Vendor refusing pre exchange visit

[TKH77]

I am very confused as to what to do. We are in a messy chain with a very stubborn vendor.

We put asking price on a property as the vendor agreed to move out as soon as we are ready (They are going to rent until their new home is ready). Our house was sold to a first time buyer. We had lot of pressure from vendor's agent to exchange before end of next week. For us, it meant immediate completion too even though agent didn't mention about the completion date. Now that all papers are ready, our vendor is refusing to move out and says she can't until mid/end of August. Our buyer is desperate to move but finally they agreed to wait until mid August. Vendor insisting for contract exchange next week but wont move out by mid/end august which is over 6 weeks from the time of exchange. Also property will be empty for 10 days as she is on holiday end of July.

We have the worst solicitor you can imagine and he is pushing us to do the exchange as well, even though our paper work is not in order. We had to repeatedly ask for a boiler inspection report and finally received one end of last week which appeared very dodgy. When we asked for clarification, vendor sent another report which also doesn't look accurate. So we decided to inspect the property pre exchange but she is refusing to accept our request- no special reason - she is just saying it is unreasonable to have another viewing before exchange (We already had two viewings and the last one was over 6 weeks ago).

We are scared she is hiding something especially with that dodgy boiler report. What do you do- walk away/go ahead? Just to give you an idea - property price is between 700-800k

Hmm is this your dream home? What would have to be wrong with it for you not to go through with the purchase?

She's probably panicking that you've asked to look round again and thinks you might change your mind.

That's an awful lot of money you are spending though.

How would you feel if you gave an ultimatum to view and she doesn't comply? Do you love it enough not to take the risk.

Ain't it good practice to have a final viewing before exchange just to check nothing major has changed?

How much do you want the house, Is a new boiler something you can do if need be?

It is a lot of money, but you have viewed twice. I suppose as the vendor I might be wondering if you were going to try and gazunder. But equally she has been a pain and is messing you around. How much do you love it? I would be insisting on a quicker completion if I went ahead.

So if you needed to spend four or five grand at some point in the future on anew boiler it would be a deal breaker for you? You've already viewed twice.

Do you want the house? Or do you only want the house if the boiler is fully functioning in the long term?

Sorry I find it bizzare you're arguing over this.

I've just reread it and honestly I think in this chain you're the difficult ones, expecting the vender to move out immediately, complaining about six weeks and actually complaining it will be empty for ten days because she's going on holiday is crazy. She's allowed to go on holiday. It's normal. Getting two boiler inspection reports, wanting three visits, wanting to now inspect the boiler yourselves, it's all a bit crazy and difficult. I'd be tempted to tell you to do one if I didn't need the sale.

I missed the point about you going round again 6 weeks ago - the main point I guess! I'm with her; you've seen it twice, I'd be expecting you to reduce your offer with your insistence about going around again.

She's agreed to move out for you before her house is ready, which is a big ask of her anyway.

She's agreed to move out for you before her house is ready, which is a big ask of her anyway.

She agreed to move out when the purchAse was ready to go through and everyone was working to that. Now she's backed out of that agreement.

The conditions of your offer were that you paid full asking and she would move quickly she's already reneging. Plus you're not asking for anything out the ordinary with a check on the boiler etc.

You can just as easily pull out rent and be very procceedable making you an attractive buyer.

She did agree to move out as soon as they are ready, but I doubt many folks would think that was immediate. An estimation of a date should have been made.

They have probably heard horror stories of buyers visiting just before completion then 'noticing something' and trying to push a reduction in price. Our stupid house buying system leaves it all very stressful at this stage.

Could you afford to replace the boiler if you needed to and is it your dream home? I think it all comes down to that really.

I'd insist on a very brief pre-exchange visit - never mind boilers, you need to verify that they haven't burnt the house down before you insure it!

Thank you all for your comments.

I need to clarify, she agreed to move out as soon as we and our buyer is ready to move. She did not mention about her holidays or late completion up until a week ago. Late completion is fine but why she wants exchange now if thats the case... lot of unanswered questions.

It isn't just the boiler which we will replace eventually. Essentially we kind of lost trust after seeing the boiler report. Also hard to know why she is refusing the visit without any obvious reasons. Either she is too stubborn or something to hide. We are rather disappointed with her attitude.

I think the vendor is being unreasonable. When we sold the buyers came over for quite a number of visits after we had accepted their offer, one just before exchange to measure up and another between exchange and completion so we could show them where the controls for everything were and explain about the alarm and cctc systems
You're spending slot of money so she should be a little bit more reasonable and can have the estate agents do the viewing if she is away or doesn't want to.

We had our buyer came to view the house again few days ago. We had no problems with that- they wanted to see boiler, checked loft, checked garage etc again. We are now happy that they are really serious to proceed.

It does sound crap. Our last sale and purchase we viewed loads and our buyer viewed more than once and sent a few professionals round for quotes for things.

It is a lot of money, if you have a niggling feeling she is hiding something then I would be pretty insistent. It does seem very odd that the boiler reports doesn't seem legit!

Bottom line, you buy the property in the condition it is in at the time of exchange.

There are some rare exceptions to that principle, but that's the basic rule.

So if you exchange when you haven't seen the property, you take the risk that the condition of the property has changed significantly and you won't have any comeback.

I would never buy a property without doing another visit in the morning before exchange.

Update- vendor finally agreed to view the property after we informed agent that we are going to withdraw offer if we cannot view the property before exchange. There was nothing suspicious, not sure why she was making all those fuss. Boiler is 37 years old but as per the inspection report, all functional parts are available !! Anyway, we budgeted for a new boiler.

I really do hope I don't have to deal with solicitor/estate agents ever again in my lifetime. Mentally exhausted.

Thanks for all your comments and help. It was really useful.

sorry! boiler is 27 years old

Glad you got it sorted!

Thank goodness for that!!