Exchange/Completion delayed by buyer

[Moonlight777]

Hi, I wonder if any of you had similar experience. We sold our flat to a first time buyer living in a different town in mid May - as soon as we had her offer we have put/had offer accepted an another flat.

Some 2-3 weeks later following the searches on our flat our solicitor flagged potential problem with the lease and we had to pull out from the purchase.
We have immidiately informed our buyer that although we are no longer going ahead with this purchase we are still intending to sell and are on a house hunt straight away to enable her to buy. At this stage buyer already had her mortgage offer issued.

We found another property 8 days later (letter went out to buyers solicitors straight that day to let them know we are back on track). Our new purchase was a chain free house - vendors just had a fallen through sale on it. We advised vendors that our end chain buyer is already issued with mortgage and that we just need to re-apply for another mortgage which was a formality (already underwritten for previous flat just needed another valuation and mortgage offer).
Seller seemed re-assured (considering the previous sale was unsuccesful) and accepted our offer with re-assurance that we are in a position to complete fairly quickly.

From then on we were on a track with searches, new mortage etc... Our buyers solicitors were not raising enquries for about 2 months (being prompted several times by our solicitor) finally after weeks they started communicating by asking us to provide answers to already once asked enq etc...not very organized, is it....

Finally we have proposed exchange on last week of August via EA who came back to us saying that our buyer cant complete until after 14/9 as very busy which we accepted and asked for a specific date in a week commencing 14/9 to which they didn't reply for a week and suddenly today EA (who is supposed to represent us not our buyer but seems to act on her behalf more!!) called and said that buyer has been in touch (finally - hooray??!!) and that she would like to delay the completion until mid October!! as she wanted to change her mortgagae arrangements (earn more in August/September & pay more towards deposit kind of thing??) I was horrified - who changes mortgage product 2 weeks before exchange completion causing 6 weeks delay????!!

Our poor sellers who are keen to exchange asap and who were re-assured by us weeks back when accepted an offer that our buyer has mortage in place and completion should be quick - how I am supposed to get back to vendors agent saying oh, actually ehm, she is now changing her morthage offer and lets wait for another 6 weeks because of THAT??!!! I find this extremely unfair and selfish - with absolutely no proper and valid reason for such a long delay, just wanting to be better off with her repayments really??

what are your opinions? I am just furious

"with absolutely no proper and valid reason"

1/ it is a proper and valid reason, they could be taking a substantial amount off the mortgage.

2/ If they are renting they will need 4 weeks to end their tenancy.

3/ have you taken into account how much your failed sale cost them?

Tbh if I could get away with delaying it that far and meant I could knock quite a bit off my mortgage I would.
You could go back to your solicitor and say it's not acceptable and you want to exchange with and earlier completion date, but if everyone in the chain can wait, I'd just go along with it.
Just make sure you exchange contracts ASAP with a clause that says if it changes again they will be charged a fine (which is usually standard anyway).

I suspect she feels you dicked her around so she's looking at other options. also many mortgages have an early redemption fee so its probably cheaper for her to wait til October now, as its so close.

Have you sold a place before? this is all fairly standard, if annoying, stuff.

3/ have you taken into account how much your failed sale cost them?

Absolutely nothing I imagine, given they had another property in 8 days and the buyer was silent for 2 months.

OP, it is annoying but there's not a lot you can do really. Other than try to negotiate a date that suits you all.

SoupDragon

The op found the house in 8 days, then there are the searches, re mortgages etc. plus moving the completion and moving date.

Yes, and...? There was no exchange or completion date at that point and the buyers then delayed by making no solicitor contact for 2 months despite nudges. Any actual delays and date changes have been down to the buyer.

I agree with Soup, it wouldn't have financially cost anything to the buyer esp being a FTB. If the OP had known she would find a new place within 8 days, she needn't have actually said anything except the searches were taking their time.
They wouldn't have had a moving date or a completion date by then anyway as it was only 4 weeks down the line from the original purchase offers.
Most mortgages have a time limit of 4-6 months from offer to completion so again that wouldn't have been a problem if you were completing in Sept like OP wanted.
The buyer is the one dicking around by the solicitor not getting in touch thus delaying things in her favour to delay the purchase.

Tell ea to put it back on the market. Sounds like they are struggling to get organised financially. You could yet get another buyer completing before end of October even starting now. Or your purchaser may suddenly come through. .

And this is why house buying and selling is so stressful.

You have two options.

1. agree to her timing and wait for her.
2. find another buyer - although that may end up taking longer.

With the benefit of hindsight I'd say your buyer was always a bit dodgy and you could have considered finding an alternative buyer when you didn't hear from her for a couple of months, but it's too late to worry about that now.

SoupDragon

Either way the completion date is an agreement between two parties, the other party has as much right to set the date as the OP.

Thanks for all your responses, (although I must say I was almost shocked by some) but would like to re-iterate that it is presumed that all parties involved are working towards completion asap otherwise sale/purchase wouldn't be feasible for anyone - no one wants to be in a dark uncertain place for months on end. Besides having a selling and buying hat on one should also sometimes wear a "human" and a "moral & ethical one"....

I went back to the buyer asking to stick to origial September date (giving my reasons of being in a chain that waits and wants to exchage asap etc...) to which they responded that they are happy to exchange contracts in September as long as their solicitor is ready!!!! and completion will be 2/10 - not proposing this date but rather informing us about it.... Well, all involved parties should really have some say in this - I have found this rather tactless.

