10% of the sale price. This seems a much more logical system

Irrespective of what we all think of the system - this is the system.

YABU to contact them directly. How do you know someone hasn’t lost their job, a family member - literally any change in personal circumstance could have caused this, as well as them just being annoyed and inconvenienced at how slow things were.

Of course it’s disappointing. I’d let it be a lesson.

Making an offer/accepting an offer is never a full commitment ri buy. It's the start of a process where a buyer can make all the necessary steps to reassure themselves that they want to go ahead, then contracts are exchanged. Even then it's not an unbreakable commitment, they just forfeit a deposit by way of compensation for the inconvenience if they don't go ahead.

You don't change preschools, make any financial commitments or do anything else that until contracts are exchanged.

Exchange and completion on the same day is possible but it's insane to agree to it if the property being sold is your main residence. No one can make arrangements to empty a property same-day, movers need at least 2 weeks notice, and booking movers before contracts are exchanged is very unwise.

Yabu to blame the person who made the offer. They made no commitment to you. Next time around, don't assume anything is happening until contracts have been signed.

Year’s ago a friend pulled out of a sale at the very last minute (she had to pay a penalty or something). She felt really terrible about it but had unexpectedly got an incredible job offer she couldn’t turn down (long before remote working, in advertising and could probably easily do it from home nowadays, but not back then). It was nowhere near this house so she either had to turn down the house or the job. She chose to take the job.

Sometimes there are valid reasons and difficult decisions have to be made. Still sucks for the seller though.

What was more important than getting your "dream house"?

Unless it was a life or death emergency, that absolutely needed both of you to be there.

No one pulls out after searches and surveys on a whim because they will have already spent £000s on it. Either something was discovered which has put them off or something in their circumstances has materially changed.

The English house buying system has serious flaws, but it's what we are stuck with.

Write the letter (letter, not e-mail), as you need to let go of your frustration. Then burn it.
Fingers crossed the right people view the house over the weekend, and you are all set to go again.

To be fair, it’s not like conveyancers are sitting round twiddling their thumbs. All the ones I know are incredibly hard working and constantly on the verge of overwhelm. We expect conveyancing so cheaply they have to take on 10 times a sensible workload to make the work economic so it takes longer, and people using these massive conveyancing shops for hundreds of pound makes it worse- they don’t know what they are doing, make mistakes and slow everything down.

Like with everything in life you pay peanuts you get monkeys, but if people continue to want relatively cheap skilled legal work ( cutting corners on the most expensive thing most of us will even buy & which we don’t understand makes total sense!) it isn’t going to change. I like the Scottish system.

OP I feel your frustration!

Mine threatened to pull out days before exchange unless I knocked a further £5k off as she had split with her partner - she was buying the house herself anyway. She knew I was in precarious circumstances and on the verge of having to declare bankruptcy, on my own with 2 children.

Horrible horrible woman - she completely took advantage of my situation, knowing I was desperate to sell and had already signed for a rental property. I ended up taking a loan out to cover the then agreed £3.5k reduction - I was already heavily in debt following my marriage breakdown. Just massively increased my stress and pushed me further into depression.

I pettily removed every single light bulb from the property upon move date. Middle of winter. Tiny inconvenience for her. But I genuinely hope karma bit back at her somewhere else too - I’ve risen magnificently from the ashes.

I don't like the system, but sellers don't want the responsibility of survey do they? Countries where buyers can't pull out have the info upfront

plenty of sellers have no issues pulling out when they get a higher offer.

I would find out why they pulled out through yhe agent but then look forward and focus on getting another buyer. The system is ridiculous and in my opinion you absolutely have to be around for exchange. Its a stress process. I also think times between exchange and completion are now very quick. Ours was one day !

We were away when we exchanged and our buyer's buyer was too. All the paperwork is there, with the respective solicitors; you didn't need to be around. But you might not be in England.

The solicitors call you before exchange. You have to be available for the call. If yhe exchange fails the process is repeated the next day.

One of the reasons why I'm still in my first house after 35 years with no intention to move!

Moving house is difficult

I put in offer for a house last year November…. Nothing was done until after Christmas.

the January the solicitor started the searches and a few issues came up…. This lead to a delay… then by March I had issues with the mortgage and more delays… then May, once these issues were sorted and I was looking for an exchange date… sellers pulled out and went to the modern day auction instead.

Frustrating as it is … I won’t contact seller on personal level. Everyone has their reasons.

My process starts all over again.

He would have paid his deposit when you exchanged and he would have been locked in. You chose not to exchange earlier, therefore choosing to forego that protection and it still isn’t at all clear why, because being out of town is irrelevant. You took steps to change your child’s preschool and activities without any legal commitment on the sale... I get you’re frustrated but sending a letter to the buyer would be utterly ridiculous.

Don’t know why everyone’s picking on the exchange date- it didn’t work for one party, that’s not unreasonable.
send the email, doesn’t change anything but if it makes you feel better OP do it!

Sounds better

It's utterly pointless sending a stroppy email. At best he probably won't even read it, at worst you might find that he had a very good personal reason for having to pull out such as serious illness, in which case you'll feel awful for making it worse.

Urgh, I can't remember how many times we got gazumped trying to buy a house in the UK. I think I blocked it out, it was soul destroying.

Then we moved to South Africa and the first house we put an offer in, got accepted. We were bracing ourselves that it was going to go the same way, until we realised that is not how it works here.

Everything was done smoothly and efficiently. Offer in September, moved in on the 1st of December. Just under 3 months.

I would hate to try to buy property in the UK again.