To call out our buyer for being a CF?

[BadHairForDays]

We're relocating from London to the Home Counties with our DC (7 and 4). We are fortunate to be part of a closed chain. Our buyers are a young couple (first-time buyers) and our sellers are moving into a probate property. As ever with these things, it's been a long slog - stressful and definitely not issue free but we are so close to having everything in order - literally waiting on one document and been told to expect completion in early/mid Jan. Honestly the end was in sight.

DH and I have made a huge effort to respond to things in a timely way and be amenable and patient where required. It's going to be a huge change for our young kids and we don't want to drag it out any more than need be.

I then got a message off our buyer on Saturday saying that they'd "had a few hiccups" (as have we) and they were "checking that we're on the same page as we'd be ready to complete mid to late April." The text was chock full of laughing emojis which I know is neither here nor there but somehow p**d me off even further.

I am so, so frustrated I could cry - it's really impacted this weekend. I have emailed our solicitor asking them to get to the bottom of this and to ask when the earliest is they could complete. Part of me really wants to respond to the message and call their bluff and say that we'll take our flat off the market but the painful truth is we are dead set on this move and selling our shared ownership flat has been harder than we anticipated. So I guess a lot of my frustration stems from the situation as a whole.

Has this happened to anyone else? What did you do? The buyer didn't know what a chain was a few weeks ago (had to explain it to him) so part of me wonders if he just doesn't really grasp how these things are done?

It would mean our mortgage offer and valuation expiring and will potentially cause complications with getting the kids a school place.

Honestly say nothing. Don’t reply. Ring your solicitor tomorrow morning and make them contact the other party. Be willing to put your property back on the market.

Keep communication through the solicitor, extending your mortgage offer should be easy enough of required
what was the planned date to move always mid Jan?

It was initially this week but this one doc we're waiting for is holding things up slightly. I'm worried they're getting cold feet.

Have you not exchanged? Were you planning on doing both on the same day - that is always unwise. Completion date (or indeed the sale going through) is never guaranteed until exchange of contracts. If you really need it, give them a deadline to exchange and one to complete or you pull out.

We had buyers like this. It was SO frustrating.

Just to give you a positive story, the sale did end up completing. It took 10 months though! Only us, them and their buyer in the chain.

I would contact your solicitor and estate agent. Your estate agent will be keen to get things moving more quickly as they’ll want their commission

I wouldn't respond, I'd contact both solicitor and estate agent and get them to get to the bottom of it. I had something similar first time buyer was buying mine, I was buying a probate. They suddenly said they couldn't move as they'd forgotten to let landlord know/didn't want to pay rent/mortgage, hadn't realised that's what would happen.
I was actually due for major surgery two weeks after moving and I said I wouldn't move till 3 months later when their mortgage offer would need renewing. Calling their bluff was a risk but worked and we moved a week later than originally planned.

This happened to me (buyers wanting to delay by a couple of months when the chain was ready to go and they'd previously agreed dates).

I called the estate agent and instructed them to put our property on the market immediately.

Funnily enough, an hour later, they phoned back saying our buyers would like to stick with the earlier exchange and completion dates as previously agreed.

We had a buyer who caused delay after delay. They knew we needed to have exchanged by a certain date in order to get DS school application in for the area we were moving to but kept messing us around.
Eventually they said they wanted to send their electrician around to check the wiring even though they'd had months to do it (and obviously he'd find a problem and they'd try to knock even more money off).
We'd absolutely had enough and immediately emailed our estate agent to say if we hadn't exchanged within 3 days we were putting the house back on the market (& considering we'd had 25 serious offers we knew it would go instantly, as did the buyer).
Funnily enough, as soon as we did that the buyer was suddenly in a position to proceed and we exchanged with 48 hours.