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Original poster

Due to complete on Dec 5th now vendor wants to put cmpletion back to 31st March!!

11 replies

pippala · 22/12/2011 10:49

We were suppose to exchange end of Nov and complete on Dec 5th on our victorian semi buy to let.
We were told the reason it didn't happen was that the contract from the vendors was not ready. So due to exchange yesterday and complete on 28th Dec.
Both the EA and Solicitor called yesterday to say that the vendors circumstances have changed and he now wants a completion of 31st March 2012!!!!!!!
We have met the owner once. He works abroad and decided to sell as he was never at home. He had his SS living in the house when we viewed.
Accepted offer £5,000 under asking price. survey showed substantial works need doing on the house ie rewire, damp in cellar, repointing of chimney breast, rotten windows/front door, damp proof course covered by decking.
We thought at first to ask him to drop the price further but as another house in the road was on the market a month after his and sold for £20,000 more we felt we had a good deal.
We agreed to complete on Dec 5th giving him 6/7 wks to find somewhere to rent seeing as he wanted to come off the property ladder.
NOW we were told his mother has left her husband and has no where to live so wants to rent his house off him for a few months.
Our mortgage offer runs out in Jan so if we do not complete until March we would have to remortgage and pay for yet another valuation. The mortgage fee was over £5,000 which we have paid. Will we get this back if we don't accept the btl mortagage.
BTL mortgages are not regulatated unlike residential mortgages.
I am tempted to pull out as there are plenty of other houses out there and we budgetted £25,000 for the works and new kitchen.
Also we have a couple ready to rent it off us early feb for £800pcm.
WWYD? if you got this far!

OP posts:

kitsmummy · 22/12/2011 10:58

I would suggest you tell him you're withdrawing your offer as there's no way you can wait til March. You've nothing to lose and hopefully he won't want to lose the sale.

Gonzo33 · 22/12/2011 11:16

I agree with kitsmummy

Original poster

pippala · 22/12/2011 11:24

Thanks we also agree but what smarts is the fact we will lose the the survey money and still have to pay our solicitors costs to date.
The law ought to be changed so the vendor pays costs if completion doesn,t happen when agreed!
we made the offer on 19th sept so we could of bought something else! We also offered on the same day on a flat and completed in 4 weeks. Prehaps we shouldn't have given him the 6/7 weeks to find somewhere else.
I also wonder if this has happened because the other house sold for £20,000 more than his and he wants to remarket?
The EA put it to him that we should complete and rent the house to his mother but no answer as yet.

OP posts:

LIZS · 22/12/2011 12:46

but Dec 5th for completion was never binding anyway. If you exchanged now with a delayed completion would the mortgage offer still be valid ? Yes it is unrealistic of him to expect you to hold out until end of March and even then I doubt there is any guarantee on that date unless you exchange now - what if his mother is reconciled or goes on with a divorce , will he really evict her ? I also doubt his mother would intend to pay you a commercial rent and you won't be able to do any work to it with her in situ. tbh see no advantage for you to do this.

IslaDoit · 22/12/2011 13:01

The fact your mortgage is unregulated makes no difference to anything really. That's about the quality of the mortgage advice you received and who you can ultimately complain to if the advice was incorrect. Do you have any complaints with the mortgage advice you received? If you do I take the first sentence back.

In your shoes I'd be looking for another property and playing hard ball with him. A vendor going silent is never a good sign. I expects he's changed him mind about the sale.

Yes it is awful that you can be strung along and pay out a fortune in fees but that has always been the case in England and Wales. Until you exchange contracts nothing is certain.

You could consider taking him to the small claims court to try to recover your losses?

Hopefully he'll come through on the deal but past experience says he probably won't.

aquafunf · 22/12/2011 16:23

is he going to kick his mother out on the 31st of March?

cut your losses and run- bound to be something better come up before that anyway.

newgirl · 22/12/2011 16:41

he may well be just asking - if you say no, he might be fine with it. I presume if he sells he can pay for his mother to rent somewhere - that's up to them. In the meantime get searching for other properties

Original poster

pippala · 22/12/2011 17:30

Update from the EA is that the story about his Mother being homeless was just a ruse.
The truth according to his solicitor who the EA rang is that he has a penality of £3,500 if he pays his mortgage off before 31st March.
The fact is that if he had told us this in Sept we would have been fine with it but now we will have to reapply for another mortgage when we have already paid £5,000 arrangement fee, £3,000 deposit on new kitchen being fitted Jan 9th and will now lose our tenant who wanted to move in early feb.
I guess we will insist on exchange tomorrow anyway so we don't lose the house.
Why can't ppl be honest in the first place - it wouldn't have been a deal breaker anyhow.

OP posts:

Jackie1973 · 22/12/2011 17:41

I think its time to play hard ball. It can be very hard to think like this as, as you say, you are already in for a large amount of costs. You could agree and get stuffed by the vendor in March.

You could
a)simply say no and see what happens.
b)walk away and take the financial hit
c)agree but with a reduced offer (minus the extra costs perhaps)

in the mean time I would be looking for deals to be had elsewhere and dumping this one if something better came up.

pootlebug · 22/12/2011 19:03

How much do you want that house?

Much as it galls me to suggest it given he has been such a PITA, could you offer to go halves on his £3,500 fee. It would be better than throwing the mortgage fee, kitchen deposit etc down the drain (if you will indeed lose those completely)

At the same time, I can't believe he is prepared to lose the sale for £3,500....I appreciate it's not a small amount of money, but if he puts it back on the market and waits months for a buyer he could easily lose more than that. So you could potentially call his bluff and say you're out unless you exchange/complete as planned.

I suspect he hadn't sussed this out properly in Sept....this happened to us with a purchase too. The week before exchange they wanted to delay for exactly the same reason. Luckily the time period in question was shorter so it didn't cause any problems in our case.

MiddleOfTheStreet · 23/12/2011 14:05

Would it be an idea to make your vendor choose:

either exchange and complete as planned, in which case he has to pay his mortgage fees
or go with his delayed completion, in which case you reduce your offer by £5000, this being the arrangement fee for the mortgage offer you are losing out on by delaying your purchase. I should think that you would be able to delay the installation of the new kitchen until after you complete.

If he's any good at mathematics he'd know which is the better option...
Alternatively you could just walk away, and find another house.

We were also hoping to be in before Christmas, but are having similar delay (different reason). It is awful not to have the piece of mind over Christmas!

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