Homebuying nightmare

[noodlebugz]

We are in the middle of a chain to buy a house, which we thought was of 5 people. The estate agent for our sellers let us believe that we had appeared just in time for our sellers to buy the house they wanted that had nearly fallen through because they didn’t have buyers. They’ve hassled us to move quickly and get our survey done etc. TODAY, when discussing dates for completion with our solicitors both for our buyers and sellers - we hear from their solicitors that they do not in fact have a house to move into. WTAF - Surely we should have been told that before now? My husband spoke to the estate agents today about a second visit to show the kids today, and the estate agent was muttering obviously you’ll be exchanging soon - so they were either lying or ill informed themselves.
Obviously our sellers haven’t really paid for anything yet, while we have paid for a survey, we are planning to continue with the sale of our house so will have to pay for storage / rented home etc. So there’s that and the solicitors fees / mortgage offer is timed until September etc.
It also affects finding a school place for our 4YO.
In the first instance our solicitors have advised that we call the estate agent to clarify what on earth is going on.

We are going to try to save the purchase if we can - at the outset when the dates didn’t look like they’d line up we’d been prepared to rent, but I’m not so keen now we’re so much closer to needing to find a school / with 8 weeks less time to prepare. We are going to try to ask the sellers to rent if they actually want to sell but my instinct is they won’t as they have nothing to lose.

I don’t feel like this is a miscommunication - I think we’ve been actively misled.

Is this just one of the things that happens with house buying? or is there some legal
angle where if the sale falls through we could recoup some of our costs from these people? (Probably sellers estate agent as I guess that’s where the lying has come in).

Is there anything recommended to try to make sure things go more smoothly?

[Karensalright]

No you have no recourse this is just the way it is with buying and selling. Very stressful as it is, all you can do is cross your fingers and hope the estate agents do their job to keep your chain alive.

[ComtesseDeSpair]

Have the vendor’s solicitors actually advised yours that the sale is contingent on them making an onward purchase? Plenty of people do sell and then temporarily rent or move in with family. Ultimately the solicitor and the estate agent have nothing to do with that and aren’t responsible for whatever decision the vendors make or any change of mind they might have had during the course of the process.

You’ll keep the process smooth by keeping calm and maintaining lines of communication between all parties - and by not throwing about threats of seeking legal recourse (where none is due, and certainly not from the estate agent) which will get everyone’s backs up.

[schloss]

Never believe anything an EA tells you - that is the first rule of buying a house. Whatever they do say, check it elsewhere if you can.

Until contracts have exchanged then there is no recourse for any party in a chain to recover any costs.

@ComtesseDeSpair offers very good advice, stay calm during the process. Also get everything in writing, too many sales/purchases become heated due to conversations taking place which one or the other party think are binding.

When pushing for dates of exchange and completion, try and see the opinions of everyone in the chain in order to achieve compromise. It will prove a lot less stressful.

[noodlebugz]

Yep so I’ve vented here. We’ve calmly asked what’s going on, taken a bit more advice from our solicitor - eg offering to exchange with a later completion date and are waiting to hear back with our fingers crossed as really it’s the house we want. 🤞