Ghosted by house buyer 10 weeks into process and close to exchange

[TTCbabyno2in2022]

I’m absolutely baffled that someone wouldn’t just say they were pulling out.

We accepted an offer on our house in December, all searches done, contracts signed ready etc! All that was needed was one document for buyers mortgage application.

Nearly 2 weeks ago he’s just gone totally silent. Ignoring EA, solicitors and mortgage brokers.

Has anyone had this before? To be so far in and not just say! Like it’s rubbish if they pull out but how can someone be so rude as to just go totally silent to everyone who’s still doing work for them!

They may have now cost us our dream home. Is it unreasonable to be annoyed and also just expect a reply from them?!

I know it’s the uk market and a risk but you’d think someone would have the courtesy to let someone know….

About time there were laws to stop this. In Spain you pay 10% deposit. If buyer backs out they lose it, if seekers backs out they have to give them double their deposit as a consequence.

We had this when we were buying a property, it was a cash purchase. The seller was an absolute nightmare, no one could get hold of him, the estate agent had to tread carefully as he was unpredictable and very moody. In the end I told them we were going to pull out, we’d had enough. He soon got in touch then and the sale eventually went through. Why don’t you try and make noises that you may pull out of the sale, that way you’ll probably get an answer 🤷‍♀️

My parents had the exact situation recently. Everything was in place, apart from proof of source of all funds. He was buying the property through his business though for some reason dragged his heels last minute. He was impossible to get hold of. Loads of excuses from my parent's agent, "he's very busy/works all over the country" etc etc.

It did all complete in the end. 👍

The estate agent and your solicitor just have to keep badgering his solicitor. Constantly! It's their job and you're paying them!

I assume he is a FTB? We are lead to believe that FTB's are the best thing. Sometimes I think they just think they are the ones in the driving seat!

My parents did have to threaten in the end that if they were to lose their purchase property, he would not be having their house. Back on the market and he wouldn't be having it. No matter what!

Wishing you the best of luck. It is an absolute nightmare moving home! 🤞

Some hope then! We gave a deadline Thursday at 5pm giving them until Monday 5pm to get in contact or we will put it back up for sale! Thank you

I've also had this! Don't know what was going on behind the scenes and whether they'd seen another property they preferred but they eventually pulled out.

I'm sorry this has happened. We had something similar happen once.

Put your house back on the market straightaway. This will frighten your estate agents, who see their work so far coming to nowt and their commission getting kicked down the road. (They then might start doing what they should have been doing by now and finding out what's going on.)

Either the buyer will then reappear and start making it happen, but you keep the house on the market and keep showing it to other potential buyers until contracts are exchanged - don't trust the weasel an inch. Or you will know that they are gone (but there will be other buyers and other dream homes).

Goid luck! You really need it under the English system. As a PP points out, the law needs to change to prevent this form of time-wasting, and gazumping/ gazundering etc

This happened to us. Week before exchange and the buyer was no longer contactable. Absolutely baffling, and incredibly frustrating

This happened to us. Total radio silence and then we found out they had lost their buyers are were keeping quiet in the hope that someone else would come along. Everything worked out in the end but it would have been a lot less stressful if they’d told us.

This did happen to me once.
We accepted an offer from someone who had sold there home and were living with relatives and said they were willing to wait until we found a house .
As a few months went by we checked in regularly with them via EA to see if they were still happy to wait. We eventually 4 months later found a house to buy and when we tried to contact them they hag ghosted us, EA and solicitors.
We put the house back on the market and sold very quickly thankfully.
I think they were annoyed at us for taking so long to find a house and decided they wanted to annoy us back....

The UK system of house buying and selling must be the worst in the world.
20 years ago we had an appointment to sign for a bungalow.
15 minutes before our appointment the estate agent phoned to say that the sellers were pulling out.
That was a chain of 8 nearly collapsed. We still moved out into Mil's which helped 4 people.

That must be so incredibly frustrating. I would call your estate agent first thing tomorrow and ask for your house to be relisted. We had a couple of buyer's of MIL's probate house ghost around the 10 week mark as well. Fortunately neither DH or his sibling were depending on the sale to move house, so noone lost out in that sense, but his sibling was getting more distressed as they just wanted to sell the house and move on.

Eventually the excuses they gave were they decided not to relocate after all and the parking wasn't sufficient for their needs! Baffling that these people paid money to have searches etc done when these seem like things you would decide before making an offer and paying to instruct solicitors!

Thanks everyone for your responses!

So the buyer also ignored the deadline email where we asked just let us know either way!

So back on market and got everything crossed for quick sale. Got a viewing on first day 🤞🏻

Still can’t believe how rude and inconsiderate people are! He was a first time buyer!

Unbelievable isn’t it? Really hope you get a quick sale

Sorry but…four months??

What do you mean?
We explained to our buyers that we wanted a very specific area and type of house that didnt come up very often and that we wouldnt move from our existing house to rented or something that didnt meet our criteria (we felt it only fair to be absolutely honest about that so that potential buyers could decide if they were ok with that or not . They said they were Ok with that, we checked with them every few weeks if they were still Ok to wait for us to find ,when we did find they ghosted us.

What do you think I mean? It does sound like a very long time to find a house. Your buyers probably said yes because they didn’t expect you take such a long time and when they saw that things weren’t going anywhere they most likely started looking at other options.

Happened to me once, despite telling the buyer and the estate agent there was a firm deadline because I was buying a new build & it was the end of a quarter, he decided to go on holiday!

He returned to find that my builder had part exchanged the house with me and he had to buy it from the builder at a slightly increased cost due to having to pay solicitors & arrange a different mortgage. And the estate agent didn't get their fee from me either. Very stressful but satisfying.

This is why I offer no special treatment or reductions for cash buyers or first time buyers. They are usually an absolute pain in the jacksy