homebuyer's report shortly before completion?

[peggylane]

We are about to complete on our sale in a couple of weeks time and have found out today that our buyers' buyer has just ordered a private (not connected to any mortgage) homebuyers report. Is that normally done so late at this stage? I find it a bit worrying that he hasn't sorted it out earlier as offers had been accepted 7 weeks ago. Any advise and reassurance would be much appreciated, am terrified that he will pull out if anything is found in the report and we will have to start from scratch. Thanks.

Call the agent and the solicitors and find out why its being done now and what assurances they can get you. If they have already incurred a number of costs then there is less risk of them pulling out but that risk, along with the risk of gazundering if something comes up in the report which could impact on you higher up the chain, is still there.

In short, its a crappy system that leaves you at risk until the very end and the best thing you can do is try to minimise that risk by speaking to everyone to understand the situation.

Good luck!

Thanks for your quick reply! I am trying to get a hold of our EA now to find out why they want this done so late in the process.
I agree it is a horrendous system as things can still change drastically until the very last minute. We are moving across the country and I have just filled in school admission forms for my children so I really really hope this won't fall through....

Another one whose surprised at the lateness. It was the first thing we did, it was even 2 days before the mortgage survey due to the way things worked out.
I'd ask EA what's prompted the sudden interest.

Thanks for your comments. The EA didn't seem worried at all (but I guess that's their job and I did read somewhere on here never to trust EA's ever...) explaining that the buyer who will buy our buyer's house as an investment rather than to live there has been aborad and just returned and he has bought several properties through them before and always requested a home buyers report and just didn't get around to doing it any earlier...As the surveyor is allegedly going in tomorrow it shouldn't hold anything up with regards to our completion date, fingers crossed. Our buyers are very confident that the report won't bring up any issues....so let's hope it's all sone and dusted in a couple of weeks time, will report back then.
Good luck to all of you about to exchange/ complete or sell full stop, it seems like a miracle to get there in the end without any major hiccups.

We had to send a surveyor round a few days before completion as our insurers were being an arse. Desperately wanted to reassure our vendors it was nothing to worry about but very hard to communicate.