Hi, I've been lurking for a while but delurking now for advice. Thought we had a really straightforward process going on. We buying from vendors who are moving away from London and have already bought their onward property. Our buyers are first time buyers who made an asking price offer very quickly and (according to EA) were in love with house and finance all lined up. We've had our survey done and are ready to exchange contracts.
Our buyers valuation and survey should have been today (was booked in 2 weeks ago) but they have cancelled it at the last minute with no clear reason given although they promise they will be rebooking it for next week. Our agent says they may have found a better mortgage offer hence the delay or they may be trying to string things out on purpose as they are in a rental paid up until end of August and we are asking for a completion date in mid-July so they'd lose about 6 weeks rent. We have asked the EA to send a strongly worded email and will consider threatening to put the house back on the market if they don't have the valuation booked in by next week but I'm scared we may loose our purchase if we go back on the market and we are now £1K down from mortgage arrangement, solicitors, surveys etc.
Would you get tough on these buyers quickly or play it more softly? Surely no one would be stupid enough to risk losing a house they loved for the sake of 6 weeks rent? Our house was very reasonably priced as we went on before the election when the market looked a bit dodgy but we're in a desirable bit of South London and similar things on the next street are on for £25K more than ours was so if they risk losing ours they will definitely have to pay more for something similar.