Underhand house purchase tactics.

[Helpmysanity]

UK property, A neighbour house and has Sold STC. They accepted an offer from somone who has sold their own home (rejected offers from those that hadnt). There is however nothing they want to buy. They are undecided if they do still want to sell or extend meanwhile their buyers are unknowingly under the impression it will still go through. Is this normal practice? How are you expected to sell if there is nothing to buy that fits the brief! Presumably at some point they will have to pull out and stay or put back on market, but again what's the point if they can't buy?

It got me thinking, people generally won't accept an offer from someone who hasn't sold, understandably. However if I saw a house I wanted and I hadn't sold what's stopping me from accepting an offer from someone who hasn't sold as there is plenty of those around, to then enable me to put in an offer while all under pretence that I have sold (although only to someone who hasn't sold). I see houses on the market that are Sold STC and have been that way for months if not a years sometimes. Is that because people below are accepting offers when they shouldn't?

We are considering selling but there is nothing that we want to buy that isn't already Sold STC it just makes me wonder how many of these will fall through!

What are all the underhand tactics people use?

In previous house purchases where I have been moving area I have sold mine and rented for six months- if prices are not moving up strongly then this allows you to understand better the local area and conditions. Might they be doing this?

I’m confused! Any decent estate agent would be doing due diligence on all of the chain to make sure that all offers are legitimate and that all the buyers in the chain are informed about what is happening. All the estate agents involved in the chain will be regularly speaking to each other.

The EA/vendor would likely not entertain it if you were not proceedable. We were in a chain when our buyers buyer pulled out so we no longer proceedable, our vendor then pulled out.

Absolutely not my experience. You are only locked in once Missives are signed and you can't sign missives until dates are agreed and you can't agree dates until everyone in your chain is able to proceed. I have lost a house and a buyer recently and am currently owning 2 houses (under a bridging deal) in order to proceed my chain, otherwise I would likely lose another house. It is a short pain to give my buyer the time they required to sell and set their dates.

The first house I purchased was exactly like your neighbour, sold to us and it was all hurry, hurry, we are in a hurry until we tried to set the exchange date and conclude missives, then it was all we haven't been able to find anywhere give us more time, finally they agreed a date as we were pushing to conclude and about 3 weeks before the expected exchange and cruicially before they were committed by signing on the line... they bailed. Found out later that they had marketed their house only 8 months previously and bailed on that sale too. Cunts.

Currently trying to view our dream house but they won't even let us see it until ours is sold. We aren't on the market yet, but we know ours will sell quickly. We don't want to be in a position where we don't have anywhere to go.

So what is your plan?

That was our situation so we had decided to stay put. Then another one we LOVED came up and they accepted our offer subject to sale. 6 months in and LOVE it 😃

We can put our house on the market and see if they will let us view it at that point. If not, then it's too risky. We need to stay in the school catchment area so we are limited in options.

The estate agents will go up and down the chain to confirm everyone has offer etc. and will check progress, there are always issues and chains can break down but this is the flaw in current Uk system.

I've accepted offers on my last two houses without having found anywhere to buy because, personally, I don't really look thoroughly until I know my sale is proceedable. It saves disappointment for me, and I've always been able to find somewhere before we needed to agree on a completion date.
I've also been prepared to complete the sale before I have completed on my next house purchase, last time we went to live somewhere else for two months until all the paperwork on new property was finished.

Yes, I knew people who used bridging loans years ago and it wasn't unusual to come unstuck as the rate for the bridging load was often really high. If you didn't sell your house pretty quickly you could spend a fortune. Today there would also be the problem of paying extra stamp duty if you owned two homes, though of course you can claim the difference back when you do sell if it is within a reasonable period of time.

Depends where in the UK you are. In Scotland offers are made through a solicitor and are binding. If they accepted an offer and have a closing date, but they haven't found anything but then they could rent a place or stay in Airbnb and put their stuff in storage. I think a lot of people accept offers without having found something.

When I sold my Mum’s house, I would only allow viewings to those who were able to proceed. Agent tried to get me to let in those who were on the market, but I stuck to it. They were not worried about wasting my time, I was

No, because when you get an offer on your house, any good estate agent should send you details of the rest of the chain. You can then decide if you’re accepting their offer based on how long the chain is. So you would know if they hadn’t sold their house, except in the case of first time buyers but they don’t have a house to sell anyway!

We agreed to buy a house but some things came up on the survey. It took six months to sort out. Houses used to have Sale Agreed on instead.

It happened to us - we'd sold, put an offer in and had it accepted, and were told our sellers had put in an offer on a house and had it accepted. The seller even told me which house it was.
Ages down the line, having done searches and surveys etc, we found out they failed to get a mortgage for the house they'd offered on and were now trying to rent. It held us up for months, because then it turned out they had bad credit and were struggling to rent.
It all worked out eventually, and apart from them leaving the house a complete mess, and us having bailiffs at the door (it seems they never paid their bills!) all was eventually well.
We also got held up on exchange date because they hadn't paid their council tax - and you can't sell a house with council tax arrears. We found out later the bloke pawned his guitars to pay it. A nightmare all in all. I often think there must be a better way to buy & sell houses...