House buying - are there different ways to buy a house , stakeholder and delayed completion.

[shinybaubles]

We have seen a nice house that we would like to offer on the owner, would quite like some form of deposit paid 20 or 30 % of the price, that he could then access, he thinks this is above board, and I am willing to look into it. Can this be done? And is it possible to delay completion by just under a year. I supppose what I am asking is it possible to tailor make some kind of contract to do this? I have been living overseas and it's quite normal to put money down etc. But can this be done here?

You pay a deposit on exchange of contracts. 12 months between exchange and completion is unusually long.

Either the deposit is immediately usable by the seller or it is not, and has to be held until completion. The tendency is for the deposit to be held if the time between exchange and completion is unusually long.

The usual deposit to be paid is between 5-10%.

You can basically agree anything you want to go into the contract.

Thankyou , so it is all doable?

Is the deposit in anyway secured on the house, I mean if it's useable by the seller, so we have any security or is all just based on the contract to sell?

You would register what used to be called an estate contract at the land registry. You'd need a conveyancer to confirm that though.

Assuming you have the cash to buy - a mortgage company would not be likely to agree to such a delay between exchange and completion - the deposit is accepted by the owner as part of his contract to sell to you on a given date. It's not secured against anything in that sense. Solicitors usually hold onto deposits. If the seller pisses the deposit up the wall, then refuses to sell on completion day you be entitled to your deposit back. But you could have to go to court to get it if the seller was being awkward.

Also I think it would be difficult to get a seller to agree such a long time between exchange and completion - the seller is risking prices going up in that year and thus him having to sell to you at a loss. Conversely you are also risking the fact that house prices might crash and you are tied into buying at a higher than market value.

Why do you want o such a long time between exchage and completion?

Titchy - we're cash buyers - no mortgage, we're in rented at the moment and our lease isn't up for a while we're probably looking at moving easter next year.
If it can be done legally with little risk it's something that might be of interest, all depends on seller accepting our offer but just wondered if it was possible. The seller also mentioned, doing it like this.

TBH house buying can be very slow in this country, and even if you offered now you probably wouldn't move till the new year anyway, so Easter doesn't seem that far away to be beyond what normally happens. (A year away is risky though!).

If you're not wanting tomove till next Autumn, rather than Easter, how about renting it out in the meantime if the seller doesn't want to wait that long?

Thanks for the advice, I guess the first step in in any case to put an offer in on the property and see where that goes. Would any conveyancer know how to do all these things, the ones that are different from a standard sale/purchase, or do we need to find someone special.

Please can someone help me before i have a nervous breakdown! We reserved a new build and are in the process of selling our house. The problem is that the builders accepted our offer on the grounds that we exchanged and completed within 28 days. Well with one thing and another this daye passed yesterday and this didnt happen. Our solicitor received a letter saying if this date passed without completion then they would withdraw the incentives and we would have to pay full price, the difference of 10k! Weve explained to the builders whats been happening and kept them informed every step of the way. We're ready to move forward but our buyer wont be ready for another week. Im scared the builders will pull out if we refuse to pay the extra which we cant afford. Surely for the sake of a week or so they will hold on?

might be a good idea to start a new thread about this unrelated matter.

How do i start a new thread?

At the top of this thread, left hand side, give you the option to start a new thread. Choose a title that explains your problem and hopefully you'll get some advice.