Advice please! Seller pulling out....

[PropertyNightmare]

Well, it looks like our seller is pulling out. We don't know the reasons why (despite having asked over and over again) and we are feeling very pissed off. Not only have we wasted money on legal fees, surveyor etc but we are due to exchange with our buyer shortly. Plus we loved the house we have lost :-(

All things considered we want to go ahead and sell to our buyer but have the following problems:

1. we will have to go into rented until we find somewhere else to buy but the shortest rental term that estate agents offer is 6 months. This is too long! We don't want to be unsettled and without a new house for that length of time. Is it possible to find anyone who rents month to month? I have called round and no estate agent offers it.

2. We will owe penalty charges for redeeming our mortgage (though if we borrow and buy again within 4 months of redeeming it the charges will be refunded). We are talking several thousand :-(

Gutted is not the word. I feel like we have to go ahead with our buyers, don't want to break their hearts too. They have been really good throughout and do not deserve to have the rug pulled from under them. Plus with the market expected to slow down even more next year don't fancy going through the selling process again.

Any advice regarding what options we have would be most welcome! I can't seem to think of a decent solution that isn't going to cost shit loads of money in rent and penalty charges. It is panic central round here.

Thanks

Work out what it is going to cost and then talk to your buyers and see if they'll split the cost with you? They may be willing, if the alternative is you pulling out.

Or just look on it that you will pay that much less on the house that you do buy. You will be chain-free - that's got to be worth a few thousand in the bargaining stakes when you're negotiating price.

Obviously you don't have to live in the rented house for 6 months - you can try and be in your new house before the 4-month mortgage deadline is up. But you'll still have to pay 6 months rent.

I'm so sorry. I bet an even better house is waiting for you (it was for us, we lost our first house too).

Really hope it all works out.

Thanks Bertha and Iheart. I think you are right, Bertha about trying to look at it from the perspective that all money wasted on this will have to come off the cost of th next house. Just wish a month to month rental existed!

Sorry to hear that. Does your EA do lettings? They will have an incentive to get you to move out - the EAs who were selling mine phoned around and found landlords whose properties weren't let who would give me a three month tenancy to tide me over.

How soon are you likely to find a new house, i.e. is there likely to be something out there, or are you likely to be waiting for new things to come onto the market? If you are likely to be able to find something quickly, you may find that if the EA selling it also does lettings they might also be prepared to find you something on the basis that then you might move quicker and they will get their commission in the bank quicker.

As an incentive you could offer to pay upfront and / or offer a bit extra.

Another lettings agency offered me something for three months too - and said that landlords would rather have someone in over the holiday period and then to market it again in the new year when they were more likely to get a tenant.

If you won't find a property sooner, you are likely to need six months anyway. Other options would be a holiday let - are there any countryside cottages or city centre apartments? We also priced up hotel accommodation and worked out that if we could go to family / friends for meals and washing that staying in the Premier Inn was about the same cost as our house plus bills!

Have you asked they buyers whether they would mind waiting? You might be making assumptions about what they would rather do.

Are there any holiday lets in your area that you could maybe negotiate use of for a medium-term let? I know insurers do this when people need major work on their houses necessitating several months' work.

Very impressed at your integrity towards your buyers btw.

Great ideas about holiday lets or city centre apartments, thank you. I will look into both. Plus I will also see if our estate agent can help us out (although we are needing to move to another city where they do not operate). I know that our buyers are needing to be into ours quickly or they will be without anywhere to live themselves (they have to move out of where they are now). This is cheering me up a bit so a genuine thank you for all your thoughts

As Biscuit said, try holiday lets. We are currently in a summer holiday let on a month-to-month rental basis for the same reasons as you. Our seller pulled out but we decided to go ahead with the sale of our own property so that we wouldn't have to look for a buyer again. I'm hoping that more properties come on the market after Christmas. We've put all our property into storage.

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Hi Slainte, sorry to hear that you are in a similar situation to us. I hope that you find a house to buy soon. I am off to bed now but will check back in for any other ideas tomorrow.

We had a similar thing happen. We also decided to go ahead with our sale incase we couldn't get another buyer at the price we agreed on.

We were relocating as well to a completely different area so it wasn't easy to look at other properties.

In the end we have gone into rented on a 6 month lease whilst we look for somewhere else. if by any chance we find somewhere and it completes before the 6 months are up , then at least we will have chance to do any jobs to the new place before we move in, such as decorate or new carpets.

Mind you seeing how long our chain took in the end, 6 months may be a realistic length of time :)

Try private lets - ads in the paper etc, they can be much more flexible.

I am going to go against the grain here and say pull out of your sale. We were in a very similar position and ended up renting for 18 months and finally bought a house that we don't love because of the pressure. Wish we had stayed in our original house. Sorry.

So PropertyNightmare what did you decide?

This happened to us and we signed a 6 month lease but found a new house within 3 months!

We contacted the letting agent and asked if they could re-let it (they did) on the understanding that if they didnt we would be liable for the rent til the end of the lease period. It was re-let in 3 weeks and we moved into our new house last weekend.

Good luck x

Ask your buyers if you can sell and rent the property from them for 3 months or so.

Alternatively you might do what we did (we were the buyers) and exchange contracts but have the completion date 3 months ahead and move it forwards if you find somewhere sooner.

Get your solicitor to speak to your seller's solicitor to find out what's happening. Or contact the estate agent who was handling the sale. They will want to know what's happening with their commission.

Holiday let should only let you stay for 30 days if they let you remain after that different rules apply for their taxation and they lose their right to pay business rates rather than council tax. I have just looked into all of this as we were approached to let our holiday let in a similar situation.

Our buyers pulled out today, 10 mins before deadline. We accepted their offer 3 weeks ago, they asked us to be out by 15th December and having run around like madmen fixed it all up. So we have incurred solicitors costs, letting agency costs and lost a removal firm deposit because these ** (insert your own expletive) have changed their minds, having said last night that they would definitely sign today.

We are now concentrating on Christmas and intend to put them out of our minds, having had 3 weeks of sheer hell. I hope they have a rotten Christmas!

That doesn't help you OP, you have all my sympathy - try not to let it get you down, and hope that these shitty things happen for a reason.

Frostyfingers I am so so sorry for you. What a traumatic thing to happen and what absolute gits to do this to you.

on your behalf (been there)

Evening all, sorry not to have been back (things have been frantic and up in the air around here) and thanks for all the extra advice posted since I was last on the thread.

Frosty, I am really sorry that you went through all that upset. It is a horrible feeling and I hope that you will find and buy your dream house soon. It is so unfair that our property system allows people to behave like that with no come back. At the very least they should be responsible for the costs that you have reasonably incurred. Well done for deciding to have a good Christmas anyway; hopefully next year will bring you better luck.

As for my situation, the chain all seems to be back on. That said I am not taking anything for granted or getting too excited. We are due to exchange as soon as possible and until that happens I will not be resting easy. It is such a frustrating situation. You never really know what anyones' true intention is until the dotted line is signed. I'll be back to update later this week, wish me luck!