Anyway, moving on - Why shouldnt their solicitor be ready to exchange within a week or so - I understand all their formalities are now sorted.

Their solicitor has been contacted by ours some 8 days ago to agree on finalizing the matters, had no reply, he then tried to call them today to no avail so has sent another email.....I can't shake off the feeling that they are now delaying it somewhat intentionally? Sigh.....

Have you sold before moonlight?
Just a general question rather than being patronising sorry!

There can be a number of factors regarding a solicitor being ready as such. S/he may be waiting on certain things still and not wanting to commit to a completion date until everything has come back and on file.
We buy a lot of property and our solicitor is extremely thorough with everything, however it is not always the solicitor delaying things. Councils are the biggest problem with not getting back to solicitors about things.
However if all formalities are totally sorted like you may have been told, there is no reason to delay things further (except if solicitor is on holiday and they want to use that particular person etc etc, or getting in for an appt to sign contracts).

Re completion date, this is for ALL parties to agree on and not just one say 'we are going to complete on this date'.
However, if you are able to complete on that date I'd snap their hands off if you're eager to get on as they do seem to be messing about a bit.

Hi Choccy and many thanks for your input

absolutely valid points. We haven't sold before moving on from being FTB 8 years ago.
Our buyer is a FTB; all their enquiris were answered (which were only raised this month after several letter and emails since May/June!!)

I was led to belive that enq are amongst first things to be raised/sorted in a process. Their mortgage was in place in mid June (they have used EA inhouse mortgage adviser) and their searches were back in July.
They said to us about 10 days ago that they had to ask for a revised mortgage offer as the original had an address discrepancy on it (they only realized and chased this in August, original offer has been issued in mid May??) so that seemed a bit overdue as well.
Revised mortgage offer has been issued and received yesterday, so I belive there is nothing to stop them from exchanging.

The lack of communication from their solicitor has been almost at the ignorant level I feel and I have been already concerned about when it took them almost two months to raise enq and wondered what its going to be like when it comes to exchanging contracts.

I am at the end with my patience now, its extremely stresful. I communicated with our sellers agent yesterday and proposed what the buyer "dictated" to us and he said that a completion on 2nd October for a sale that was agreed in early July does seem like quite a long way away and that he will need to take their instructions. (awaiting their feedback).
The main thing from the sellers side he said is that contracts are exchanged AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. So Iam now waiting whether buyers solicitor will finally answer the email our solicitor sent thim on Friday but doubt there will be any given previous experiences. How frustrating and draining!! ... Many thanks for your input again

They do sound like they're dragging their sorry arses a bit with this!
I assume it's an independent solicitor they are using and not one through the EA?
If so, I would start to get your solicitor to get contracts drawn up and in place. PITA about it now being a bank holiday weekend as your eager to crack on.
With regards exchange and completion, most of the time we do this on the same day, but in cases where there may be a chance for a party to pull out, or increase the price, exchange is advised as soon as you can (like our current house the bastards put it up £15k at the last minute but we knew it was worth substantially more hence we were pushing for exchange ASAP!)

Sorry hadn't finished!
With regards not being able to get hold of the solicitor, I would phone them on the hour EVERY hour until someone sorts this. We've always found this to be effective as they just want you to go away.
yoir solicitor really needs to push this.

Hey and thank you, I appreciate all your advice ;-)

Our solicitor is lovely, extremely thorough and responsive/cooperative, (can't imagine what my situation would be like if he wasn't) and even he says they are "rather slow". He has been "given" to us through EA same as the buyers. All contracts are drawn up and ready (for 10 days already - just waiting for them) - sellers solicitors also ready.

He is on annual leave all next week but his supervisor is covering his matters so not sure if s/he will be willing to be ringing buyers every hour until they do THEIR JOB! I am considering calling and pushing them myself but not sure if that's something I can/should do....?

I am now considering re-marketing the property if they do not respond to us early next week, but at the same time very much feel for the sellers who in this case would yet again find themselves in another waiting game...

I wish our buyer would realize the difference between her a our situation - her buying second residence as FTB with no chain, no family to move into just sign, complete and own; whereas us - moving everything, two full time jobs, toddler and onward chain she is now slowing down unnessesarily. :-(

How can someone increase the price at the last minute is beyond me, tbh, like I said morals and ethics are hard to find in this often horrendous property/money business!! Seller should have the house valued at the beginning and sell for that price, if it's not selling for that price that means people are not willing to pay that much.
House is only worth what people are willing to pay for it. I find gazumping and gazundering absolutely disqusting.

It all depends on how much you want a property! We knew ours was worth a lot more than we paid for it (we were right, less than 18 months later our neighbours house which is a lot smaller and a lot less desirable has gone for £200k more than what we paid recently and needed as much, if not more, work doing than ours), so for us £15k was a PITA but we knew how much it was worth potentially. And it meant we got our dream house for life for a smaller cost (we've moved a lot!)

With regarding re marketing yours, I'd hold fire as it'll take the same if not longer than mid October to resell and complete.
If I were you, I'd phone the EA if you're not keen on calling their solicitor. The EA will badger their solicitor til they're blue in the face usually as they want their money!!

I would be telling the EA that contracts will be exchanged by [date of your choice] or you will be putting the house back on the market with a rival EA - assuming that your contract with the existing EA isn't sole agent for an unlimited period. Then watch the EA jump on your behalf, as they see their commission go out of the window.

This buyer is going to continue to mess you around, for some reason best know to themselves, and will probably gazunder you at the 11th hour.