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 on earth didn’t you exchange and complete as soon as you were back? That’s just weird.

@CallItLoneliness so buyers pay for a survey, find there is an issue, pull out and are out of pocket?

So let's say you send your angry email. Then you find out that his mother died or his wife had a terminal diagnosis or he'd been made redundant.
How would you feel?
By all means ask the estate agent and if it turns out it was because the solicitors took too long or something then turn your anger on them.

I don't blame them. You could have exchanged while out of town. They must have thought you are not taking this seriously.
Maybe you should write an email to yourself.

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

get over yourself. It’s one of the most expensive purchases someone may make, of course they should be able to pull out if they have concerns. They haven’t done anything wrong.

The house we are in now took 13 months. We were renting, the people we were buying off were buying from people who were dragging thier feet finding somewhere, but they made it very clear that they wanted that house so if we didn’t want to wait, we could bugger off. Then they held up solicitors with stupid things like they “couldn’t remember” if they had built the extention.

We didn’t have a choice as it was the only house of the right size we could afford in a 25 mile radius (having already moved 150 miles here a year prior as we were priced out of renting in the SE), and it was cheaper than the others as it was a dump that needed work. It turned out well for us in the end though as the market went crazy here in that year and the value rose 30k in those 13 months (and obviously, we paid the agreed price,I have to point this out as the amount of people who thought we would have had to have paid more money is staggering!).

if we hadn’t held on for this house, we would have been entirely priced out of the market here so we had no choice but to wait. 4 years later and we are in the position that we would never have been able to afford our own house if we’d been buying now, prices here have risen so much, so we were lucky, even though it was a ballache.

But it all seems to take such a long time, whereas in other countries it happens much more quickly.

As for exchanging and completing on the same day - that's just insane.

People don't just pull out for no reason. Circumstances change and it's not a decision he will have taken lightly. With all due respect, the inconvenience it has caused you is none of his concern. For all you know he may have had similar happen to him, and therefore now can't proceed. If you lose your dream house, you'll probably be causing inconvenience to someone else. That wouldn't be your fault, and hopefully for you you won't receive a snotty email guilt tripping you if it does. Life does not revolve around you and what is convenient for your family.

You are not unreasonable to be feeling upset and annoyed at the sale falling through. You would be very unreasonable to let the buyer know how much they have inconvenienced you, without a second thought to what might be going on in their life to have made the sale fall through.

Welcome to the stressful world of buying and selling. It sucks, but what you are experiencing can and does happen for all manner of reasons. Your annoyance at the buyer is is completely misplaced.

No he shouldn’t. That happens on exchange of contracts.

I'm looking at the minute and saw one like that the other day. Scrolled straight past

I agree. It is annoying. Especially as you will have paid out for searches etc. In France once you have signed the agreement you have to pay a percentage of the sale price if you pull out. Makes more sense.

Here obtaining a survey would be one of the conditions of sale, if there is an issue you can pull out without losing any money. It's once the sale becomes unconditional that it's locked in (i.e. once the conditions have all been met).

I’m sure most people would. So you are one bad survey away from losing a 2k deposit? Absolutely no way.

Well OP, you have learned a lesson - when selling a property, if the buyer wants to exchange - DO IT!! If the buyer wants to exchange and complete on the same day - DO IT!!

Don't fanny about being "out of town". Nothing should be more important that getting that property sale locked down. You could have got movers to pack up all your stuff and put it into storage temporarily.

Here’s a tip for anyone buying and selling:

Once you have a buyer lined up, speak with them directly, swap numbers and agree to get in touch if anything is getting “stuck”. I’ve resolved a number of issues on a house sale by simply talking or meeting the buyers then each of us telling our solicitors that we are happy and the issue is a non-issue.
Remove the drama. Solicitors do love to overcomplicate sometimes. Estate Agents just chase as they want their fee.

Timing wise, I have done offer to completion in 5 weeks (that was incredibly fast and we had to chase very hard for searches etc - almost impossible now), 3 months (straightforward sale and purchase no chain either way) and one where it took nearly 9 months due to some transferring some complex lifetime mortgage arrangements and two separate titles for house and a garage.

But what issues are covered though? I’d still be so wary. Our survey read like a Stephen King novel (we were going to do it up so didn’t care), but it was nothing that would have actually affected the mortgage or the sale of the house.

Surveys often say the roof needs replacing, but when you get a builder round, they say no, it’s got at least 5 years in it don’t worry.

So that would make me run from paying a deposit, there’s probably a lot of small print that makes it hard to get out of.

I think in some other countries, things like bridging loans are much more common so no need to line up a chain which obviously simplifies stuff massively.

When my sister bought as first time buyers in Australia they rented the place they bought back to the owners whilst the owners looked for a property. That sort of arrangement would be very rare in England

OP, is there some confusion between exchange and completion?

Could you not have exchanged but with a completion date that suited you both?

Anyway, don’t send an e mail… and good luck with re-listing. It’s a brutal process.

Oh… maybe seek advice on a less slow solicitor?

Went through this last year with a buyer pulling out for reasons beyond my understanding. The estate agent nearly lost us the next sale, one showed round a prospective buyer and told him he’d need ‘special permission’ to remove a potential problem causing tree. There was no TPO and the only issue would be getting a space outside for a chipper/removal of the trunk. Another agent from the same agency basically made up crap and was totally on the buyer’s side re a really minor issue and when I called her out on it, said I was rude. I honestly wasn’t, although I was really cross at her nonsense when she didn’t know what she was talking about. Estate agents drive me nuts. The bloke on about the tree couldn’t even get into the garden because he had ‘forgotten’ that both doors used one key.

I do think the system needs adjusting in England. I’m dreading future sales!

It’s really none of your business. As awful as it is for you, you don’t know their personal circumstances. Two sides.

Don’t send an angry email. Ask if his conveyancer can sell the surveys to the next person that puts down an offer and you should be able to complete quicker. It happens sometimes

In simplistic terms he made a request, you declined it and he’s pulled out. The system is only broken because it hasn’t suited you.

Well it seems to work here, I haven't heard of anyone who has had issues afterwards (unless they haven't had a survey done of course).

Exactly. I'm finding it really to understand why you didn't DROP EVERYTHING when he said he wanted to exchange and complete. I would have. Cancel whatever I was doing, run back and get the house packed up.

I'm wondering if the fact that you "were out of town", has made him think that you are not serious about selling and he has decided, based on that, to pull out.