Stalled chain - what do we do???

[moomiemoo]

We've sold our house and evrything's goin smoothly. Looks like we'll complete on the sale of our house mid November. When we sold we weren't sure whether we'd find a house we like in the new area we're moving to so promised our buyer we wouldn't hold up the sale (also knew how lucky we were to find a buyer and really want to move!). Amazingly we found a house and had an offer accepted in less than a week. We're sticking to our promise though and planning to put our stuff in storage and stay with family until we complete on the new house.

Our offer on the house was accepted a month ago, they found something a week later but now it looks like the chain has stalled. We can't be in limbo for too much longer and we need to have an idea of when everyone wants to move.

What do we do? I'm reluctant to lose the house but also don't want to delay our move too much and am happy to rent so we can get settled in the new area and apply for schools etc. Any advice??

That's the problem with a chain, there's not much you can do. You need to find out what is causing the chain to stall and work out whether the problem is resolvable or not: if, for example, it's a missing bit of paperwork then it will probably take a couple of weeks; if it's someone in the chain having their mortgage withdrawn or having dropped out then it could collapse completely.

Once you know what is causing the delay, you can make a decision about whether you need to rent or not (personally, I would start looking but I am always very pessimistic about chains).

Sorry I probably wasn't clear. The reason it's stalled is that our vendor's vendor hasn't found anything to buy.

I think you're right and we will start looking at rentals just in case.

Sorry, this could take months - even if s/he finds somewhere this weekend, there are searches, surveys, bits of paperwork to chase and most people don't put their houses on the market coming up to Christmas so all s/he is looking at is likely to be the same homes that have been on for a few months/weeks and that s/he has probably already viewed. Everything will come to a standstill over Christmas/New Year anyway in terms of conveyancing so I really do think you would be better off moving straight into rented accommodation and seeing how it pans out. I would bet (quite) a lot of money that, on a six-month lease, you won't double up too much on rent and mortgage period if at all .

You need to put pressure on your vendor. Tell them that unless their vendor can agree to exchange by X, you're pulling out. And look for a rental place in the meantime.

I really don't want to have to rent for just 6 months. We've got 3 little dcs and I can't stand the thought of moving everything twice.

I'll phone the agents again in Monday. If there's no movement then we'll think about renting for at least a year so we can start getting settled.