To the buyer who just retracted her offer on our house

[Beauregard]

I hope you do not find what you are looking for and that someone messes you around the way you have messed us about.We shall probably lose the property we were going to buy now so i hope you are pleased with yourself.You have made an already stressful process much harder and i hope Karma bites you on the ass.
Do not view houses near a railway and place offers if trains bother you you evil witch.

[DaffodilsAhoy]

Ruddy Nora fivehoursleep - I'm hoping your harshness is because of your lack of sleep 'Mrs Seller was in hospital having an emergency hysterectomy which was probably traumatic - funnily enough I doubt you were the top of her children's thoughts when she was rushed into hospital for what is (having witnessed a friend go through it) major surgery - physically and mentally.

OP - I do understand! We had the same thing happening when we were selling our last house. We had put an offer in on another house and had to pull out. When we had another buyer we found the house we are in now which is a million times better than the one we missed out on. Things will sort themselves out I promise. Also, there's nothing to say you won't get a phone call today from your estate agents with your next (train spotting) buyers wanting to view today.
Good luck.

[YoniOrNotYoni]

Zombie thread

[Bilbobagginstummy]

So what? It's a perennial problem!

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

I think when people say "oh, it's too far from town" after a viewing, they are looking for a polite but definite phrase to say no. If they see 3 or 4 houses that day, it might just be that yours is the furthest from town so they say that. EAs ask for reasons in case it's something that can be fixed eg paint job or decluttering. Sometimes there isn't a reason - its just not the one.

[SirChenjin]

Lots of things are perennial problems - doesn't make them any less awful (or warrant a pointless and stupid "so what")

I feel for you OP, hope you find another buyer very soon

[SirChenjin]

Arghhhh - Yoni, you're right, zombie thread

[Bilbobagginstummy]

Sorry, the so what was to the zombie thread. Who cares that it's old? People can still awap tales.

[ChoudeBruxelles]

Some buyers are just ridiculous. Trying to sell my mums bungalow - which doesn't have a garage. The amount of people who have moaned that it doesn't. Read the bloody details

[Bilbobagginstummy]

Who made Yoni the thread police?

[MrsHoarder]

Do none of you view houses that tick 9 out of 10 boxes in the hope it will nice nice enough to negate your missing requirement?

When we were buying we couldn't afford what we wanted so viewed lots of houses which weren't quite what we wanted until we found a good compromise. Plus the estate agents always found a "similar property which is new on the market" to take us around whenever we arranged a viewing.

[AvrilPoisson]

Yeah suesin? What about sellers who tart up their houses, to disguise various horrors that are only unveiled during the extremely expensive full survey?
We spent £4k before we could even find a house worth procedding on last time!

The system in france is better - buyer puts down a 10%deposit, which is fully refundable after survey if survey reveals any issued the seller has not highlighted to the buyer. Sellers have to be far more honest, and buyers have to be serious or they lose 10% of price on pulling out.

[FacebookWanker]

I like the sound of the French system. When I was buying (I don't own anymore) the vendor refused to reduce the price when the survey came back with subsidence. On the next flat we spent money on the survey and then got gazumped.

[OldLadyKnowsNothing]

When we sold our flat in Edinburgh, it was to a young couple moving up from England. Come moving day, they hadn't paid by the time we arrived at our new home on the other side of the country. We hastily arranged a bridging loan, paid for our new place, and moved in as planned... It turned out that they hadn't even arranged a mortgage! They also hadn't realised that the house-buying/selling thing is quite different in Scotland, and ten days later they paid what they had offered, plus all of the costs of the bridging loan.

Don't think I could bear the English system, it sounds an absolute nightmare.

[YoniOrNotYoni]

You did Bilbo. I was just pointing it out, not policing anything. Is 'thread police' an official role? Where do I pick up my badge?

[CatOfTheDay]

Sellers who decide their house is no longer for sale on the DAY OF EXCHANGE which also happens to be the DAY BEFORE COMPLETION when the buyers are all packed up and ready to go should also have to pay the buyer's fees (yes I'm still bitter - we sent her a bill anyway even though we had no legal leg to stand on! )

We're now buying a house that needs quite a bit of work, and the survey has thrown up even MORE work - but we love the house and don't want to pull out, and we're now negotiating with the seller to either get some of the work done or drop the price a bit.

[UptheChimney]

Sorry, but it's business. I had a buyer try to gazunder me--demand a drop in price or the deal was off, 3 days before planned exchange. I took advice, and made my decision accordingly. It's business in the end.

[papalazaru]

It is a nightmare but sometimes it works out for the best...... Our vendors pulled out at the last minute leaving us frantically looking for a house because we had buyers who were very keen to move because she was expecting twins and (quite reasonably) wanted in before the babies were born. It took ages, but the buyers stayed with us, and then a house a few doors down from the original came up and guess what? It was waaaaaay better than the first! Good luck to everyone ;)

[Jan49]

Last year our buyer pulled out on the day we moved out. We were expecting to exchange within days but needed to be in the new area for work. Funny thing, I wasn't particularly stressed about it. I was too busy thinking about the actual move.

I think they were very rude. They didn't give a reason or even say they were pulling out. They just stopped doing anything at the point where they should have been going ahead and then their solicitor sent mine a letter returning the forms and saying it 'appeared' it wasn't going ahead. I think they should have at least rung the estate agent and said "we're really sorry but we've decided not to proceed because..." When we first accepted their offer they wrote us a letter about what nice people they were and how suitable they were and that they wouldn't mess us around.

The good news is, we found a new buyer for £10k more within days and sold 2 months later.

[ginmakesitallok]

Thank God I live in Scotland where we don't seem to have all this hassle!

[whataboutbob]

I second what people say about the horrid English system. I sold my grandparents' appartment in France, it was a walk in the park. And the Scottish legal system is I understand, closer to French than English in various respects- property and inheritance law for example.
I suspect there are too many vested interests that make it hard to change the English system.

[MinnesotaNice]

Wow, in the US you have to put earnest money down as well. Not sure about the percentage, but it is significant enough that if the buyer change their minds, the seller isn't completely screwed. Plus, if you get multiple offers, it makes it easy to tell who is really serious about proceeding.